WAKWIB

Really looking forward to this weekend. It will be the traditional big party that kicks off the summer at my Scout Camp! This was nixed last year by the pandemic, but it looks like we will have something like a "return-to-normal" this year. I will be so happy connect with many old and new Scouting friends. I hope that all of you fellow Scouters will have a great summer, too!

Sad to hear this. The passing of a Scouter brings a sense of loss, not only to family and friends, but also to their entire community. God's peace to her and her family.

@John-in-KC I only know the plan at Bartle will be to have meals delivered to the campsites. If/when anything is served in the dining hall it will be a limited capacity type of thing to allow for social distancing.

Our council is going forward with summer camp starting in July. Lot's of policy and protocol to follow to keep in line with CDC guidelines. I'm not sure how much "fun" it will be for the adult leaders and the camp staff, but I hope it will be a good time for the Scouts. For the first time in many years, I won't be going there for a weekend visit or two due to a very strict no-visitor policy.

A great man, and I consider it a high honor to have him present the coin to start Super Bowl 54; a game won by my hometown team!

Yep. OA is something extra and requires more investment of time. By all means, I think a Scoutmaster should do his part to facilitate OA elections and try to insure that those elected attend the Ordeal stuff. Beyond that, it is purely up to the Scout to determine his plan and purpose in the Lodge.

And, we will see a lot of that in Lodges around the country. The girls in my council are gung-ho about getting involved in OA, Mic-O-Say, and camp staff. Where it sometimes feels like pulling teeth to get a boy to step up into a leadership role, it seems like there are more than a few girls that are wired for it.

Hopefully some replacement ceremonial team members were discovered and trained in time, (under short notice, I know). The camping situation will be what it will be. That part is probably out of your hands. Decent ceremonies around a roaring fire will be impressive, and the day of cheerful service should go on, even if the Scouts sleep inside.

A trailer, especially one that is all decorated with troop and scouting logos and such, is just awkward to drag around town. I imagine most of the good stuff stolen from these trailers gets sold.

Don't Walk The Trail Alone!

Be Prepared For Anything!

Here's how it's rolling out in my corner of the world. http://www.hoac-bsa.org/Data/Sites/1/media/membership/hoac-membership-fee-structure-overview.pdf

At a Troop level, in my experience as both a kid and as an adult, a prayer before the meal sometimes happened and sometimes not. There was always some type of Sunday morning gathering on campouts where prayers would be said. Summer camp was quite a different story. "Grace" was and is said before every meal. There are a couple of favorites from my youth. At camp we would often sing (as a group of about 500 people in the dining hall) an old Methodist hymn: "Be present at our table, Lord, Be here and ev'ry where adored, These mercies bless, and grant that we May feast in Paradise with Thee." When I was on staff as a kid, I really loved when one of my brother staff-men would give the prayer in the dining hall. He was Jewish, and would do the prayer in Hebrew and give the translation: Barukh ata Adonai Eloheinu, melekh ha'olam, hamotzi lehem min ha'aretz. Translation: "Blessed are You, LORD our God, King of the universe, Who brings forth bread from the earth."

I had to look at my profile, because I honestly couldn't remember. I've been here since Dec. 29, 2003. It's been fun and informative. The Issues and Politics Forum was quite a show back in the day. I was just thinking, that maybe the reason it has quieted down is that all the hot political, social and religious topics get hashed out to the max on Facebook and Twitter. It may be that a lot of us get so burnt-out on it on those platforms that we don't want to drag it over to this space. Just a theory. To be honest, the frisky debates of the past here on Scouter were far more rational and polite than what we see on social media these days This is still my go-to source for the latest things going on with the program. Many times I learn about the latest "news" here before it gets out through our council's channels.

The thing that drives me and my peers (old codgers by most standards), is the desire to deliver the best program possible. All of us have had to take a leap-of-faith in the face of the recent changes. In our council, the girls who participated in our summer camp program loved it to the max, and we changed absolutely nothing about it. We were quite surprised and it has motivated us to drive forward because we know the interest and participation from young ladies in our community is only going to increase.