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Precisely. An Eagle rank is good preparation for the basics in life, and it is definitely admirable that so many boys aspire to the rank.....but it's really no Hornaday. In 2017, BSA awarded 55,494 Eagle ranks. In that single year, it's more than 5 times the total number of Silver Hornadays awarded over more than a century! Just like we all applaud our kids when they achieve a high school diploma, we applaud the boys who earn their Eagle. But it's a different kind of accomplishment altogether when a boy earns his PhD. Same with the scouts who have the ambition and drive to compl

Eagle may be scouting's highest rank, but there are awards that are FAR rarer and more prestigious. The oldest of these is the Silver Hornaday medal. In many years, the number of these awarded nation-wide is in the single digits. Many scouts find their Eagle project to be a daunting challenge. Imagine having to do at least FOUR projects of equal or greater complexity, all of them focused on different areas of conservation....and requiring approval by national. Well, that's the kind of effort a highly motivated scout must have to earn a Silver Hornaday. My heart soared today at the news t

I'm not quite sure what you mean. Are you cooking the cheese into the Chili Mac instead of using it as a topping? Or doing something else? My son likes those boxes of Kraft macaroni & cheese. Not too long ago, he found some leftover taco meat in the fridge and dumped it into his macaroni & cheese. Said it was good, but he's never done it on a campout (though no reason why not...)

Yeah, it definitely looks too intensely green for a Scouts BSA uniform. Interesting that the one useful review of the product comments on the color (which looks more of a forest green to my eye...)

I love starting the morning with a hot cup of very strong, very black coffee. For many years, I've packed a small, plastic Melitta cone coffee dripper. They're durable, washable, and even better --- lightweight. A more practical camping coffee solution has never been invented (and at a mere $4, it's about the cheapest "gadget" in my backpack). Easy to use too: Just set it on top of a coffee cup, insert a small paper filter, add fine espresso ground coffee, then pour hot water over the grounds --- voila! A great cuppa joe! It might not be your fancy, schmancy espresso machine, but for

Position Codes: 58 for Nova Counselor 52 for Supernova Mentor Training has been updated in the past year, so even if you've done Nova/Supernova training in the past, it's worthwhile doing the new online course as a refresher. Also, there are quite a few new Nova awards at the Cub, Scout, and Venturer level, so even scouters with quite a bit of Nova program experience would do well to check in on scouting.org to familiarize themselves with the new awards (some of which are quite interesting and will provide some good opportunities to explore new STEM topics). Note also that

Or double the cayenne if you like to double the pain... Rolling your own spices is a good idea, but it makes it a bit harder on boys at a campout. The advantage of the pre-mix is simplicity. The disadvantage is you never get beyond simplicity.

Looks interesting... Do you have it available somewhere other than Facebook? I can't access anything on Facebook due to security blocks. It would be nice to have useful resources on an open, reliable, trustworthy platform.

Chili Mac is a staple of almost any family with hungry kids, and it's easy enough to make while camping that legions of scouts and scouters have come up with their own variations on this, rather basic, recipe. Feel free to adapt to your own tastes. (I'd love to hear how other folks make their Chili Mac...) INGREDIENTS 1 pound ground beef 1 green bell pepper, chopped 1 large yellow onion, chopped 15-ounce can diced tomatoes 15-ounce can light kidney beans (or charro beans, or pinto beans) 8 ounces elbow macaroni 1 package McCormick's Chili mix

Got my Death March patch in the mail yesterday! I am a happy camper... You guys are great!

I'd laugh with you if it wasn't so darn sad (and so true).

I think Velcro makes a clear strip or dots. These might work for some of y'all...

With email being free, I'd continue to use the email to reach the 80% whose email addresses have stayed the same over the past year, and only pay the "to cents a pop" to send follow-ups to the other 20%. By the way, I know you're right. I've had more than 10 email addresses over the past decade but only 1 physical mailing address. No contest as to which is the more reliable method to reach me...but that's me, people move too and it could just as easily go the other way.

Like a Venturer who is also a member of a Boy Scout troop? That's been done for years with no need of a nonsensical adjective of dubious utility.

And you could very easily have just asked the one relevant question without keeping any paper records that have the potential to be abused by people with zero "need to know"....

It is not YOUR business whether somebody is fit or not fit. That is between them and their doctor. If the doctor has reviewed the demands/requirements and says "fit", then all you have to do is accept his professional opinion and you are absolved of liability. A waiver would be okay. A detailed medical history is not necessary, no matter how much you, BSA, or the busy-bodies in your troop may think it is. Pretending that there is some special "scout-like" obligation is simply nonsense. Medical info is none of your business. Nobody in the troop has a right to expect that it is. Never sa

Be careful of what happens when you "assume"... Not necessarily. There should be no assumption that Awanatech is a qualified medical professional, therefore, no assumption that ANYBODY in the unit is authorized to review health and medical information. A better approach to extending privacy laws would be for an organization to set health standards and only for a trained medical professional to assess an individual's ability to handle the stress or physical conditions. A simple "Qualified / Not Qualified" checkbox signed by the professional is all the organization really needs.

I get it now. Any kind of boat will do. Good to know. I know a couple young men who like getting out on the water...

I tried to make my own out of camouflage cord. Now I can't find it...

Here are the official descriptions: https://www.scouting.org/programs/cub-scouts/what-cub-scouts-earn/the-advancement-trail/

A naive question: Do sea scout ships actually have boats and really go sailing? I ask because many of the questions I see coming up about sea scouting seem to have nothing nautical about them. And now a mention of a ship in Boerne, which by my map is located in central Texas in the heart of "Hill Country". I would make snide comments about that area having no maritime tradition, but somehow, some way, one of America's great naval commanders, Admiral Chester Nimitz, did in fact, grow up in the rocky, dusty, beautiful hills of central Texas.... I guess there are lakes to sail on ther

Hmmmm. You might think that's a "positive" outcome, but I'm very troubled that any adult is prowling through the medical forms, reading info about everyone in the troop. That is precisely the reason that health care providers are obligated to safeguard health info under HIPAA regulations --- because we, as a society, WANT to have the right to our health information staying "personal". What you are doing argues strongly in FAVOR of extending HIPAA protections to organizations like BSA, because they clearly cannot be trusted to keep personal information "personal". I certainly don

I, for one, have far more important things to worry about than terminology. For example, how much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could, in fact, chuck wood?

Wow! That IS a large troop...bet y'all have some GREAT campouts!

Agreed. Girls joining scouts might already be a settled question, but that doesn't mean it's accepted across all units in the organization. At some point, enough people will see enough postings that show the world didn't end just because a girl decided she liked BSA....and when that happens, they'll all get back to talking about important issues, like whether to use a right-handed tent stake or a left-handed tent stake.