HashTagScouts

Many parts of the US are still struggling to have enough supplies to continue testing on healthcare workers/first responders/high risk groups, and supply chain is going to take more time to ramp production. and that is assuming we will continue to obtain materials from abroad to feed the supply chain. I've heard it rumored that Spirit of Adventure Council has pulled the plug on summer camp- have you heard that directly from anyone in council?

Go to your COR/IH. Committee Chair at the Pack level is the position they appoint, and cubmaster is appointed by them, so you are unfortunately not on equal footing here to deal with it yourself. Not having valid YPT is not okay.

As the article says, "mostly stayed at home". Take aside the nursing home folks, the imprisoned folks, and what you have left are the rest of us- those who are making weekly trips to the grocery store or the hardware store. Again, the point of the stay-at-home was not that we wouldn't see a spread it was that we wouldn't see a massive swell that would overwhelm the health system. Now, we should be slowly taking steps to begin to resume some activities. Be smart, and not try and go 100 mph in a week.

I am all for building ourselves up to troop level in the longer term by starting with smaller group activities. The biggest hurdle at this point is having a place to do it. From what I am seeing around New England, state campgrounds are going to begin opening later in June, but with limitations- no group sites available, and no "gathering areas" open (playgrounds, observation areas, waterfronts, etc.). Two minimal camping areas we have used in the past have not given any indication they will allow overnight usage at this point, though we are keeping in contact with them hoping in the second

Pine Tree Council (Maine) has cancelled resident camp at Camp Hinds and Bomazen. Looks like they are going to offer some day activities on weekend dates starting in July to better mitigate risks. I think the biggest hurdle that Maine camps have had to deal with is dining halls- both in terms of meals, and that they are also considered the safe-haven structure in case of severe weather (and if you can't use the dining hall for the later, then you really can't run camp).

Oh, I know. My dad is down there, and it is not a good situation. Many old timers there think this is all a hoax, and continue to leave the house or get together with their friends. Just waiting for the call that his whole 55+ community is ill.

Considering that most individuals are not driving from their home location to the HA bases, and are often going to fly, risk increased. Dade County is one of the highest hit areas in Florida- I wouldn't fly through Miami right now, and I don't expect it to be flat there come July 1.

I'm sure it is one of many factors that are going into the decisions to cancel camp. Social distancing is going to have to be a part of any camp operation at this point. Large gatherings at campfires will need to be altered to allow spacing between individuals, frequent hand washing will be a necessity (I personally don't know of any camp that has hot water at every campsite, and I also am reticent to become the handwashing police), camp wide activities may need to be altered (like inter-troop relay races, OA call outs, etc.). I also dread the parents who send their kid off to ca

Here in MA, facemasks are a state mandate whenever out in public, for anyone age over the age of 2. The signal from the Gov is that will be with us through the summer, and possibly even into the school year. I fully expect it will be a requirement for camps.

I was just saying tonight that all the rumored adjustments we have to make for resident camp, I can't imagine what would need to be done at cub camp. Hard sometimes keeping 13 year old from grabbing at and wrestling with each other- can't imagine how that goes with the younger kids. And trying to get them to keep their masks on and not touch them/adjust them 20,000 times a day.

I have questions on how well these camps are going to do getting enough supplies to do all this disinfecting and sanitizing, especially as most people can't get their hands on it right now. Figure if you were doing meals in shifts, you really aren't accomplishing much if you don't add time in between to sanitize for the next group. I spent a little time time today sifting through some of the requirements for typical summer MBs we see from our kids. Either if we were to go through council camp or go off and run our own thing, there are some requirements I struggle with how you could do t

We are beginning the groundwork of plans for our own summer camp, hopefully the last week of July. Normally we would have been at camp week 1 (June 28-July 4). We are looking at later into July to allow our local area to settle, and let families adjust to anticipated "re-opening" the state in June (we are in MA). We have an ASM who's family owns a tract of land in Maine with lake frontage, so we also have to respect local governance there. Thankfully the property is abutted by other large private tracts, so we will be nicely distanced from others and will allow us to sufficiently be isolat

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...