Walter left a note for me on the Visitors page about his view of the OA camping requirement. The Scoutmaster ultimately decides what counts as camping or not. Walter also mentioned that he counts all days of a long-term camp towards OA - so a 10-day Jamoree would count as 10 OA camping days. The 'official' lodge election report we use specificially says 5 nights of consecutive resident camping, so we would only count 5 of those Jamboree nights.

I brought up this discussion at the troop committee meeting last night to get input and direction from the adults supporting the troop. The main question I had was, based on the fact that the Scoutmaster decides what counts as OA-eligible camping, "how many nights should we count from our backpacking, canoeing, cycling treks that are 5 days or longer?" I recited the OA requirements and stated that I would be comfortable counting 0, 1, or 2 nights.

After a fairly short discussion, the 8 people decided it would be best to count 0 nights, in strict accordance with the OA requirement. The general thought being that if a scout is not attending 5 troop weekend campouts in tents over a 2-year period, then he's probably not really promoting the purposes of the OA as he could.

I agree.

Scout On
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