Job Description: Troop Guide
1. Understands the stages of team development and applies appropriate
leadership styles.
2. Provides backup for facilitators of course presentations. In an assigned
patrol, reinforces the learning of all skills.
3. By personal example, brings the values of Scouting home to staff
and participants.
4. Serves as a mentor to a patrol.
5. Shares information about the patrol with the course director and senior
patrol leader.
6. Facilitates assigned course sessions designed for patrol presentation.
7. Provides counseling only for members of his or her assigned patrol.
8. Serves as the primary reviewer of Wood Badge tickets drafted by members of
that patrol.
9. Functions during the first three days of a course as a mentor of the patrol,
lines up with the patrol at Gilwell Field assemblies, sits with the patrol at the
first two troop meetings, and joins with patrol members in singing the
Gilwell Song (in addition to singing the verse dedicated to staff).
10. Sits behind the appropriate patrol leader at the Day One patrol leaders’ council
meeting. At the Day Two meeting, sits in a group with the other troop
guides. Does not attend subsequent meetings of the patrol leaders’ council.
11. On Days One, Two, and Three, attends meetings of his or her assigned patrol.
Stays for the entire meeting on Day One and ensures that the patrol leader
passes along all pertinent information given out at the patrol leaders’ council
meeting. During the Day Two patrol meeting, attends only the first 15 to 20
minutes, guiding the patrol leader in sharing all pertinent information from
the meeting of the patrol leaders’ council. On Day Three, stops by the patrol
meeting to greet participants and briefly visit, then departs.
12. During courses operating on the 3 _ 2 format and at the invitation of patrol
members, visits patrol meetings that occur during the interim between the
three-day sections of the program.
13. Sits with the assigned patrol at mealtime according to this schedule:
Day One—All meals
Day Two—Breakfast and dinner
Day Three—Lunch
At meals on Days Four, Five, and Six, troop guides are encouraged to get better
acquainted with members of patrols other than their own.
14. At the campfire on Day Four, leaves Troop 1 and is inducted into a Venturing
crew, then transitions from the role of troop guide to that of instructor. (At the
same campfire, patrol members will transition from being a new-Scout patrol
to being regular patrol and, symbolically, First Class Scouts. As a seasoned
patrol, they will be allowed to camp without a troop guide. To symbolize this
growth and new independence of the patrols, the former troop guides will no
longer sit with their patrols at meals or presentation sessions, will not line
up with the patrols at assemblies, etc.)
15. Monitors the progress that members of the patrol are making toward writing
their Wood Badge tickets. (A completed ticket must be handed in by each
patrol member and reviewed by the troop guide before the closing ceremony
on the final day of the course.)
16. Encourages open communications between the staff and the participants by
making the best effort to answer all questions asked by patrol members.
17. Ensures the patrol exhibit is the best the patrol can create and deliver.