The Bloggers
Short, pointed essays on adult leadership and boy-led troops.
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A few months ago, we wrote about the special extension of time to complete Eagle Scout, Summit Award and Quartermaster Award requirements beyond the age of eighteen due to circumstances related to the pandemic and the closures and program shutdowns that occurred in 2020.
Update, October 1, 2021: The badge will be known as CItizenship in Society . Release date is expected sometime in November. Requirements are still being formulated. It is expected that counselors will be required to complete the BSA’s Diversity training. Update, January 7, 2021: The BSA has announced a delay in the implementation of the DEI…
“On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country… ” These words resonate at the beginning of every meeting of our packs and dens, troops and crews. We sometimes rattle them off without thinking about what they mean.
The pandemic has affected life in so many ways, Scouting being just one of them. Units have had to scramble to continue providing program despite restrictions on group meetings – the very lifeblood of the Scouting experience – and trying to plan for the future in a world where the future could change with little advance notice.
“Zoom fatigue” is a term that has crept into our lingo, given that so much of our collaborative work-from-home activity is done through online real-time video sharing tools like Zoom, Webex and GoToMeeting. In our district, we’ve been holding our monthly Commissioner and Roundtable meetings via Zoom since March, and it has largely been successful…
Our Friends of Scouting theme last year was Imagine… The conversation revolved around imagining not just what Scouting could help your son or daughter realize, but to also imagine what the world would be like without Scouting. As the Boy Scouts of America proceeds into bankruptcy proceedings as it struggles with the fallout from decades…
This year, Memorial Day is an opportunity to think less of beaches, parades and barbecues, and more about remembrance. With that in mind, our council has passed along the following information from the BSA about how Scouts and Scouters can mark the occasion.
The summer of 2020 in Scouting is shaping up to be very different from any other summer we’ve experienced in our lifetimes. With personal protection and social distancing the current norms, a lot of the activities that Scouts enjoy either cannot happen or need to be modified substantially.
Despite our efforts to keep Scouting programs going in the face of the worldwide pandemic, some things just become impossible at the moment. Merit badge requirements that include camping, for instance, and the collaborative nature of Eagle projects when we can’t come together due to social distancing threaten the timely completion of requirements.
The worldwide health crisis has changed and is changing the way of life. It’s no surprise that it has touched Scouting and affected it in ways we could not have imagined. Even the “any old thing” that Baden-Powell suggested we Be Prepared for probably didn’t anticipate what we’re going through.
We usually think of bullying as taking place between youth. Whether they lack the filter of age and experience or just don’t know that it’s wrong, young people – particularly teenagers – can be genuinely mean-spirited at times. But it’s not just young people.
By now, you’ve heard the news, along with the rest of the country, about the national Boy Scouts of America filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. “The Boy Scouts are bankrupt!” made its way across the country, along with allegations and suspicions and lots of finger-pointing.
Yesterday I gave the sermon in my church in observation of Scout Sunday. Here are some excerpts from my message. Here in the US, Scout Sunday is observed on the Sunday closest to the February 8 anniversary of the founding of Scouting in America.
The season for Blue & Gold Banquets is upon us. The Blue & Gold tradition is to celebrate the birthday of Scouting in the United States. It was on February 8, 1910, that the Boy Scouts of America was established, and the first Scout troops formed that year.
As we move forward into 2020, the Boy Scouts of America’s advancement team is out with a few reminders and new advice on the ongoing quest for one of our most visible methods – advancement. The evolution of Scoutbook brings us new opportunities to manage our programs.
As we head into another year, packs and troops will be holding Blue and Gold Banquets and Courts of Honor where we recognize our Scouts for their achievements. We should also remember to recognize our adult volunteers, because without them we wouldn’t have a Scouting program.
The end of the year is hectic, with packs, troops and crews wrapping up their roster review, collecting membership fees and filing their recharter paperwork. It can be a big job, especially if there’s lots of turnover either with youth members leaving as well as joining.
We frequently encounter Scouts who just don’t do what we think they should be doing, like planning the details of this weekend’s campout, or setting up their tents before nightfall. On a larger scope, we wish our Scouts would move along with advancement a little quicker, instead of dragging their feet on requirements.
Every couple months, the national advancement team at the Boy Scouts of America puts out an update for council and district advancement chairs and committee members. The current issue has a few items of interest: Scoutbook allows den leaders to set up the year of program activities with just a few clicks.
Update: On October 23, the BSA announced the new fees, as you’ve probably heard: Youth members in Cub Scouts, ScoutsBSA , Venturing and Sea Scouting, $60 per year Youth members in Exploring, $36 per year Adult members, $36 per year Annual charter fee, $60 per unit (previously $40) More information and links in this post on…
Time to open the mailbag and answer a couple more of your questions. First, from the chartered organization representative of a Cub Scout pack: We’re chartered by the Parent-Teacher Association of the elementary school that we serve. Up until now, the PTA has been a affiliated with the school, but they are separating and the…
To err is human, said the poet Alexander Pope over three hundred years ago. Everyone makes mistakes. Scouts make mistakes. In fact, the Scouting program is built partly to allow young people to safely make mistakes and learn from them.
With fall comes our surge of new members in the Boy Scouts of America – mainly in the Cub Scouting program – and with it comes the paperwork. The BSA membership of our current members gets renewed at recharter time, but those new to Scouting or new to our units (including transfers from other packs) need to…
Sometimes I wonder what we ever did before email became ubiquitous. I remember having phone lists and calling trees, phoning the pack leaders to let them know about an important item or change, and calling all my den parents to remind them about the upcoming den meeting or outing.
It’s still summer across the country and we’re mostly in that mode of thinking – summer camp or day camp, pack picnics and bike rides, hiking and weekend camping. Families are enjoying vacations, relaxing in the back yard or at the lake, working in the garden or taking in the splendors of summer.
