Here's a good practice I've learned the last couple of months: throw away stuff that works. But why? Beacues raw material is flesh for fantasy.
Young adults and scouts today are bombarded with pre-built things that just works. You dont build a box - you buy one. Perhaps some leader has already bought one for you.
Prebuilt and completed stuff has the drawback that it pacifies people. Our scout house has been full of prebuilt stuff (most stuff is never used anyway) and at the same time we have had a permanent shortage of simple raw material like wood, plywood, paint, glue...
So we leaders in out group decided early this year to have a scout programme more focused on working with the hands. All we had to do was to focus on solving the logistic problem of bringing all the raw material to the scout house. The response has been really impressive. Scouts usually having concentration problem have been working very focused and the raw material we have bought has rappidly been used in new projects we never envisioned - actually we're soon out of raw material.
My conclusion of all this is that raw material engages fantasy and creativity. It empowers. Prebuilt stuff is understood as finnished and so the thought ends. Therefore, to empower and develop young adults, we should from time to time throw away things that works.
Remember: scouting is not something you learn, it's something you discover.
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