Baden-Powell Institute gives Scouting leaders tools to teach
Scott Becker, left, addresses a recent meeting of the Baden-Powell Institute, a one-day training event for Scouting leaders. On Feb. 8 the group will gather again at Dalton Middle School to find inspiration and knowledge to pass along to their various packs and troops.
On Feb. 8 hundreds of Scouting leaders will gather at Dalton Middle School to find inspiration and knowledge through a one-day training event known as the Baden-Powell Institute.
Participants can choose from 50 class sessions with topics that cover a range of applications. There are the basics such as knots and lashings, cast-iron cooking, and astronomy. Other classes cover things like the Eagle Scout process, program planning strategies and marketing. While one of the classes will teach about team-building games, others cover more challenging topics.
“We address topics that just aren’t covered with standard training,” said Scott Becker, a Wooster native who is chairman of the committee responsible for presenting the Baden-Powell Institute, “topics like working with hearing-impaired Scouts, Scouts with disabilities, managing conflict and dealing with mental health issues. Our leaders can even take the ACS Stop The Bleed course to better prepare themselves for emergency situations.
“Our youth are the most precious resource we have. We are striving to make better leaders of our adults in order to make better leaders of our youth.”
Baden-Powell Institute is a premiere training event for Scouting America (formerly Boy Scouts of America) leaders, providing supplemental training that sparks innovation, imagination and inspiration in Ohio’s Buckeye Council area and beyond. For more than 25 years, BPI has helped Scouters (adult Scout leaders) hone their leadership, develop new skills and discover new resources. This is training that goes beyond that which is required by the national organization.
Buckeye Council’s annual Baden-Powell Institute was first presented in 2000 and was held at the facilities of Stark State College with 84 Scouters attending. Council at that time had determined Scout leaders would benefit from additional training on topics beyond what is required by the national organization. These new skills acquired by the Scout leaders at BPI could then be taken back and applied with their packs and troops.
In the early years, BPI was held at the Kent State Stark Convention Center and remained there through 2017. In 2018 the event moved to the Dalton Middle School in Dalton to provide a more centralized location for the event.
In the midst of the COVID pandemic, the Baden-Powell Institute incorporated a virtual component that is still utilized and attracts participants from around the globe.
Baden-Powell Institute is named for Sir Robert Stephenson Baden-Powell (1857-1941). He is credited with starting the Scouting movement in England in 1907. Today, Scouting America is chartered by Congress to serve the nation’s boys, girls, young men and women by instilling the values of the Scout Oath and Law. Scouting America aims to prepare young people as leaders in the community and world.
On Feb. 8, the same day as BPI this year, the Scouting movement in America will celebrate 115 years since being established in the United States in 1910.
The Buckeye Council, headquartered in Canton, is the local division of Scouting America and serves the following Ohio counties — Ashland, Carroll, Columbiana, Crawford, Holmes, Marion, Morrow, Richland, Stark, Tuscarawas, Wayne and Wyandot — and parts of Hancock County in West Virginia.
More information about Scouting America and the Buckeye Council can be found at www.scouting.org/ and https://www.buckeyecouncil.org/.