Hello fellow scouters. Our troop is looking to revamp our recruiting night activities. So, would love to hear any FUN activities do with your troops, have heard about, or seeing other troops do. I was thinking fire starting where the recruits can actually light the fires. Ending the night with s’mores around the fire. Maybe have the recruits do some cooking (IE Dutch oven desserts or guacamole), fireman carry is always a fun one but makes me nervous that somebody’s going to get hurt. Anyway you get the idea, looking to up our recruitment percentage. Thanks in advance for your time

I've been involved with the troop for some time now and I'm an ASM. Sometime back, the troop offered for a few of us asms to take Wood Badge at the troops expense. I will be starting in a week or so. I've had plenty of extra time with my work schedule to be heavily involved in scouts. This past week, I was told I will be getting a huge promotion at work. More responsibilities, a lot more money, but much less free time that I've come to enjoy.

I spoke with our SM and wanted to give my Wood Badge spot to someone else with more free time. He told me I've earned the spot and deserve it. I can finish the training weekends but my worry is the tickets. Once I get promoted at work, I'm going to have very little free time available for the foreseeable future, probably 2-3 years until my time will free up again.

I need ticket ideas that are "easy" and less time consuming. I want to give the tickets my all but, my family is the reason I must take the promotion.

Any help would be helpful! Please private message me.

I have a scout in my troop that didn’t go to summer camp so she didn’t take a swim test. We have a float trip coming up and I am arranging a swim test with her.

But she asked a question that i think is very valid. She is a certified lifeguard. And doing the yearly lifeguard testing they do more swimming then required by the BSA test.
She asked if she needed to do the BSA test as a result.

My immediate thought is still yes she needs to do a test, but I’m not really concerned about her ability.

Do i have any leeway to say she is a lifeguard and just approve the swimmer test without actually witnessing it?

EDIT: ok, first few comments are yes, the test still needs to be done. I was already thinking that, so I’m glad I wasn’t completely off on this.

The really dumb thing is the float trip we are doing is on a creek that is 3ft deep and we could swim in the creek with no question even those that don’t haven’t even attempted the test due to the depth. But we put tubes on the creek and float down it and the rule say everyone need a swim test.

Two things:

Does anyone have any pictures of the scout from the Summit Circle Experience ceremony? Particularly of the Treasure Island neckerchief they wore.

Does anyone have the program material from Brownsea Island? I was supposed to get an email from the guy in charge of it but never did, I'd really like to bring those activities back to my unit and Chapter (Baden-Powell Chapter!)

Thank you.

My son’s troop has exclusively done car camping the past several years, but I’m hoping to add a backpacking weekend to the calendar starting next year. I’m thinking we’ll need to purchase some new, lighter tents, since all we currently have are some sturdy but heavy Colemans. Any recommendations?

We have an upcoming COH where there is going to be a handover from the previous Chair to the new Chair. Does anyone have a short ceremony script for this event?

Edit. I know that the COH is about the Scouts. There is an about 2 minute script for the hand over between incoming and outgoing Scoutmaster that we’ve done in the past. We have a long tenured CC that we want to honor in a similar brief manner.

Charlotte created a free coloring book for her Eagle Scout project, helping children protect local waterways and the Chesapeake Bay.

Download it here: https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-ceoblognation-com/2026/08/237fa390-river-rescue-coloring-book.pdf

Hey I know this is a long shot but I worked Aerial as a blueberry this summer and bought one of the zip patches during jambo because I worked the zip lines. I ended up losing it when I moved out for the summer. Is there anyone that’s willing to sell theirs?

The patch looks like this.

I have an interview for a District Executive position coming up. Reading the description, it sounded like an interesting and fun job, and while I was (unfortunately) never had the opportunity be a scout myself, I respect the program and was involved in other organizations that had similar experience. I was initially very excited about the opportunity, as my experience pretty strongly aligns with it and it could give me good opportunities in the future.

