Ready to lead the charge in your pack, troop, team, or crew?
Check out the Boy Scouts of America’s new Discover card programs, which offer a lesson in financial responsibility for your Scouts and a boost for the BSA.
There are two separate components to the program. Here’s what you need to know: Continue reading
Have you ever slept 300 feet underground? Stood atop a 14,000-foot peak? Created a robot?
The BSA is betting those questions and other enticing messages will help bring prospective members to your Venturing crew.
It’s all part of the new Venturing Tool Kit, released this month by the BSA’s Marketing Group.
At the link above, you’ll find posters and fliers designed for you to print and tack onto bulletin boards, hand out to friends, or otherwise distribute to young men and women looking for an organization that’s enriching, engaging, and exciting.
There’s even a handy recruiting guide (PDF) that tells you when, where, and how to attract new Venturers.
The ultimate prize comes when you show young men and women age 14 to 20 (or 13 and finished with the eighth grade) the adventures awaiting them if they join your crew. Get started today!
How is recruiting for a Venturing crew different from recruiting for a Boy Scout troop? Leave your ideas below.
(h/t to Scout Wire for the original post)
Want to get your unit’s recruiting up to speed?
Consider hauling your “Join Scouting” message everywhere your pack, troop, team, or crew travels.
Start by taking a page from Canton, Ohio, Troop 4’s playbook, which just wrapped its trailer with a complete visual history of the unit.
Michael Gorfido, assistant Scoutmaster, writes that the trailer has been “completely wrapped with graphics that tell the whole Troop 4 history in picture form and a nifty timeline that features WD Boyce, Baden-Powell, handbooks for each period, and the history of Scouting, including the 100th year celebration. It’s really cool.”
Troop 4 was formed in 1915, making it the oldest continually chartered troop in the Buckeye Council, Gorfido says.
“Our troop has more than 150 Eagles, a storied history of very committed Scoutmasters, has participated in Pipestone every year, Klondike, and goes to Philmont every other year,” Gorfido continues. “I transferred my son there two years ago because of the rich heritage and wanted him to experience that.”
Find some more photos of Troop 4′s mobile masterpiece below. Continue reading
The patch comes in blue for Cub Scouts and green for Boy Scouts, Venturers, Varsity Scouts, and Sea Scouts.
Kids spend more than 7.5 hours a day using some kind of electronic device, according to a 2010 Kaiser Family Foundation study.
In other words, if they’re awake and not at school, they’re probably online.
Whatever their reason for logging on — school project, merit badge research, socializing, games — safety is never guaranteed.
That’s why the Boy Scouts of America’s new Cyber Chip, announced last week, is a big step in the right direction in the effort to keep kids safe online. And because June is National Internet Safety Month, the timing couldn’t be better.
In developing this new Youth Protection tool, the BSA teamed up with content expert NetSmartz, part of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, as well as training experts for different law enforcement agencies.
The Cyber Chip joins the Totin’ Chip and Whittling Chip as important safety tools your Scouts should earn and carry with them. Bonus: The pocket patch they get, designed to look like a smartphone, is unlike any official BSA patch I’ve ever seen.
Have your Scouts earn their Cyber Chip ASAP. Here’s how:
Like rare patches? How about one only 11 men have ever worn?
Today, we learned the identity of the next man to join the impressive fraternity of Chief Scout Executives that started with Scouting legend James E. West. (See the full list below.)
The Chief Scout Executive Selection Committee announced it has chosen Wayne Brock as the next Chief Scout Executive of the Boy Scouts of America.
On Sept. 1, 2012, he’ll take office and become just the 12th chief in the BSA’s 102 years.
Here’s a new one: An East Coast troop’s uniform policy involves telling older Scouts not to wear their uniforms in public.
Yep, it happened in Scouter B.C.’s troop. Here’s how B.C., who asked me not to use their full name, explained it in an email to me last week:
I have recently become the assistant Scoutmaster for my son’s troop. The Scoutmaster has a policy that disturbs me a little. The older Scouts in our troop don’t wear their uniform in public. The Scoutmaster calls it “social suicide!” I believe they should be proud of the uniform. Am I wrong? Does the Scoutmaster have that right?
The BSA has a uniform policy that discusses the “sense of identification and commitment” members get when wearing uniforms. But there’s no specific mention of exactly when uniforms should be worn, other than saying they’re for “suitable occasions.” Deciding what constitutes a “suitable occasion” is left to units.
In other words, the Scoutmaster may have that right, but whether it’s a good idea is open for discussion.
So I posted the question on our Facebook page last week, and it quickly became the most-commented post in the Scouting magazine page’s history. At the time of this writing, more than 250 comments have been posted.
Here are some highlights from the conversation:
At this point of the school year, are your Scouts ready to put down F. Scott Fitzgerald and pick up a Frisbee?
Embrace their urge to get outside once school’s out, but don’t let reading take the summer off. And fortunately, there’s help to do just that.
Children’s Book Week, the “national celebration of books and reading for youth,” is celebrating its 93rd year this week. And today, the Children’s Book Council released the winners of its Children’s Choice Book Awards, “the only national child-chosen book awards program.”
Get ready to dot-dot your I’s and dash your T’s.
Today, the Boy Scouts of America released the Morse Code Interpreter Strip, an official patch for Scouts and Scouters who can demonstrate their ability to “speak” this special language.
Morse Code joins languages like Spanish, French, Italian, German, Japanese, Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, Sign Language, and several others as interpreter strips available for wear on Scout uniforms (above the right pocket).
To get a typical interpreter strip, you must carry on a five-minute conversation, translate a two-minute speech, write a letter in the language, and translate 200 words from the written word.
But Morse Code, a vital communications tool during World War II, doesn’t really work with those requirements. So Jim Wilson and the BSA team crafted new ones:
Hey, you with the post-hole digger! Let me see some ID!
When it comes to service projects, nobody does it better — or safer — than the Boy Scouts.
But before you gather equipment for your next Good Turn, ask yourself some questions:
Can my 14- and 15-year-old Boy Scouts use lawnmowers and string trimmers to cut the grass at the local church?
Can my 16- and 17-year-old Venturers use a chain saw and log splitter to cut firewood for elderly residents?
In this case, the answer is no and no.
That’s why it’s critical to follow the Age Guidelines for Tool Use and Work at Elevations or Excavations, a new document that details how old Scouts should be to use certain hand tools and power tools at service projects (including Eagle Scout service projects).
I’ve got complete details below.
What’s the only thing better than visiting a national park with Scouts?
Taking that same trip for free.
That’s the beauty of National Park Week, held this year from April 21-29. For these nine glorious days — spanning two full weekends — all 397 national parks waive entrance fees, commercial tour fees, and transportation entrance fees.
National Park Week is one of several fee-free periods each year, but it’s by far the longest, giving you plenty of time to put your wallet away, find a park, and watch America’s Best Idea get even better.
