Southern Region

I’ve trained many scoutmasters of new troops and my First step advice is put down the SM Handbook and get the Patrol Leaders Handbook and SPL Handbook. Those two handbooks have the same information as SM Handbook without the adult baggage. They are fast reads and basic enough to layout a plan for the next few months of your program. You will find the scouts and adults will bond faster when everyone is working as a team with the same instruction guides. And get ready, you are embarking on the most confounding and rewarding endeavor of your life. i love this scouting stuff. Barry

Thank you all for your responses so far! I finished the Scoutmaster position specific training tonight, and still feel like I'm no closer to being anywhere near ready to get everything in place to get the troop up and running. There is so much we have to try and figure out and I don't know where to start other than what I have already done (contacting out DE, finding a CO)...    

Definitely not. The word 'forest bathing' may have been coined in Japan, but the observation that people in general feel calmer and more connected to the Universe in nature is old and universal. This is also why some of the old ways linger around even today, despite centuries of attempts to get rid of them. 

It seems to me that while this is great to have been studied, it is certainly not new.  Most of us that have spent any amount of time in the forest wit or without youth likely experienced similar benefits.  Also, I can definitely suggest that a few youth with whom I interacted came back from a weekend in the forest with a more positive attitude, and if they continued in participating showed, or at least seemed to me to do so, a real change in their personality.  A similar effect is likely found in simply sitting on the shore of ocean or a sea with waves, alone in the early or late quiet of nature.  It reminds me of a discussion my nephew and I had on our porch in the Mojave Desert where we have a family retreat of sorts.  He works with troubled kids in an Orange County school district, and as we sat there in the dark at almost midnight, the only sounds that of unseen desert denizens a peace settled in and we just sat and watched the sky with little talk.  Then he mentioned that he wished he might expose some of his youth to this experience.  That he suspected most had never heard the quiet, as he called it.  In the city, even late at night, there is little or no real silence.  Simon and Garfuncle come to mind.  

As a one off read it does not scream great; however, when you go back and look at 2023 after national incurred their debt obligation to the settlement trust it screams right direction. 10% reduction in overall debt. Jan 1 to Dec 31 operations ran a 36 million revenue. National definitely is heading the correct direction. I believe their goal is to be under 200 million in debt before end of 2025; if they can hit that goal we're going to see a roaring good next decade in support and program growth.