National Outdoor Award Medal

[mrjohns2]

8 minutes ago, CynicalScouter said:

My goodness, even in the adult world I gain insights and information from newsletters I receive from national and my council. This just seems. Wow.

I will never, ever support withholding (age appropriate) information from scouts.

That is not at all what they said. No one is talking about withholding info, it just isn't a responsibility of the leader to cover each and ever award. 

[qwazse]

5 hours ago, CynicalScouter said:So, adults should withhold information from scouts? ...

On my honor, I have never withheld any information from a scout that could, one day forestall death (the scout’s or other’s) and generally make the world a better place.

5 hours ago, UKScouterInCA said:

... I agree completely, why would you hide that? Give the Scouts some ideas, they can then choose if they use the ideas or not. But no harm and a lot of benefit to helping provide them.

I dunno, why would I place an orienteering control in the middle of the woods and not give a scout turn-by-turn directions to it?

 

5 hours ago, CynicalScouter said:

Right! I am all for scout led, but that does NOT mean that adults cannot be sources of INFORMATION or that they should withhold information from scouts about opportunities.

Neither you nor I can be exauhstive sources of information on every path a scout may take. If you think you have been, you’ve deluded yourself. And, there is a risk, like at the start of this thread, of bemoaning the requirements of an award because it emphasizes something your scout doesn’t want to pursue. The next step is we fall into a Dad-shame trap.

I “knew” Venturing Silver would be an ideal path for my daughter. She, like 99% of Venturers didn’t see the value in it. She didn’t even take VLST until she had to teach it as part of her VOA responsibilities. Then she had the gall to complain about why I hadn’t told her about it earlier! She had the Leadership Manual on her shelf for three years! Well, absent BSA bling, she started college early, got a full ride somewhere just across town from @Eagledad, and commenced extracting oil and gas for everyone until you all stopped driving around last year. Then she came home and started in freight logistics, and just moved to her house across town that she bought with her nest egg. There are a couple life skills her brothers picked up that she missed out on by not perusing a personal growth award, so I’m a little sorry for that, but I’m not sorry that and all her friends have grown strong and good nonetheless.

And now, award requirements are online (even if they aren’t in plain-old-ascii like the game FAQs that Son #2 learned to read by). A youth’s journey can start before he/she even cracks open a handbook!

[mashmaster]

To test it, I mentioned it to my son tonight.  And he said that is interesting but I am not going to go back and count up all my nights.  I said we could do it together and he said no thanks.  I asked him how many nights he thinks he has camped with cubs, troops, ship, crew.    He said "a lot"....  

🙂

 

[Eagledad]

On 1/16/2021 at 10:01 AM, CynicalScouter said:

True, but I will say that there is a responsibility of adult leaders to make scouts aware of the opportunities. For example, I know one troop (not mine) that the SM in his newsletter once a month to parents and scouts has an "award of the month" that describes the award and requirements.

 

On 1/16/2021 at 1:09 PM, qwazse said:

I'm of the opposite view.  It is the scout's responsibility to read his/her handbook, magazines, and other literature and learn what awards they might wish to earn.

 

On 1/16/2021 at 1:23 PM, CynicalScouter said:

My goodness, even in the adult world I gain insights and information from newsletters I receive from national and my council. This just seems. Wow.

I will never, ever support withholding (age appropriate) information from scouts.

Withholding? Please! Self righteous posturing comes off uncouth-like. Better to ask questions so as to better understand the Poster’s opinion.

Equiping scouts to succeed while letting them fail is complicated. But I’m reminded of the father of a scout ready for his ECOH. He appeared at a meeting to discuss his son’s struggle to complete and submit his Eagle packet to the district advancement committee. He was lost and felt we werean’t cooperating.

The 17 year old scout moved from another state and joined our troop 6 months earlier. He only had three MBs to finish when he joined. Once he finished the 3 badges, henmet with our Eagle adviser to complete his Eagle packet. Our advisor gave him the information she gives all the scouts ready to submit paperwork. However, he was clueless and was too shy to ask for more help. See, each scout in his other troop is given a schedule of advancement classes to Eagle when they join. The adults also keep all the scouts advancement records and important paperwork. TheY organize it all and submit it to the EBOR. All the scouts have to do In that troop,is wait for a call from their advisor telling them when to go to there EBOR.

