Worried About Your Ticket?

Don't be!  A Wood Badge Ticket is five pages of significant, appropriate and measurable personal growth and service items, using your Scouting "job."  It's five areas of personal growth and service.  Each ticket is unique to every Wood Badge participant- no two tickets are alike.

Here's how you write a ticket: 1) Be thinking and noting different areas of personal growth and/or service to others in light of your Scouting job.  2) One ticket item must pertain to diversity, which you will learn about during the course. 3) Narrow your list to five items.  4) Your Troop Guide will have final approval and can help you as needed.

But in order to apply the leadership skills in your Scouting job, you should first write a lengthy job description about your Scouting job on a separate sheet of paper.  These descriptions will help you to better develop ideas.

 

Download a ticket to print and complete.   (PDF)

Click here for information on Diversity in your Ticket

 

 

Service to Others & Personal Growth

Each of your five ticket items must be appropriate to your Scouting job and must provide personal growth and/or service to others.  (Examples are below.)  What does this mean?

  • Service to Others. Service to others is the area in which you would provide service to others through your pack, troop or crew. Keep in mind THROUGH your unit, not TO your unit.  You have learned some usable things, and now you should be you leading others in your unit to provide service to others.

  • Personal Growth. Personal growth is the area for items which you would like to develop or improve your skills in order to become a better or stronger leader in your unit.  It may be a skill you've always wanted to learn, it may be areas you want to improve.

Evaluating Each of Your Ticket Items

All ticket items should be S M A R T:

S - Significant
Is the item significant? Is it important? Will it have an impact on your unit's program or you?

M - Measurable.
Is the item measurable? How will you know when it's done? Can the progress be tracked?

A - Appropriate.
Is this task within your job responsibilities? Does it need to be done? Is this an opportunity that is available to you?

R - Realistic.
Can the item be accomplished? Can it be brought to a successful conclusion? Do you have control over the task?  (For example, losing 40 pounds may not be realistic!)

T - Timely.
Can it be done in a timely manner? Is it going to take too much time? Can it be done in a reasonable time? Place a time limit on it, "A Dream becomes a Goal, with a deadline on it."

Wood Badge has five Central Themes:

Do these five central themes covered in the two weekends of Wood Badge give you any ideas?  Remember, it's YOUR ticket- read these through and you'll find plenty of Service to Others, Goals and Personal Growth.

1)  Living the Values
  • Values, mission, and vision
  • Aims and methods
     
2)  Bringing the Vision to Life
  • Listening to learn
  • Communicating
  • Giving and receiving feedback
  • Valuing people and leveraging diversity
  • Coaching and mentoring
     
3) Models for Success
  • Team development model
  • Situational Leadership
     
4) Tools of the Trade
  • Project planning and problem solving
  • Managing conflict
  • Assessing team performance
  • Managing change
  • Celebrating team success
     
5)  Leading to Make a Difference
  • Leaving a legacy
  • Learning the greatest leadership secret

Some Example Ticket Items

Listed below are some items you might consider in developing your list. Try not to use these items directly, but use them to generate creative thinking in areas that might better serve others, your unit, or yourself.

Examples of "Strengthens Me" Ticket Items:

Learn three new knots and how to use them; Learn more about the Patrol Method; Develop specific outdoor skills; Improve my campfire cooking skills (learn how to cook three new meals); Earn BSA Lifeguard; Become certified on the council climbing tower; Attend a Philmont skills training course; Learn public speaking and presentation skills; learn and teach a merit badge; get a commercial driver's license so I can drive the Troop bus; attend a seminar on a diversity-type subject and report on what I learned; read a book on a personal growth subject and write a report; take a Dale Carnegie Course; the list is endless!

