Programming
REMINDER: District Committee August 4th
A quick reminder that the District Committee will be meeting August 4th at 7:00 pm at Second Presbyterian Church, 7700 N Meridian St, Rm 407, Indianapolis, IN 46260.
Fall Camporee planning is full swing. Please work on your troop’s event. Some ideas are available on a previous post.
We are also working on finalizing basic information about the Winter and Spring Camporees, so come with your thoughts.
Membership subcommittee is in full swing preparing for Back to School Recruitment. Your packs and troops plans to participate (yes, troops helping packs recruit) is crucial for our success. We already know that some packs are spread thin on manpower. They are small and cover many schools on August 25th. Your help is needed for their success.
Fall also has many special events like a Rocket Launch in support of membership recruitment, Cub Scout leader training, Battle of Belzer, Cub Family Camp and many others. We need your help in planning for their success.
Adapting to Scouts’ Needs
Many of our units have now completed summer camp. The leaders have learned more about their scouts in that short week than they will the rest of the year. Some scouts are easy to manage and guide. Others require more skill to manage and guide.
Now is a great time to discuss with the other leaders of your unit the lessons learned about each of your scouts and to strategize on how to better serve them in their individual needs.
I grew up in scouts with some physical impairments. We never discussed these impairments with my scoutmaster. My family took the attitude that these were my hurdles to overcome. In retrospect, my scoutmaster had to learn my needs independently without much guidance. It gave him a tougher task. In the ’70’s and ’80’s, those things weren’t discussed as freely as today.
Over the past couple of years I have learned about the BSA’s standard practices for learning about and implementing individualized plans for scouts. This effort started from the efforts of Rebecca Zirnheld and Jody Winter to teach our troop about these standard practices. Over the intervening months I have come to see the value of these standard practices.
I highly recommend that all scout leaders read the the 8-page Guide to Working with Scouts with Special Needs and DisAbilities, No. 510-071 from the scouting.org website on special needs. If you have specific issues to address, more detail is available in the Scouting for Youth with Disabilities, No. 34059 (2007).
The key take away for me from these pieces of literature:
- Students with special needs have a Individual Education Plan (“IEP”) designed at school.
- 18% or so of students have an IEP.
- An IEP can be a useful tool to help a scouter better understand his scout, if the parents wish to share the highly confidential IEP.
- If the parents do not wish to share the IEP, a scouter who knows an IEP basic outline can ask more informed questions.
- The scouting literature is very helpful to guide a scouter deal with known problems and foster open communication with the parents.
Sometimes we can best avoid future confusion and conflict by learning more about what resources are available to us before they are needed.
I could imagine a situation where a scouter finds his newest scout has ADHD, which is a new to the scouter. The scouter could ask the parents to meet with him for 20 minutes and have the guides at the meeting. The scouter could say to the parents, “I don’t know ADHD except what I read here. Let me show you what it says. What else do I need to know about your son that this guide does not tell me?”
Invariably, the parents will tell a great deal that the guide does not. But that is the point. The parents know their son the best, so asking is key.
Other useful websites:
Fall Camporee Theme Chosen
District Chair John Wiebke (Troop 358) in cooperation with District Programming Chair Jim Kacius (Troop 174) and District Camporee Chair Stu Bowes (formerly of Troop 69) have been working to plan camporees further in advance.
At the last District Committee Meeting, John Wiebke proposed a Gladiatorial theme, in keeping with this being a Summer Olympic year. His proposal was gladly accepted.
John Wiebke also announced the following planning committee:
Stu Bowles – Camporee Chief
Jeff Heck- Publicity
Rick Akers- Finance/Health and Safety
Brian Crow- Participation & Program
John Ruggles- Participation & Program
Mark Pishon- Physical Arrangements
Curtis Shrote- Awards
Next month the District Committee will work on finalizing more details about the theme and events. The goal would be to have the events selected at the end of the August District Committee Meeting.
John Wiebke drew his inspiration for this event from this website, so take a look and come to the August meeting with your event proposals and patch proposals.
Make sure that your PLC has signed off on your proposal! We would love to see senior scouts running as many events as possible.
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Remember also to come with theme proposals for Winter and Spring Camporees, too, so those can be decided well in advance. Proposed dates for Winter Camporee are
1) weekend of Jan 21st
2) Weekend of Jan 28th
3) weekend of Feb 4th
Mid-Summer and Grand Ritual
Brothers
Scouting legacy
Scoutmastercg.com has a wonderful column about your Scouting Legacy. It is worth a quick read.
It is useful to keep your spirits up. Another spin is that it is a reason we need to recognize adults now. The boys often are slow to do it themselves. It may take years.
It may never occur and the adults must do it in self-reflection.
Still we are leaving a legacy.
International Counselors at Camps
Every year the Crossroads of America Council’s International Committee sponsors two counselors from overseas to staff at Camp Ransburg and Camp Krietenstein.
This year we have a young lady from England at Camp Ransburg. She is serving as a Ridge Commissioner. She is enjoying herself thoroughly.
We also have a young man from Taiwan at Camp Krietenstein. He is working in the ecology area, if memory serves. He is amazed by the amount of land that we have dedicated to a boy scout camp at Camp K West.
Please make sure to get to know them and make them feel welcome.
Firecrafter Report: Week 4
Unfortunately, we have no troops at Ransburg this week. That means that I did not get the report from there this week.
I did visit Camp Krietenstein. They have 7 candidates this week. Two are campers the rest are staff. One of the staffers was their international counselor from Taiwan. He was working hard to start a fire with the American methods.
Summer Camp Advice for Adults
As we are in the midst of summer camp season, it is always good to have a refresher on how to make summer camp great.
Bob White Blather rounds up several articles on summer camp. Follow the links and learn.
June 2016 Eagle Report
Congratulations to the following scouts who passed their Eagle Boards of Review on June 8, 2016! (This will be their date in rank, once ratified by the National Council’s Advancement Team.)
Ham Radio at Belzer: New Crew and Existing Opportunities
The WD9BSA group is looking for youth ages 14-21 (boys and girls), for a new Scout Venture Crew forming in the Crossroads of America Council, Boy Scouts of America.
It is based at the amateur radio station WD9BSA at Camp Belzer on the Northeast side of Indianapolis, we are looking for youth that are interested in amateur radio, radio technology, emergency communications and preparedness, severe weather spotting and just talking to others around the world on a great amateur radio station. Feel free to contact us for more information at wd9bsa@crossroadsbsa.org
Also, the WD9BSA station is open for all scouts and the public on the second Saturday of each month from 1-7pm (closed July and August). Entrance to the station is located at the northwest corner lower level of the Learning Center. Visitors who have amateur radio licenses may call the station in camp on 147.420 fm simplex or use the 443.000 (+100hz pl) repeater. Upcoming activities may be found on our website. www.wd9bsa.org. Next Open Operations Day is June 11th followed by ARRL Field Day at Camp Belzer June 25-26.
We are also running a weekly net, or on the air gathering, every Monday evening at 7:30 PM on the 443.000MHz repeater, with a 100hz PL tone. All scouts are welcome, boy or girl, licensed or 3rd party traffic, current or former members.
This is not a broadcast radio station. We don’t play music and read the news and weather (although we do sometimes share news and weather information, particularly during Skywarn severe weather nets). As noted above, it’s an amateur (ham) radio station that has applications in emergency preparedness and other areas where Scouts might be interested, as well as just communicating generally with people all over the world.
Amateur Radio is very much a STEM activity and can be integrated as part of the BSA STEM initiative.
CAC North Star Unofficial Website 
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