One of the few bright points in my slightly boring summer vacation was scouting. The many activities, like service projects, day hikes, and summer camp planning gave me a feeling of activeness and purpose in my life.
Although I didn't attend the annual and traditional Boy Scout Summer Camp at Catalina Island with the rest of my troop as I did last year, I was able to find an awesome alternative.
National Youth Leadership Training held at Camp Trask, Monrovia, was the camp I have been planning to go for a long time. It lasted for a total of five days and four nights.
One of my favorite parts of the camp was the food. I just couldn’t resist the temptation of the scout made meals. For the duration of the course, we were handed raw ingredients for all of the meals, which we used to cook our own food. Although more tiring to cook our own meals, we were able to control the amount and quality of our food. The best part of the morning meal for me was the rows of perfectly white eggs, just sitting there, waiting to jump into my drooling mouth after being tenderly treated in the frying pan by me. But not all the meals were perfect. We had a frozen hotdog dinner one Saturday night, cooked by a smart but not too experienced Scout in our patrol. I also tried lettuce sandwiches after I finished with my patrol leader council - everyone had finished the ham before I could get there. Even then, these experiences did nothing to downgrade my awesome NYLT time.
On the first day of NYLT, all of the scouts were separated into two troops, Aqua and Magma. I was put into one of the four patrols in the Aqua Troop, The Blue Shark Patrol. Each of the eight patrols had a Troop Guide from the NYLT staff to teach and demonstrate all the different challenging activities ahead.
Our patrol’s troop guide was a short yet agile Chinese Eagle Scout, Nicholas Chan. Although he loved talking about random Japanese cartoons during our limited free time, our whole patrol was drawn in by his humorous yet informative presentations and summaries. From just Nicholas, we were able to learn a lot of communication and vision making skills.
Our leadership techniques were boosted to an even higher level by the Senior Patrol Leaders and Assistant SPLs from the Aqua and Magma Troops. Although all the scouts were very tired, their great speeches, descriptive lectures, and inspiring videos captivated us.
Two of the things I learned at NYLT that had the most impact to my life were being a servant leader and setting SMART goals. I always had an inkling that a good leader is also a good follower, but I never understood why. Now I know that an effective leader should listen to the people he leads, serve the people he leads, and share the work with the people he leads.
Good communication skills are essential for good leadership . Without being able to communicate, you can’t be a good leader, as I learned during this course. There were also the hand motions to emphasize your speech I had no idea existed until then. All these lessons circled around the two indispensable points of Scouting: the Oath and the Law. With these two guides towards life, they create a moral compass that will always point towards success.
My personal vision has always been to become a medical doctor, but I never had goals of reaching it. Now that I have a series of SMART goals, I will conquer my elephant-sized vision one bite at a time. There are not only personal visions, but group visions, like for a troop, a sports club, and even an entire nation!
If you can see it, you can be it.
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