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I apologize if I am posting in the wrong place or if this is poorly worded, this is my first post.

 

I am the ASPL of a central New Jersey Troop with a majority of younger Scouts. We recently went up to Forestburg Scout Reservation and did their OA heritage trail. After we completed this trail, we were awarded medals (attached.) The younger Scouts went crazy for them, and begged me and my SPL for more. Majority of the Scouts have a very hard time finding interest in Scouting, and both me and my SPL hope that the little things could draw them more into it. I am pursuing the Supernova award, but I doubt most of the younger Scouts want to put much effort into anything.

 

Again, I apologize, and I look forward to all your responses!

heritage_trail_medal.jpg

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@BPPatrolonaRoll, welcome to the forums!

It takes time to get to know your youth. It sounds like you've realised that your scouts are into an activity that gets them a medal or a patch after a day's work. So ... you need to look for state/national parks that offer such things. Or, call your fire or police department about small awards they may offer. You may have to talk to your SM about budgeting for such things.

Your troop can also make totems that would travel from patrol-to-patrol for things like "best uniform", "favorite skit", "first aid champion", etc ...

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It's been hard for me to recognize as it doesn't match my personality, but scouts like bling and recognition.  

The Forestburg Herritage Trail medal is cool.  

When our troop was small ... if we camped at a state or national park or somewhere that had a site patch ... I'd buy the scouts the patch for that park and give it to them when we leave.  It was a cool and reasonably cheap memory.  ... I wanted to get our troop to do something similar for all camp outs.  Having something to point our achievements is important.  

Perhaps it would have been better to hand out those patches at the COH, but I was thinking immediate memory was nice. 

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Howdy, BPPatrolonaRoll....   You can research the National Parks Junior Ranger and Scout Ranger Award. These are particular to each national park, so go  to the Chief Ranger. Next, you can check out the National Historic Trails Award of the BSA, which I understand can be earned more than once.  If you get down to Washington DC (Covid19 considerations !!)  there is a Scout History Trail Award to pursue around the DC area. 

When your Scouts have their Totin' Chip in hand, they might consider the BSA Paul Bunyan Award...., 

Oh, there are lots of badges and patches to earn.   Religious faith awards?  Those can be done at home, mostly. 

Stay warm and dry and socially distant....

Welcome to virtualScouting.

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Also, fishing season has opened!

Check out your state's competitions at https://www.state.nj.us/dep/fgw/hofnodnj.htm. Reach out to the one nearest you.

Contact your local sportsman's clubs. They might have a program for your scouts as well.

Speaking of in-house awards, our SPL's were making little loops of parachord to add to epaulets and represent certain achievments. E.g., all knots tied in less than a minute got a particular color. The insignia dorks among us will dutifully inform us that non-standard loops are not uniform, but since you SPL/ASPLs run inspection, you can decide how many points to take off for such things.

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On 4/7/2020 at 11:47 PM, BPPatrolonaRoll said:

I apologize if I am posting in the wrong place or if this is poorly worded, this is my first post.

 

I am the ASPL of a central New Jersey Troop with a majority of younger Scouts. We recently went up to Forestburg Scout Reservation and did their OA heritage trail. After we completed this trail, we were awarded medals (attached.) The younger Scouts went crazy for them, and begged me and my SPL for more. Majority of the Scouts have a very hard time finding interest in Scouting, and both me and my SPL hope that the little things could draw them more into it. I am pursuing the Supernova award, but I doubt most of the younger Scouts want to put much effort into anything.

 

Again, I apologize, and I look forward to all your responses!

heritage_trail_medal.jpg

HI there!

Kudos to you as an ASPL for taking this on!  You are setting a great example as a leader.

Our Scouts love the medal "bling", too.  There is a whole list of Historical Trails.  Almost all have a patch...most have an attractive medal like the one you earned.  You can find a lot of them here:

https://tap.scouting.org/historic-trails/

 From central NJ, here are some I would recommend:

Battle of Monmouth (starts at Quail Hill Scout Reservation, you can camp there).  http://www.natsihi.org/camping-hiking/battle-of-monmouth-historic-trail/

Here is the medal

20200412_121817.thumb.jpg.3edfa40aec2b6d3e153e1dde30786706.jpg

Another is the Washington Crossing Trail

https://bsawcc.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Washington_Crossing_Trail_2016.pdf

 

boy-scout-washington-crossing-historic-trail_1_ac63494bf49c64f956cee3f268536829.jpg.6c38be02242208b2a40de23df6881bb0.jpg

 

And the William Penn Trail

https://bsawcc.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/William_Penn_Trail_Guide_and_Workbook.pdf

 

pennmedal.jpg.ab96177b9ab54cde5fd6bd59d72334a6.jpg

 

Finally, if you camp on or near a trail, and do work to improve it, you can earn the BSA Historic Trails Award!!

https://www.scouting.org/awards/awards-central/historic-trails/

Happy Hunting!

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  • 8 months later...

@BPPatrolonaRoll

The bling is always a good thing if it encourages Scouts to try new things. I have found us always researching if there is some award or partial award the Scouts could earn on a trip. sometimes there are extra requirements so it is good to do the research upfront.

My recommendation for you is to check your local High Adventure programs. They often have a series of awards that Scouts can learn for going on local trails, climbing local peaks and so on. These tend to be geared for older Scouts (nominally 14+ but you often get younger Scouts who are more than capable). There are some exceptions though, our local council (SDIC) has a series for whale watching.

Two examples that we have gone for. The first is the Camelback medal, they had to do a 3 day, 30 mile backpack in Joshua Tree for this one. The second was a patch for the Mormon Battalion Trail in Anza Borrego desert. This one ended up on the cover of Boy's Life recently. If your boys are young these particular trips might be beyond them for now, but as I said the High Adventure teams often have some easier awards. The Mormon Battalion actually has a Cub Scout variant with a short (5 mile) day hike.

 

CamelbackMedal.jpg

MormonBSA.jpg

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  • 6 months later...

I think I need to post a correction.

I said that " local High Adventure programs ... often have a series of awards that Scouts can learn for going on local trails, climbing local peaks and so on".

I am starting to realize that that might just be a local thing in the councils around us (Southern California). I have been searching to see if there are equivalent programs elsewhere around the US and so far drawn a blank. 

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Ah, the good ol' Mormon Battalion awards! That particular award has always meant a lot to me; I have a few ancestors who were part of the battalion. There's actually a marker at the park across the road from me where they made one of their very few stops on their way up the coast from the San Diego area. My stake helped create and dedicate it too, with all its Scout troop present as well in full uniform to commemorate the event. Such lovely memories. 😇

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