Last night we brought the newsletter home from the troop meeting. My son sat down to read it and skipped right past the Scoutmaster Minute (my column) to read the SPL’s column. That’s exactly right, the SPL leads the troop. In fact, my column was about adults supporting the PLC’s decision to have more day outings.

The SPL column also gave a quick overview of troop leadership. I like this part:

I, the Senior Patrol Leader (SPL), actually run the troop, not the adults; they just make sure we don’t make any bad decisions.

That is on the money, except that I’m OK with a certain level of bad decisions. That’s how you learn. I only step in to head off terrible decisions and I haven’t seen any of those yet.