Teamwork

by Alex Krupp

When people think of Philmont, they usually think of a crew that works together to get through it. Scouting helps those on the crew become more able to fit into a crew mentality. Over the years of Scouting, Scouts work as a team throughout their campouts and events. This teaches valuable lessons that can be applied to the crew mentality of Philmont. Scouts must join a patrol and learn to follow their patrol leader. The patrol leader leads and teaches the younger scouts to be able to do stuff on their own. The Scouts learn various areas to exceed in and use those skills to help the patrol. The different crew members are skilled in different things. One may be great at reading maps, one good at putting up tents, and another could be great at organizing all the crew's equipment and food. These skills help make the trip the trip run more efficient and happily for the crew.

The use of each Scout's individual skills helps the patrol advance. However there are times which the patrol doesn't get along. Also the patrol needs to have things planned and stay on task. The Patrol leader helps keep the patrol organized, on task, and helps settle any disagreements. At Philmont, the Crew Leader must fill many of the same roles. He must have the crew on task, especially on the putting down and take down of camp. He must also get things organized at each camp the crew goes to, especially staff camps, as the crew leader must talk to the staff there to get the news the crew needs to know. This includes the campsite the crew will sleep in, where everything is in camp, and any special things at the camp that the crew needs to know. Even if the is an occasional argument, it needs to be fixed quickly at Philmont. At Philmont, you are on the trail for quite a while, so you are surrounded by your crew for the whole time. If an argument or some small issue it can escalate and cause a great tension in the crew. This can cause the crew to waste time trying to spend lots of time to fix something that could of took a few minutes before, and can cause the crew's experience to be dampen by it.

The crew also has roles within it besides the Crew Leader. Everyone in the crew is paired up with someone else. These two people must help the other person by sharing their supplies. One person carries both of their food, while another carries the tent that they sleep in. The two must have cooperation to make it work. Thanks to the patrol system in scouts, the crew has learned that each of them does not have the same role but each is important to the crew in some way. The lessons in Scouting help the crew immensely. The lessons that they learned make Philmont an enjoyable trip for the crew through great teamwork