National Camping Award

[trewm]

The National Camping Award requirements state "On other campouts, at least 33 percent of your Scouts must be in attendance for each twenty-four-hour period to count as a camper day to qualify for the troop ribbons."

 

My question pertains to the 24 hour period statement. If I take this literally, a weekend camping trip from 5pm on Friday to noon on Sundat only counts as one camper day rather than two as it doesn't cover a complete 48 hours. I was planning on counting it as two camper days as it includes two nights of camping. Does this seem unreasonable?

 

Martin Trew

Scoutmaster, T111, NJ

[LauraT7]

Your question confuses me, as I hadn't really thought about it -

 

we usually have between 17 and 25 boys in our troop since my son and I joined. Most campouts we have only about 2-3 boys missing - so I am sure we are covered anyway, and we always get the national camping award each year.

 

We also had a habit of doing only one night campouts - which we have recently changed.

 

our two exceptions are when we do patrol or "special requirement" campouts - such as our recent WI river trip - where the boys who went had to have passed their swim test, have their swimming badge and we required them to be at least first class, so that we knew they had some canoeing experience (in our troop, anyway, first classers have been around long enough to have canoed at camp and with the troop some)

 

on a recent campout this summer, a two nighter - about 5 friday to noon sunday - we had one boy who had to leave Sat afternoon for a family event that night, and another boy who had to work saturday morning, so he came up and joined us late saturday afternoon. they may or may not have overlapped being there - i don't think it matters...

 

I think the effort outweighs the clocked time - for both these boys, we recorded only one night of camping toward their count toward OA and Camping badge - but they were THERE and contributed every bit as much as the other boys who stayed both nights to the planning and execution of the trip. One helped set up camp, and the other helped take it down.

 

if the CAMPOUT is less than 48 hours - I'd still count it as two days - just because you are limited to leaving after the adults get off work on Friday and have to get back sunday for some family (and HOMEWORK!) time, doesn't mean you should shortchange the kids. Besides, we all know that any campout takes cumulative time than a sunday afternoon to make it happen.

 

Let's not be so nitpicky?

 

[FScouter]

If your workday is from 7 AM to 4 PM and you clock in 20 minutes late and leave 20 minutes early, do you get paid for a full day of work?

 

If 5 PM Friday til noon Sunday counts for two 24-hour days, how about 6 PM Friday til 10 AM Sunday? Or 8 PM til right after Sunday breakfast? At what point do you decide its not really two days?

 

Sure, maybe it's nit-picky, but consider that we set the example for our boys by the way we treat such things. Is it so important to get credit for an extra day that were willing to stretch the truth?

 

Just something to consider.

[trewm]

As I said in my original post, I was planning on counting the number of nights so all of your examples would count as 2 camping days. Otherwise, it would seem almost impossible to reach some of the higher levels of the award.

 

Martin Trew

Scoutmaster, T111, NJ

[SR540Beaver]

fscouter,

 

It all depends on whether you are on the clock or salaried. I get paid the same if I'm late or leave early. Of course, when the job calls for it I answer the phone in the middle of the night and work an occasional Saturday. No overtime though, which is a bummer.

 

Just yanking your chain!