HashTagScouts

Katahdin Area Council (Maine) jsut announced cancellation of the summer camp season at Camp Roosevelt.

We are awaiting any concrete statements. We only have 7 kids signed up at this point, where we would expect 18-20. Council only just sent the checklist for camp staff to upload forms/training certificates/etc yesterday. MA pushed the end date for stay-at-home from May 4 to May 18. Based on what Maine has announced as state plans, as of tomorrow they enter "phase 1", and while they were not exactly explicit in stating "summer camps", their guidelines wouldn't be looking to see groups of greater than 50 until 7/1 at the earliest (all 3 phases do call for anyone who is a non-resident to quara

MBCs don't pay. This is why there is a difference between "registered adult" and "registered adult leader". MBCs are not required to take any training beyond YPT and MBC training. They are not satisfactorily a leader, as they don't actually lead- they consult on Merit Badges. For the purpose of a virtual meeting- OK, no problem, adults are not expected to be leading troop meetings, the SPL is. What troop org chart have you ever seen that has MBCs on them, and what reporting lines they have?

Agreed. MBCs are required to go through background checks for obvious safety, and to take our YPT to be familiar with the Scouting program (bear in mind, it was not the intention of the early days of Scouting for MBCs to be the troop leaders, they were to be the people in the community that were subject-matter experts for Scouts to interact with). BSA does make it confusing with flip-flopping on the use of term "adult leaders" and "registered adult", but, an MBC is not expected to be a "unit leader", and thus is not intended to be a supervisor within any other part of the Scouting program ot

Agreed. I organized Family Life MB for our group- perfect time to work on projects at home with family members and "be present" to do chores for 90 days, Music Mb same- able tow work on learning a new jig; and we'll be doing Personal Fitness Mb in a week or so for the same reason. Leave the Nature and E Sci for another time.

I personally would have zero problem moving to virtual for some of the items, like Leave no Trace instruction. But it shouldn't be a full repalcement, just that when things become more safe you could have a shortened in-person one nighter where everyone camps Friday night and the hands on outdoors stuff like fire-building and woods tools could be done, and everyone goes home by 1:00PM on Saturday. But, seriously, are any of us really going to think we would want our kid being supervised in a campout come fall by someone who got their trained badge from Zoom?

but, "fire-building" has the word "building" right in it... LOL

Our Council recently had virtual Key 3 fireside meetings. One of the questions was why did our Council wait 3 weeks to develop any virtual MB events. Central Florida Council was cited by our SE as an example of why they put thought into it and didn't rush it along, and why they put limits on our council sessions of 15 Scouts.

I'm expecting camps to have delayed opening here- condensed from 6 weeks to 3 weeks. My feeling is attendance will be sparse enough from parents being cautious that the camp will be able to handle the reduced volume for the 3 weeks. so that would be the last two weeks of July and first week of August. I have asked our SM to start talking to the PLC about planning a 4 day/3 night trip for mid-August, when things might be far more settled, as a potential trip in lieu of summer camp. I think our parents will have more confidence in our small group getting together than trying to share with 20

I agree with you. In my case we are talking about Cit in the Nation, and the letter requirement. I have no problem giving the group instructions and advice on topics, how to find the name/address (or in most cases the website to fill it out as an electronic submission), but I am not going to write the letter for them, nor spoon feed it so I have all 7 kids writing the exact same letter. That is where the one-on-one would come in, but I still want them writing a draft and we go over it together to refine it. This parent seems to think I should tell them exactly what to write, which is not g

Unless National Training Chair gives a blessing to, i don't see how in the world this can count. We're waiting to hear if the OA is going to give some flex on virtual ceremonies, as we are already getting asked about that... I just roll my eyes on why we would/should ever take an optional program and rip it to shreds rather than wait 2-3 months to hold weekend events.

I've coordinated a few virtual MB sessions for our troop over the past month, and have a few more in the planning stages as we are not getting out of stay-at-home orders until end of May at the earliest. I have not been the counselor for all, but I have insisted that the other counselors not just turn them into force-fed sessions. Talk about a requirement, then give it to the Scout to do as homework is basically what I am getting at. Already had one parent upset that I wasn't planning a follow-up session to go over things afterwards. I have given every Scout, and parent, freedom to contact

14 day camp would require no going home over that weekend, and no one coming in and out during the 14 days. Strain on adults being able to do it, and labor laws on staff would be a massive obstacle. Mad struggles around these parts getting full-time health officers as it is, now you'd need to have two so that one can get rest breaks. Don't see it being practical for most. Now, the nostalgic part of me harkens back to not so many decades ago that camp was typically a 3 week event around here in New England...