Our troop, on the other hand, doesn’t set any advancement agenda, we don’t hold or organize any advancement paperwork, prepare the Eagle packet, or contact the district EBOR. In fact, the scouts have to tell the SM the date of the EBOR. I explained to dad the differences between our programs and finished with “we believe the Eagle has the character of an adult, so expect him to handle his advancement as an adult”. The reason I remember saying that is because his dad smiled and nodded with agreement. We were certainly on the same page. I told him we would be certainly help give he and his son all the information they required for his son to make the contacts and submit the packet. We had a wonderful ECOH on a campout 3 months later.

Now I admit the two troops are the extreme ends of the information spectrum, but the 100 other scouts in our troop never complained. From day one, they were expected to take responsibility for finding and using information and resources they needed for the goals of their scouting career. It’s not that we didn’t provide information, but like qwazse, we expected them to use the handbooks. That was how they grew in the program.

From my experience, treat a scout as an adult with adult expectations, they will behave as adults.

Barry

[InquisitiveScouter]

1 hour ago, Eagledad said:

See, each scout in his other troop is given a schedule of advancement classes to Eagle when they join. The adults also keep all the scouts advancement records and important paperwork. TheY organize it all and submit it to the EBOR. All the scouts have to do In that troop,is wait for a call from their advisor telling them when to go to there EBOR.

Cringe...

[Eagledad]

1 minute ago, InquisitiveScouter said:

Cringe...

Yes, me to. I was impressed how dad wanted his son to prove himself with us. He was a great scout. He resuscitated a baby found face down in a pool. Came back a hero from Afghanistan. I am honored to have been his Scoutmaster for the year he was with us. I wish we had him from Webelos. He would have been amazing in our program.
 

Barry

[TMSM]

My son actually brought this Nationall Outdoor Award Meda idea to me (SM) and said this is what his goal was. He worked with our Awards Chair to help him understand what each segment was and encouraged other scouts to go for as many segements as possible. As an older, 16, scout it gave him a reason to go to summer camp and to look outside for training. Many of the requirements come from earning a MB and then participating in those activities but the other parts were hard for him to complete. WFA - 16 hour training was hard to schedule aroung sports and troop activities. LNT train the trainer was really hard to fine during COVID. Our council dropped these classes 4 years ago and other opportunities were either too far to drive or were cancelled. He did finally get this all completed and on hiw own. Our CoH is in 2 weeks he will be awarded the NOA medal so I am both a proud dad and SM.

Some of his stats:

Miles hiked - 600

Nights camped  - 151

Hours of Aquatics - 106

Conservation Hours - 62

High Adventures - 5

This is a great award and should be promoted more to get scouts to do what scouts do.

I am trying to find out how many scouts have earned this medal - any ideas how to find this number?

[InquisitiveScouter]

Just now, TMSM said:

My son actually brought this Nationall Outdoor Award Meda idea to me (SM) and said this is what his goal was. He worked with our Awards Chair to help him understand what each segment was and encouraged other scouts to go for as many segements as possible. As an older, 16, scout it gave him a reason to go to summer camp and to look outside for training. Many of the requirements come from earning a MB and then participating in those activities but the other parts were hard for him to complete. WFA - 16 hour training was hard to schedule aroung sports and troop activities. LNT train the trainer was really hard to fine during COVID. Our council dropped these classes 4 years ago and other opportunities were either too far to drive or were cancelled. He did finally get this all completed and on hiw own. Our CoH is in 2 weeks he will be awarded the NOA medal so I am both a proud dad and SM.

Some of his stats:

Miles hiked - 600

Nights camped  - 151

Hours of Aquatics - 106

Conservation Hours - 62

High Adventures - 5

This is a great award and should be promoted more to get scouts to do what scouts do.

I am trying to find out how many scouts have earned this medal - any ideas how to find this number?

In your council, call, and very nicely ask your registrar.  They can only give you the council number though.

National, ask Bryan on Scouting

https://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/contact/

They have contacts at National that might give an answer this year, and "Bryan" might post a piece on it.

 

[UKScouterInCA]

Wondering if anyone ever got any numbers on how many Scouts (ever, average per year) earn this award?

I recently saw some reports on a local-ish Scout who earned the Albert Einstein Supernova award and the article said he was the 13th Scout ever to earn it. Anyway I doubt numbers are anywhere near as low, but it would be fascinating to know a ballpark.