BAJ

As part of my Wood Badge ticket, I am trying to build some resources to help troops continue Scout-led activities while still managing COVID-19 risk in a way that works for them and their participating families. The first is a resource on reducing COVID-19 infection risk in camping (I will post my query about the second in a few days to cut the length of this post). What I am building is a menu of different ways to minimize infection risk during camping activities, starting from the guidance provided by National (mainly the Restarting Scouting Checklist) but providing many more options t

Two of my five patrol mates had something similar to hold a good chunk of their gear. :) If you’d been in my patrol you’d have fit right in and I would have been the outlier with my avalanche of separate totes, backpacks, tent, etc. etc. etc.

If they didn’t laugh at me.... you’re probably good. Our SPL actually told us not to worry about over packing, since they wanted us to sleep as comfortable as possible so we’d absorb the sessions. Have fun. I hope you get great patrol mates... they were really what made the experience fun for me.

I had A very similar reaction to some of them before my course a few weeks ago. I just went to my backpack (just got back from Weekend 2 yesterday) and pulled out my now rumpled version... rumpled because it never left the backpack either in Weekend 1 or 2 and so it was sort of crunched down at the bottom. Looking at what I wrote my “answers” to some of them were just a few bullet points. And I had a real problem answering some of them. For example, thinking about the question about a leader who had significantly affected my life, many of the “leaders” I have had weren’t very good an

I actually thought the Inaugural Class concept was an elegant way to defuse the potential for a subset of the new female scouts (of which my daughter was one [Edit: though she was advancement focused she isn’t going to be in the inaugural class]) racing against one another to be the Eagle with the earliest BOR date and therefore the recognized as the very first female Eagle Scout. There are not that many opportunities in life to be the first of something, and for some people that possibility would be very.... motivating. As has been discussed in other posts, possibly for some parents who rea

I agree — I did some event photography over the years semi officially and the key is what Parkman said about being “purposeful and dignified.” As I got better equipment, I generally went to longer/telephoto lenses to record ceremonies so I could still get good photos from the periphery of the event to limit how intrusive I was being as much as I could, but the key is how your behavior and body language convey that you are recording the event and the participants versus the now caricature of the cell-camera wielding parent blocking everyone’s view to get a snapshot of junior...

I really like this idea. But I would have that pool of funds focused on defraying costs of participation, rather than stipends. The active volunteers could choose to apply them to their scout’s costs — or, if they had the means — to have them defray the costs of others. Could be a model that both provided incentive for volunteering (a good outcome) and/or an alternative stream of support to allow scouts from more socio-economically challenged backgrounds to participate in what we have been observing is becoming an increasingly expensive activity.

Since this discussion picking up again reprompted my interest, I did a little Googling. On the BSA licensing page (http://licensingbsa.org/trademarks/) they do list “Boy Scout uniform, insignia and emblems” on the list of example BSA trademarks, suggesting some level of trademark interest in the look of the uniform. In the brand identify guide (https://filestore.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/310-0231.pdf), they do flag specific hues as defined parts of the BSA branding (and helpfully put “Scouting” in front of each of them... e.g., Scouting Tan and even Scouting BSA Olive.). Not sa

For a female scout who joined right at the beginning (February 2019), the timing is possible. The ranks with “time in grade” require 14 months, plus the time required to attain First Class. Since the beginning of February 2019 there have been approx. 19 months. So, assuming completion of First Class in 5 months, the timing is possible for an very advancement-focused scout. Particularly if the scout involved joined at an older age, and so was motivated by the deadline of aging out (setting aside the potential for extensions), it doesn’t surprise me that there are scouts who have either comp

This is an interesting point — having just gone through the revised curriculum, I mostly agree with you, though the program did have some elements that I think attempted to do this. There wasn’t that much explaining of the patrol method in great detail, but some of the activities did try to get the ideas across. And I think part of the issue is time constraints — I’ve only done Weekend 1 at this point, but there was a lot in there and not a lot of extra time. Thinking about this, I am struggling a little with how I would change things. I get the patrol method, even though I was less of

Reverse image search found a listing for it on a Spanish language internet marketplace: https://listado.mercadolibre.com.co/insignias-scout That was the only place I could find a listing for it for sale.