The way I expressed my feelings to my committee members and SM- these should be considered for helping the kid who is in the middle of working on a rank, but we shouldn't be pumping kids to start working on their next rank using these. It may be a few more weeks or months until we can have overnights, but no one should feel a rush.

The only rebuttal I would give is the virtual "tours" for MBs. Well, for some MBs anyway. Crime Prevention Mb is a prime one that I look at, that even under "normal" circumstances, a virtual component is probably better than the real thing in many cases. I've tried going the route using Scouter contacts that work for the MA DOC and Sherriffs office to arrange tours for Scouts at Ma prisons, and it is so limiting on timing, length of time involved to arrange them, and when successful to arrange them they last about 15 minutes and the Scouts don't experience a whole lot about the prison itsel

Before the BSA put this out, we had discussion on some ways of being flexible- parent filming the Scout on a cell phone as they built a fire in the backyard, learning knots via animated knots and then demonstrating it on a Zoom conference, taking a hike with a parent in an open area and using cell phone to capture pics of plants/animal signs. Also we agreed that family members could be surrogate patrol members for cooking requirements.Those I could get down with. Not actually having to navigate or truly demonstrate I am not down with. The concept of "they'll learn it later on, after the ran

I personally believe DEs are still very much a necessity. Their role should be allowed to be set, universally nationally, to be more of what the field directors do now. I've often been aggravated over how many unit leaders, and for me it has been disproportionally Packs, that EXPECT their De to come to all their functions. I see zero need for that- the DE is there to help solve problems, help with membership issues, gather applications to ensure they are processed smoothly. They are not there to glad-handle people at Blue and Golds or CoHs as "the face of Scouting"- that is what us volunte

Some scale at the national level I would say is still necessary- IT resources, especially those dedicated to Scoutbook. Let's be honest, that was taken over with it being only about 50% functional of what it should be, and even now is still less than 75% IMO. Some people dedicated to marketing (advertising mostly) would be nice- having documents and flyers and such that are uniform, and not council creations, would be helpful. This national team might be bigger than it is today, but then again, if they are truly answerable to the councils, some councils could eliminate their positions

Seems like a great group that is using a little ingenuity to solve a major problem. I haven't contacted them, but I wonder if others in the Maryland area might be able to organize a donation drop off in their town and get them to this group as a service project: www/facebook.com/BreastPumpVent

There is data, it just is being withheld. Part of the agreement between POTUS and health insurers was to give the insurers access to the data CDC was collecting. not that I have huge fear of losing my anonymity here, I'd like to not lose my job and share what we know in specific #s, but we do know the number of people tested, the zip codes they live in, ages, gender. CDC is coordinating the share of that between the state public health departments as well, but they are also not sharing that on with the public.

What that article references is lockdown type policy as used in China- where people were not allowed out of their homes for any reason, no roaming the city, all businesses shut down as it had been in Wuhan for 73 days, etc. That is not what is being done in MA or NY currently. We are at about the 25% mark here in MA under the current executive orders, and we have field hospitals that have been set up in the DCU Center Worcester and the Boston Convention Center, and two others are up and running or will be this week. Hospitals are like warzones here now, and we have not peaked. My employer

The reason to NOT encourage large gatherings, is the swell that would occur to the higher-risk groups. Hospitals are overwhelmed now trying to treat people, and that is with only 300k having the virus. Our health system would very much collapse if we had even a 15% increase to inpatient #s in many areas.

Fed guidelines, at all levels of healthcare, are to delay any elective medical visits, surgery, etc. In MA, step further, as part of the governors stay-at-home orders, elective procedures are required to be delayed until at least May 4th, or for as long as the order is in place. My sons physical was rescheduled to late June, and his dental cleanings was rescheduled until June as well.

I would say all planning right now is to open as usual, and have contingencies to cancel week-to-week as necessary. I don't know about anyone else's camp, but we have work weekends and then staff week to get everything setup, so if that gets cancelled then week 1 would already need to be cancelled to get that done. The "re-openning" from the pandemic is going to be very regional I would anticipate.

Because Covid-19 doesn't disappear once a government official removes stay-at-home orders. Until there is a vaccine, secondary/tertiary/etc. outbreak is a real threat. Gathering 250 kids together, with what is a best mediocre sanitation (we all have stories of having to drag kids to take showers) is a scenario that could derail the rest of the summer. I'm all for putting the efforts at planning, but I would not bank on summer camp happening.