Leaderboard

Maybe the lack of mBs and no dining halls will allow scouts to have a real summer camp as described by BP instead of simply "living under canvas".

My therapy advice to you would be relax, you're worried and thinking and planning a lot for it, they're not, and they're probably right. You have the age and experience to understand how many things could go wrong, how hard it could be for you personally, and how challenging it could be for everyone; they have the invincibility of youth, and believe, again probably correctly, that they'll be fine and everything will go right. "My son does cross country this should be easy" is an objectively accurate statement. Any reasonably fit teenager with good boots will be able to handle the trek

Well said; here is a small cut/paste from the article regarding the Scoutmaster training at the U of Virginia: "Specific topics of study were; a Local Organization and its Relation to the Community, Benefits of Scout Work for Boys, Organization and Leadership, the American Boy and His Relation to Family Life, Scout problems and Country Life, and Scout Efficiency and its Relation to Citizenship. Special lectures and demonstrations were also given by experts in the fields of Local Bird and Animal Life, Forestry and Conservation, Local Rock and Geographical Formations, Indoor and Outdoor Pro

Few local Scouting enthusiasts realize that during the first decade of the Boy Scouting Movement, Charlottesville was the location of an early council that failed to survive its success. Read about it here...

Friends, The initial announcements portend that we will be a different organization very soon. No more youth program past age 18. National will limit its activity to council services only. We will have a single "onboarding" membership platform. The regions and areas will be discontinued in favor of a downsized system. The organization will be rebranded after the bankruptcy is completed. Local councils will be significantly impacted, as the plaintiffs are primarily aiming at council assets. This includes camps, offices, everything. The BSA has had a very difficult time with the bankruptc

More: This is information that came directly from a widely-viewed general session at the virtual national meeting. The content was delivered directly by the National President/CEO, General Counsel and both the incoming and outgoing volunteer National Chairman. The news was delivered very directly. Readers of this site will perhaps be most interested in knowing that the program won't change, except for the ending of Venturing and Exploring program after age 17. The big impact of the way the bankruptcy has trended after the virus is that it has dragged and the plaintiff attorneys have exper

Motivating boys for a normal HA trek has its own challenges. I wonder if anyone is also dealing with new challenges in these uncertain times. 1. I am an adult leader going with my son. We are the only ones from our Troop, joining another Troop that has 5 boys and 1 leader. I never met these other 5 boys before a few months ago. 2. Other boys are not attending group workout hikes, not scheduling 7 hours of conservation time for 50 miler, not creating duty roster, etc. Other leader tells me the other boys "just want to go camping at Philmont." That other leader is fully into it, worke

@TimB as others said, you have little control in an HA aside from making yourself fit for anything that will come your way. And, given the behavior of this crew as a whole, you might be dealing with scouts who haven't even maintained their boots ... let alone their bodies. Ideally, right now, your scout (I'm not using "son," because at this point you need to detach yourself from your knowledge of his aspirations, emotions, etc ...) needs to be touching base with the other scouts every week or so. He needs to be the cheerleader, promoter, joke-teller ... whatever suits his personality. Sel

Crew members that have different expectations because they come from different troops is exactly the reason we said no to 2 scouts wanting to join our trek. We are still locked down so no chance we can workout together but maybe your region is different. We have been doing gear/pack checks via Zoom and hoping that everyone is working hard at being ready so its great you can at least meet in person. Have you worked on bear bag hanging? Philmont cooking method? 56 miles over 12 days is 5 on average so you should not have too many issues.

I dunno, I just feel moved to post something that was used in another thread some years ago. This is the original, it is often "adjusted" to allow for certain sensitivities, but I always like to go back to the original.... Maybe not appropriate for a ScoutsBSA Troop SMMinute, maybe more appropriate for an IOLS or Wood Badge Scoutmaster Minute, or maybe an EDGE Training session, but worth putting away in one's back pocket, "just in case"... Within My PowerBy Forest E. Witcraft (1894 - 1967), a scholar, teacher, and Boy Scout Executive and first published in the Octob

I'm not sure this is a good decision. As of today, we are moving from a now-closed Council camp to Summit's merit badge camp. We asked some questions including if they plan to reduce capacity. I was quite surprised that they intend to operate at full capacity. Here's some other info we got from them. a. All troops will be required to monitor scouts and adults temperatures daily beginning 5 days prior to arrival. b. Temperature checks and additional screening will be done upon arrival and daily while we are there. (So arrive early) c. Face Masks/PPE will be requir

We did the same … "if you are not comfortable, do not send your son to camp". We also emphasized that while we will enforce rules and expect scouts to follow them, there will be times where there will be no direct adult supervision. I would rather have parents not send kids than have them send them thinking we are guaranteeing 100% chance of no infection. I am concerned as I think this summer may be the best chance to camp within the next 9 - 12 months. The virus spread may actually be higher in the fall, winter and next spring. I think the risk is actually pretty low right now, given

Great article. I followed an embedded link to the other article about UVaS Scoutmaster training. Reading the content summary of that course should shame anyone who considers current scoutmaster training adequate.