So, an interesting thing to add to the mix — it looks like a council is actually exploring a model of lone-ish scouts meeting in a virtual troop. I came across it since part of my Woodbadge tasks are related to scouting during COVID, and one of my goals is related to thinking through the combination of the virtual and in-person scouting since different families may have different risk tolerances vis-a-vis exposure and therefore different willingness to participate in-person. It is in the Northern Lights Council and they are calling it Scout Point. Web site is here: https://scoutpoint

Our staff folks were really nice to us... they recommended not bringing too much heavy personal gear, but also said that if we had to bring a heavy tent or something, we could add it to the stack of the patrol cooking gear that someone would be kindly transporting down to the campsite for us. (That said, I think this was only going to be a issue because of the relative positions of our campsite v. the parking lot at the relevant camp.) Other than that, there wasn’t any guidance that we needed anything special — the main difference highlighted between Weekend 1 and 2 was that each patrol

Congrats to you and him — glad the weather held up. With COVID meaning things are so much safer outside, weather dependence is really becoming more of a challenge.

That is a really interesting idea. In our small troop, we have a subset that essentially did this, a set that committed to “scouts first, everything else as they could,” and a set juggling the two. I wonder if the juggling set would have dropped out for half the year if this was an explicit model, meaning a net much smaller troop during that ‘season’ though. It would align with six month leadership terms, and annual planning could move to two six month terms — with a ‘pre-season planning’ period before each season started. And summer ‘season’ would be open to everyone. An interesting thin

Orienteering boxes could be an option too — set of compasses, a few versions of laminated maps around the property, and either having permanent markers or markers in the box that a senior scout would need to run the course first and place at their designated locations on the map. Edit: jut read closely enough to see you already said map and compass. Long day.

Certainly looks nice, though adding the shoulder loops and the design looks.... strangely familiar. Any chance BSA had a design copyright on the uniform where BSA could give them free license for making their new uniform shirt and green bottom combo look rather Scouts BSA like (what’s the copyright term? Potential for brand confusion?) and they could drop their suit for the use of the word “girl” In too close proximity to the word “scout?” Just a thought...

This is actually related to something that I am toying with as an element of my Woodbadge ticket. We have a couple of Scouts who can’t participate in-person due to health concerns even though our unit has restarted in-person meetings and outdoor program. We’ve been experimenting with ways of keeping them as part of the troop/patrol (not sure if I mentioned in other posts, but we are keeping a virtual connection to troop/patrol meetings, actually had a virtual connection to our first COVID-campout, and have tried virtual scout led skills teaching). Some of the experiments have worked better

I just got back from Weekend 1 on Monday (“I used to be a... I guess I still am... an Eagle...”) and am working away on writing my ticket. My weekend 2 is coming at the very beginning of October. It was.... a lot of fun... and good. And, given that I had absorbed some of the Woodbadge skepticism found some places on the internet, I went in with bit of a jaundiced eye at the start, so that’s really a rave review (think the “clearly real 4* reviews” on Amazon vs. the 5* ones that don’t ring true). I think my daughter summed up my going in skepticism in a sort of funny way — when I was de

When my daughter joined, I was relieved that joining at the point where she was earning AOL meant she had the option of just starting in the tan uniform. I had visions of having to replace a whole uniform set after only a year of use...

Scout Vespers is one of my memory triggers from my time as a scout. Our troop sung it so many great places, it brings back memories like a light switch going on.

I have been giving a lot of thought to COVID and scouting as our troop is starting back to some in person activities and our annual planning cycle is starting. I am actually going to Wood Badge next weekend (put off from weekend scheduled early in the pandemic) and so have been thinking some about what my “COVID scouting ticket” might look like. At our round table, there there were troops that talked about their chartering org not letting them do anything in person. Other troops did something like a summer camp. I’ve read the postings of others here that did things like that and tried

It was just conveyed verbally at our Roundtable. That’s all I’ve got.

I had the same thought. At a recent Roundtable, there was mention that National was running a budget deficit currently above $100 million. My speculation, admittedly not knowing the exact planning and spending timelines for major national events, is now was the time when expenditures were going to start for preparation... and there might not be available capital or credit to cover them. Potential scary cross relevance to the Chapter 11 thread elsewhere on the forum?

This was a screen shot posted on another (non-official) BSA posting board. Poster is identified as verified as National Training Staff. Link is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/BSA/comments/ho9w9z/the_bsa_plan_announced_on_ceo_town_hall_today/