Activities
Camporee: 11 Days — Emergency Mobilization
District Camporee Chair Stu Bowes announced yesterday, “Con Sullivan, our District Executive, will be conducting a mass casualty and mobilization drill with our Zombie theme at 4:00 for the Scouts. This should help some of the boys (and motivate others) who are working on their E Prep Merit Badge.”
Con is an Emergency Preparedness merit badge counselor. More importantly, he has a Master’s Degree 
from Ball State in Government Affairs, with an emphasis in Homeland Security. He will make himself available to scouts who wish to do some counseling with a counselor having a professional insight into this world. (As always, scouts should bring their blue cards with scoutmaster signatures.) Check in with the scout cabin to keep up to date on Con’s schedule.
Emergency Preparedness Merit Badge Requirement #7 states, “Take part in an emergency service project, either a real one or a practice drill, with a Scouting unit or a community agency.”
Requirement 8 further requires,
Do the following:
A. Prepare a written plan for mobilizing your troop when needed to do emergency service. If there is already a plan, explain it. Tell your part in making it work.
B. Take part in at least one troop mobilization. Before the exercise, describe your part to your counselor. Afterward, conduct an “after-action” lesson, discussing what you learned during the exercise that required changes or adjustments to the plan.
C. Prepare a personal emergency service pack for a mobilization call. Prepare a family emergency kit (suitcase or waterproof box) for use by your family in case an emergency evacuation is needed. Explain the needs and uses of the contents.
What can you imagine for your scouts can be done to prepare for Con’s exercise to complete these requirements!?
How Many Service Hours by Scouts worldwide by 2020?
At Earth Day 2015, World Organization of Scouting Movement’s president Scott Teare promised 1,000,000,000 hours of service by scouts.
Crossroads of America Council and Del-Mi District and National Executive Staff Director of Sustainability John Stewart undertook the challenge on behalf of BSA.
What part is your unit playing?
How do we know? You need to report your unit’s service hours and designate Messenger of Peace as benefitting organization.
Service Hours Reporting to Council
UPDATE 7/21/15: In July BSA open direct access to this reporting from within my.scouting.org. Now there are two ways to access the national database: my.scouting.org and servicehours.scouting.org. There is one way to access the local database, described below.
Like any business, Crossroads of America Council wants to be able to understand what is happening in its territory. Since the Council cannot have a person at every Pack, Troop, or Crew activity, Council seeks to learn what is happening by asking its units to report their various activities. We are all familiar with recharter reports, JTE reports, advancement reports and summer camp reports.
What we are not as familiar with is Service Hours Reports.
Council seeks to learn information about unit service hours for many reasons. One is to be able to better market scouting in our Central Indiana territory. When scouting was in its infancy, newspapers such as the Indianapolis Star ran reports about the activities of Boy Scout Troops all over the Indianapolis area. For nearly 20 years, these newspapers ran a column entitled, “Star’s Column for Boy Scouts.” It was the blog of its day.
During World War I and the Liberty Bond Drive, reports about the troops’ bond sales and other service activities took greater prominence in the columns.
In addition the newspapers general News Department would run stand-alone stories about the scout troops service to others.
Today, newspapers do not spend any time running regular columns about scouting. There are too many competing youth organization that would want equal time.
The current generation needs to rely on newer technology than a newspaper beat reporter to get the word out about what the scouts are doing every day.
We troop leaders need to be our own newspaper reporters. We need to gather information about the story. We need to write reports. We need to publish the reports. We need to make sure our reports get into the hands of prospective scouting families.
Service hours are an important part of Journey to Excellence reporting, which will be required with this year’s Rechartering.
STEM Scouts Expanding . . . to our Backyard
Patrick Sterrett, our Crossroads of America Council Scout Executive, spoke to the College of Commissioner Science at Belzer’s Activity Center on June 6, 2015. He covered a variety of topics, but one of them had a direct impact on our local council: the introduction of a pilot program for STEM Scouts.
Patrick described the traditional scouting program as “outdoor scouts.” To reach more youth, BSA and our Council are piloting a new “indoor scouts,” called “STEM Scouts.” Patrick reports that the Council is excited to be a part of this project. It has required the acquisition of a Vortex lab.
White Stag National Youth Leadership Training slots still available
Attention Scoutmasters, Varsity Coaches and Crew Advisors! Space is still available for youth to attend National Youth Leadership Training / White Stag. Courses offered in June and July. NYLT is an exciting, action-packed program focused on developing your Scout’s leadership skills they can then use in your unit. Register a Scout today at the Council website.
Carolyn Small | Program Director – Special Initiatives
Summer camp swim pre-tests
On Sunday, April 26, 2015 and again on Saturday, May 2, 2015, the council is offering swim tests for summer camp.many boys look forward to being able to swim at summer camp. It is an opportunity to cool off and play with friends.
Many a Boy Scout who has not spent much time swimming in brown lake water has some fears when he goes to do his swim test on the Sunday of arrival. In fact, there are many stories about competitive swimmers who will not pass the swim test because of these fears.
These pre-tests are a great opportunity for the boys to have their swim test completed before arriving at summer camp. This allows them to adapt to the lake water on their own time and schedule. It increases the likelihood that they will get Joy went out of their swimming opportunities.
For more information, please visit the events page of this blog.
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