National Outdoor Awards "under the auspices of the Boy Scouts of America"

[Hawkwin 299]

"Liberated" from the Bryan's forum because the forum is effectively walking dead (and I am hopeful it gets a quicker response here as I want to know too):

https://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/forums/topic/national-outdoor-awards-auspices-boy-scouts-america/

Okay, in reality, I think what that phrase “under the auspices of the Boy Scouts of America” means is reasonably clear and I’ve always taken it to include patrol, troop, district, council, or national activities. Yet….

Look at the hiking award. The phrase is in requirement 4:

Complete 100 miles of hiking, backpacking, snowshoeing, or cross country skiing under the auspices of the Boy Scouts of America, including miles hiked as part of requirements 2 and 3.

Requirement 2 include, of course, the Hiking merit badge. Which actually does not require that the hikes be “under the auspices of the Boy Scouts of America.”

I’ll continue to interpret this the way I always have, and I’m not going to require boys to suddenly complete the Hiking or Backpacking to be only BSA activities, and I hope the BSA won’t suddenly decide to make that a requirement for those badges as it would be significant hurdle. I’d actually like to see the “under the auspices of the Boy Scouts of America” relaxed or removed for those awards as some of my scouts have a lot of non-BSA hiking mileage.

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Do the hiking miles for the Hiking Merit Badge require they be done via an organized BSA hike? If they don't and you are a Hiking MBC, what verification do you require from the scout to grant them credit for their hikes?

[fred johnson 936]

1 hour ago, Hawkwin said:

Do the hiking miles for the Hiking Merit Badge require they be done via an organized BSA hike?

No.  If it was required to be an official scouting activity, it would say something such as what camping says "at designated scouting activities or events".

 

1 hour ago, Hawkwin said:

If they don't and you are a Hiking MBC, what verification do you require from the scout to grant them credit for their hikes?

Same with any other MB requirement.  Trust and verify.  Picture.  Who was with you?  Let me talk to them.  etc. etc. etc.

[qwazse 4342]

What Fred said (thus my upvote).

Furthermore, the NOA's are not advancement ... so there is no reason to expect consistency. However, MBC's are district positions; therefore, I would consider a boy hiking (or whatever) for the sake of earning an MB to be doing so under the auspices of the district - for the purposes of the NOA, but probably not for liability purposes. I say probably because I don't know if BSA's insurance has ever approved the claim of a boy injured or property damaged in the process of earning an MB.

Bottom line: if the scout's all about hiking/camping/canoeing and it is in some way related to the BSA program, give him the credit.

I would even go so far as to say that if there were some kind of family outing, but he touched based with his SM to go over the plan and to help him prepare - but not for a badge - if those nights/miles are the only thing keeping him from the NOA, count them.

But first ask the scout to read the requirements and decide for himself what should and shouldn't be counted. If the boys are doing this as a patrol, ask them what they think is fair. This is a youth led movement, I'm told.

Edited April 11, 2018 by qwazse