Recent developments and changes in the Boy Scouts of America have resulted in the need to revise a few policies and procedures of the Order of the Arrow. The OA, sometimes called Scouting’s society of honor campers, has been around nearly as long as Scouting itself.
Depending on where you are, school is probably out, or will be out soon. Packs are wrapping up their program year and reminding parents of the summer’s planned activities. Troops are still meeting, though perhaps on a relaxed schedule, and are getting ready for summer camp, the highlight of the year.
The mailbag brought a couple more questions to the Bobwhite’s attention in the last few weeks. I’ll take a stab at answering your conundrums this week. First, a question from an experienced den leader – and thank you for your service, as you are the front-line deliverer of Scouting to our Cub Scouts!
You might have heard a story recently, first reported by National Public Radio, about how cases of child abuse in the past by volunteers of the Boy Scouts of America were significantly under-reported. The existence of the Ineligible Volunteer (IV) files, or “perversion files” as they were sometimes called internally, was revealed in 2012 as…
The aims of the Boy Scouts of America – character development, citizenship training, and mental and physical fitness – are carried out through application of the methods of each program. You can probably name at least a few of them off the top of your head.
You find them in just about every council. They can take place once or several times a year. Sometimes they’re run by the council; much of the time they tie in with a local college, museum or company. They’re attended by dozens or hundreds of Scouts.
As young people cross over from Cub Scouts to ScoutsBSA ‘s programs, their parents frequently follow. Often, the more involved adults have been volunteer leaders in their childrens’ packs, and it is this source of talent that many troops seek to help do the many things that adults do for the Scouts.
A couple weeks ago, I was at a quarterly Court of Honor for one of the Scouts BSA troops in the area. I had been invited to give a Friends of Scouting presentation to the troop families. As was customary with the troop, the master of ceremonies asked each patrol’s Scouts to introduce themselves by…
As the Scouts BSA program continues to roll along, our published materials are getting caught up with the changes. After the Guide to Safe Scouting updates released earlier, there is a new Guide to Advancement for 2019. Typically updated every two years, the current edition mainly edits content to reflect the addition of female youth…
Scouting safety is important enough that the guideposts we must follow are continuously reviewed and updated. The Boy Scouts of America maintains the latest version of the Guide to Safe Scouting online and provides a new printed version every year or so.
If you’re reading this article, you’re probably an adult volunteer in the Boy Scouts of America or another Scouting organization. We were the ones who took a step forward – or stayed in place when everyone else stepped back – and found ourselves in a job we didn’t know much about at first, other than it would…
For over fifteen years, I served as a den leader, Cubmaster and committee chair, as well as on the training committee for our district. In that time, I worked with dozens of other Scouters and well over a hundred Scouts (not to mention more Scouting professionals than I can recall) in supporting the Scouting program…
As we move into 2019, there are some advancement changes in the offing. Significant is the issuance of a new Eagle Scout leadership service project workbook, now available from the national forms library or your local council. The new form must be used for all Eagle projects started after January 1, 2019, but projects started…
As we near the end of the year, there are a couple recent developments that Scouters need to pay attention to, for the good of our Scouts, units and families. Training in progress If you’ve taken any of the online basic training courses recently, you know how they are structured.
It’s said that there are three secrets to giving a presentation: Tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them, and tell them what you told them. This approach is actually quite successful. You want to hook your audience with a taste of what’s to come before delving into the details of your message.
I had a feeling this wasn’t going to end well. You may have heard about the lawsuit filed by the Girl Scouts of the USA against the Boy Scouts of America for infringing on their trademark by dropping “boy” from Boy Scouts, calling it instead Scouts BSA .
AP Photo/Marco Ugarte If you follow the news at all, there’s no way to avoid hearing about what some are portraying as a grave threat to our country – an “invasion” by a caravan of “dangerous criminals” with plans to “attack our borders”.
Time for answers to a couple of your questions: Our Committee Chair has a conflict that prevents his participation in our troop committee meeting on its traditional night. In his absence our Scoutmaster is running the meetings. Is this a good practice, or should someone else be running our committee meeting?
(See update below with instructions on how to apply for the extension.) One of the most critical requirements for a Scout who is pursuing the rank of Eagle Scout is that the completion of all requirements, except for his board of review, must take place prior to his eighteenth birthday.
By now, you should have taken the new Youth Protection Training course online to bring your training current. As we’ve discussed before, everyone must take the new course, which was released in February, regardless of the expiration date of your YPT.
This fall, we’ll be joined by families new to Scouting. Curious about the flyer they might have picked up at a school assembly or by what their excited son or daughter told them about Cub Scouts, they’ll be walking through our doors into what – for them – is a great unknown.
Periodically, the Boy Scouts of America’s national advancement team updates everyone involved with advancement with the latest trends, ideas and changes. Here are a few topics covered in the latest update: Order of the Arrow Cub Crossover Ceremonies If you’ve been around Scouting for long, you’ve probably seen an Arrow of Light or Crossover ceremony…
As we have discussed recently , the revised Youth Protection Training is now available, and all Scouters are required to take it regardless of when your current training expires. If you have not taken the new course, which was released in mid-February, your YPT expiration date has been reset to September 30.
It’s already mid-August, which means school will be starting very soon for most, and with it the Cub Scout program year. Packs should have been planning their recruiting activities – Boy (and Girl!) Talks, exhibits and demonstrations at school activity nights, School Nights for Scouting (evening presentations and orientation for new Scouts and families) and the…
The world was on the edge of its seat last week over the fate of twelve young men and their coach in Thailand. They had decided to visit a cave following soccer practice one day, and a sudden rainstorm flooded the cave and trapped them deep inside.