Examples of "Strengthens My Group" Ticket Items:

Lead a camp service project; Assist another unit with an activity; Volunteer for a camp cleanup project; Do a service project for our chartered sponsor; Lead a community cleanup campaign; Lead a work project with our local food bank; Unit to help with elderly yard care; get your unit leadership to take on a new project; energize your Troop's leadership team.  Are your juices flowing yet?  What are you good at?  What projects can you get your unit involved with?

Implement the Patrol Method; Take my troop to Philmont; Plan and carry out a fund raising project; Earn the National Camping Award; Increase pack attendance by 20%; Conduct Junior Leader Training; Computerize pack/troop/crew records; Update equipment; Improve the unit Advancement Plan; Improve our camping program; help my District improve attendance at Roundtable; conduct Pack/Troop/Crew training on the role of Diversity in Scouting.

(Goals should be easy to identify and meet the S M A R T rule easily.)

Still Looking For Ideas?

Serve in a significant role on the staff of an "Intro to Outdoor Leader Skills" or similarly challenging course.

Attend the Philmont Training Center this Summer.

Turn a hobby or work skill into a merit badge you can teach-- then teach it!  Aviation, radio, computers, transportation, dentistry, fly fishing... does it really matter?

Serve as a Unit Commissioner for a year.  There are never enough unit commissioners, and you'll be glad you did!

Call your Roundtable Commissioner and volunteer to give a presentation later this year.

Conduct "FUN NIGHT" for minority elementary school (Hispanic) and/or minority church (African American) with Pinewood Derby cars for boys who've not been exposed to Cub Scouts.
 
Produce a "buddy book" with pack/troop rules, songs, skits, cookbook, prayers and scout service outlines, etc. for use with new boys and their parents.

Volunteer to work with a Scoutreach unit, or better yet, do so with your entire unit.

Arrange a recurring ADULT LEADERS ONLY meeting with the other packs or troops in town.  Goal is to work together to grow Scouting exposure in our town WITHOUT putting each other down or destructive competitiveness.

Present a program on religious diversity with the whole troop in preparation for participation in Scout Sunday. Talk about the various religions of the area, acceptance of others even if you don't agree with their views and then also gave information about the BSA religious emblems that they can pursue.

Do a unit program, or better yet, a weekend event on disability awareness, which can be done for your unit or for an entire district.  Set up various events that the boys would have to perform with a simulated disability...such as only using one arm or being in a wheelchair, etc.

Have at least one patrol in the Troop earn the Baden-Powell award.  (I have heard Scoutmasters tell their boys if all patrols earn the BP award in a single 12 month period, they will allow the SPL to shave his head at District Camporee!)

One Cubmaster who serves a very rural pack linked up with a inner-city pack for a series of activities.

One ticket item was aimed at getting greater participation from the parents. The unit had a great core of parents who were very active, and some parents who needed a little encouragement. (They were from Ghana, the Philippines, and Taiwan.)  The moms could really cook, but they were shy about joining in for a bunch of reasons, language barriers or very thick accents, mostly. I invited them, in two cases, driving them, to a troop campout where they prepared traditional evening meals for the guys and adults. Made them feel more a part of the group and REALLY gave us a some great lessons on diversity.

What about organizing a Troop Committee Challenge for your group?

What about arranging to have an Eagle Scout adult come every few months to talk to the boys about how his Scouting career (and being Eagle) has helped him in his career path?

Do you have annual troop JLTs?  How about more adventurous trips out of state? 

Are many of your Scouts are den chiefs for packs?  Can you build that into a ticket item?

Is your Troop youth leadership bored with the same old leadership training?  Have them get Covey's "Seven Habits", read it and spend a weekend in a cool location discussing and building on what they learned.  Have different adults from your unit lead each discussion group.

You struggling with anger management, or wanting to be better organized?  It doesn't matter what you want to get better at, why not make it a ticket item to read two books on the subject and spend three months putting what you've learned into practice.

Would the troop be interested in planning a mini-camporee for nearby packs?  Then do it!
 
Plan a trip to a national facility and do a service project there.  The boys will have a great time and can learn more about service, too.