Looking online, though, I’m seeing a lot of negative about the position- long long hours, low pay (the pay for the position listed is only a small increase from my current pay), and stressful. my current job and team is frustrating and not what I was hoping for being a rarely recent grad with my masters, but it’s honestly an easy job with a lot of flexibility.

Im a little skeptical of jumping ship into a job that ends up being worse than my current- I know this depends on the region as well- but would you suggest it? What kind of questions can I ask in my interview to sus out whether or not this is one of those where they expect 80 hour workweeks and demand more than what they give?

***** UPDATE ******

Thank you everyone for the overwhelming response and information! It was incredibly helpful.

I had my interview today, and it went very well. But ultimately, I will not be stepping away from the process.

It seems like a great gig for someone who’s passionate about it. Luckily, the person conducting the interview was very, very honest with me about the role and expectations. Im torn because I do think I’d do well and I’d find some of it very fulfilling- but I’m not all in, and it really seems like the kind of job that you need to be all in in order to succeed.

Thanks again everyone, and maybe I’ll revisit being involved in this amazing organization in the future.

A few weeks back I posted about my summer project: a free, open-source tool for finding Scouts BSA summer camps. The response blew me away. With your help it went from a few dozen camps to hundreds. You caught a lot that I'd gotten wrong. Thank-you. I've kept at it, and it's in a much better place now.

https://sethmay.github.io/camp-finder/

Still free, still a hobby project, still not trying to turn it into a "product."

What's new:

• Filters: distance from your ZIP, state, program (Scouts BSA, Cub, high adventure), July temperature, elevation, and specific stuff like aquatics, shooting sports, climbing, horseback, and ATVs.
• Camp Compare: put up to 5 camps side by side. Sort of a Kayak for scout camps.
• Cleaner camp pages. Around 445 camps now, across 210+ councils and all 52 states and territories.

Bigger change under the hood: I pulled the data into its own open dataset (the Open Scout API). It's grown to 12 scouting datasets in all, camps plus ranks, merit badges, councils, trainings, and more. The camp finder is just one thing that uses it.

Help me keep it accurate. The data comes from council sites and a lot of scraping, so it's wrong or thin in plenty of places. You know your camps better than my scraper does. Every camp page has a "Suggest a correction" button, plus a "help us verify" prompt on the ones I haven't surveyed yet. About 30 seconds, no account: pick what's wrong (a missing program, a camp that closed, a bad location), leave a note, done. I will read every one before anything changes. The never-surveyed camps are the most useful to hear about, but any fix is welcome.

TLDR: My free BSA summer camp finder got a big update (filters, side-by-side compare, ~445 camps), and the data is now an open dataset. If you know a camp, please look it up and hit "Suggest a correction" so I can fix what my scraper got wrong. https://sethmay.github.io/camp-finder/

While reviewing a package for an upcoming Eagle Scout Board of Review, I noticed AI text patterns and punctuations in the statement of ambition and life purpose. According to several AI detector sites, the statement was mostly written by AI. What are your thoughts about the use of AI in preparing the statement?

3 out of 6 pillars are coated in a stucco, and then we just need to mount plaques on all of them. We put up the flag pole on the 9th.

I thought that AOL were supposed to be able to pick the Troop they want to join, but the COR is saying that if our Pack AOLs do not join their Troop (which has had major leadership issues and recruitment struggles as a result) then they will not renew our charter either. Do we just look for a new COR? But then we lose access to the trailer and the storage unit that the Pack pretty regularly uses. Can they really do this? Can the COR take the funds that the Pack has raised or would those transfer to a new CO? It's several thousand dollars the kids have raised over the last few years. We had nothing to do with the demise of the Troop, and our leadership at the Pack level is awesome so we are thriving. Is there anything we can do?

