It's been a busy week! In addition to school and work, I helped a Wolf scout (second grade Cub Scout) earn his rank badge. I was also elected Committee Chair for our Scouts BSA troop. This means that I will be Committee Chair for both for both a Boy Scouts of America Cub Scout pack and a Scouts BSA troop.
Committee Chair is one of the three highest adult roles in a pack or troop. We are the ones who do the paperwork to keep the organization alive. We recruit and train volunteers. We handle conflicts and mediate between parents with a difference of opinion. We ensure the Scout Oath and Law and safety protocols are being followed.
It isn't something I've done until this year, but I've been preparing for this. I am taking training classes, reading forums, and asking more experienced scout leaders for advice and support. And best of all, the last two people to hold the position are still around to help me learn the job.
Speaking of things I haven't done before.... One of the projects I made for school this week was a 30 second video in Adobe Creative Cloud Express. Although the system is easy to use, I struggled with video part of the task. No matter what I tried, the system told me that my .mp4 file was not supported. I followed all of the directions to convert the file in Adobe Media Encoder and through other tools. The file was already in the correct format and changing to another supported format didn't work, either.
I felt like I was spinning in circles. I had already had to change my topic once because my digital camera failed. Would I need to shoot new video?
Fortunately, I stumbled on a solution: Adobe Creative Cloud Express has a video resizing tool. I selected the default size and resized the video. When the new file saved, it was miraculously compatible with the video template!
Although I didn't make any noticeable change in my original video, the process made the video able work where it was needed, to serve a different purpose.
My life is like that, in some ways. Does being a scout leader and a committee chair change me? No one looks at me and thinks "scout leader" unless I happen to be wearing the uniform. But I've learned so much through figuring out how to do these jobs. It's not a big change, like earning a master's degree, but it has made me better able to lead others. To be trustworthy and to trust myself.
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