Nat. Outdoor Award - updates wanted

[bnelon44]

I don't like adults in a troop strutting around with woodbadge neckers either ;-)

 

If the troop has a neckerchief, everyone should be wearing the troop neckerchief.

 

(and I said I was done with this....)

 

 

[NEPAScouter]

Hey bnelon! Ok, you may be done with your necker issue, but I'm not letting you off the hook on the OP yet ;-).

 

The OP asked about the popularity of the NOAA program, and you mentioned you had been in touch with the designer of the award. Have you heard anything about how much adoption there has been of the award at any of it's levels? Like I said in my original reply we've had a couple get one camping segment with some pins based on what they had been doing as scouts over the last 5 or 6 years. If we're as serious as I think we are about using the award to spur more outdoor activity among our scouts, my 20-member troop might see the potential for one or two of our crossovers from last year to qualify for the medal no sooner than 4-5 years from now, realistically, if we follow what we think is the spirit of the segment requirements.

 

I'd hate to see this program go away before then.

 

Thanks in advance for any info!

[cbowe]

 

We have a few scout that have earned one to many of the segments.

 

We have 2 with the camping segment 1 has 2 gold and 1 has 3. I expect both will get silvers pretty easily.

4 with the aquatics segement 2 of them have multiple golds.

2 with cycling

1 has almost finished the hiking segments, still needs the orienteering MB

2 will finish the adventure segment when they get back from Philmont.

 

The hard part of these is getting the scouts to get the related MBs since they are not required for Eagle and there are alot more that are easier than cycling, hiking etc. to do as optionals. The mile swim is also a hurdle

 

We have an active program 11ish weekend outing, 2 weeks of scout camp and 1 week high adventure outing a year. The scouts like mountain biking trips (30+ miles on the outing typically) Canoeing (50 miler and a weekend canoe trip) Hiking 3 10+ miles hiking weekends, Rock climbing, etc.

 

If the program has a good balance of activities and the scouts attend those activities (which they do becuase it is not the same old same old) then all we have to do is make them aware of the related merit badges. Out PLC elected to do a patrol cookoff weekend where they worked on the cooking MB they also did a pioneering weekend were they spent the weekend building stuff.

 

Chris

 

 

 

 

 

 

[bnelon44]

NEPAScouter

 

No, I have not asked him how popular the program is

[Basementdweller]

NEPA

 

 

While the scouts should be aware of the program......I wouldn't promote it real heavy until they are one merit badge short....

 

The journey not the patch please.

 

In my opinion this is a more significant award than Eagle.....Especially if you earn all the rockers, I could care less about the devices. In my opinion it means the scout was part of a well rounded program and sampled everything the program has to offer.

[Eaglemom2b]

Basement -

 

You bring up something else I have been wondering.

 

Should boys passively earn awards or do they need to actively persue the achievements?

 

(after typing a long post I have decided that it should probably be a new thread.)

[JMHawkins]

While the scouts should be aware of the program......I wouldn't promote it real heavy until they are one merit badge short....

 

I would promote it a bit in the lead up to the PLC planning session. It might be another way of helping them envision a well-rounded program. Most of the items in there are going to take a while to accomplish - at least a couple of years to get to the 2 x gold needed for the pin.

[NEPAScouter]

Hi folks, sorry for the delay in responding -- had an out-of-town trip.

 

Basement, yep, we are in agreement on the amount of promotion. It's important that the scouts take ownership of this themselves.

 

We showed the scouts the medal and the full set of rockers last summer (borrowed them from the council), and told them to talk with their PLs and SM/ASMs whenever they wanted to make specific progress in the program (e.g. organize *more* outdoor activities beyond what we have). The two scouts were recognized for their camping rockers at last September's COH.

 

Since then, there's been no "adult push," but we have the ASMs keeping track of troop/patrol outdoor activities in the background. We did remind the scouts this month about what merit badges they might want to consider at summer camp for the NOAA program, and we did have to alert some gung-ho outdoorsman fathers that family events could not be counted toward the program, but that's been it in the past year.

 

As an aside, I've been agitating with our council summer camp administration to recognize scouts who finish a rocker or pin or medal while at summer camp with a suitable individual shout-out at the closing campfire. What better place to get scouts peer-recognized for developing their outdoorsmanship than in the great outdoors around the ol' campfire?