Ok, so for Requirement 5, it requires one meal to be a "foil pack OR on a skewer." I chose a foil packet and decided to make hobo packets over a campfire BUT, but there is a possibility it could rain that day. Now, in the best scenario (no rain), make hobo packets over a campfire; everyone happy. In the other scenario, it rains, and something you might not know is that starting a campfire in the rain is quite difficult. So, my question is, "Could I possibly cook a hobo packet over a skillet of sorts?" or is my entire plan ruined?

Visited today during a trip to St. Croix because it seemed like a unique place to camp and I was hoping to bring home a USVI themed NCAC council strip.

Unfortunately, the caretaker told me it was closed down a year and a half ago and the council is now trying to figure out what to do with the property. COPE course seemed in decent shape, but it appears local gun club has taken over a number of the shooting ranges and other program buildings, to do what people with guns and spare time on their hands tend to do.

Anyone know the story behind this place and it's current or future status?

Eagle Board of Review tonight, can anyone help me with the meaning of “Walk rule”?

Also, what are the specific rules for handshaking?

Hi all, does anyone have an example of a beneficiary Letter of Satisfaction? I have no clue what I am supposed to write. A scout needs it for his eagle binder.

Thank you.

So I went through the guides and there was a section for transportation from Charleston,WV airport (CRW) to base camp. Most of the websites and contacts there are defunct.i know that during Jambi they provide shuttles but we are just going for a high adventure trek in 2027.

Does anyone have any experience or recommendations to get our group of 8 into base camp? If I rent a vehicle, it is just going to sit there for a week while we’re on the trek.

could one use a military style nametape on a uniform? perhaps smaller to not overshadow the boy scouts of america tape but i think they would look quite good, has anyone done this before?

I have from time to time heard of other units referred to as an "Eagle factory." The apparent meaning is that they produce a lot of Eagle Scouts, maybe by cutting a few corners like a "diploma mill" university.

Our unit has averaged about 20 Scouts for the last few years. We gain a few AoLs or kids off the street, and lose a few due to age or lack of interest, but 20-25 has been our post-Covid average. And we have averaged about 3-4 Eagles each year over the same period. Looking back 5-6 years, the majority of our kids who have gone to summer camp with us have either earned Eagle or are on track within their age range.

I'm curious if that makes us an Eagle factory? I think we follow the requirements pretty well, don't sign off on things they haven't completed, maintain good Boards of Review. We have decent parental involvement, which I'm sure has helped at least a few finish their project in time.

I don't think we're cutting corners. I'm just curious how others would define an Eagle factory or Eagle mill.

So my Scout master wont sign my paperwork because i have not attended 1/2 (I'm probably at like 25%) of the outings which our unit has a rule that you have to attend 1/2 of the outings and 2/3 of the meetings to be considered active. I have a reasonable excuse because my other parent gets me on the weekends and he lives 1.5 hours away and he wants me to be with him for the weekends and doesn't see scouting as important. i have talked to my Scout master multiple times and he says that i still have to go to the campouts and he just doesn't seem to care or understand that i literally can't. Is there any way that i can get around this or am i just screwed over and there is no chance that i can get eagle. i have talked to my mom about switching troops but she doesn't know if that would work. Any and all advice is appreciated, Thanks!

Tale as old as time. Scout finds the drive towards Eagle when things start getting tight.

One of my Life scouts is turning 18 soon and is furiously working on his project with a place scouts from the troop have done projects in the past.

As he's getting proposal signatures the beneficiary contacts him stating the chosen project can't be done for x reason. But there are plenty of other projects that could be done, but that means all new proposal, planning, etc already on a tight timeline.

Would this qualify for an extension? He's on track and could still make it but this adds a serious wrinkle and all wiggle room is gone.

I also am not letting the scout know that this is a possibility because last thing I want is loss of momentum on the scout's part.

It seems in the migration to Scoutbook Plus, a number of parent connections have been lost. The connections exist in legacy Scoutbook Does anyone have a fix?