Philmont and Northern Tier require Wilderness First Aid certification in each crew. The American Red Cross has offered a course for this certification for a few years, developed by an ARC chapter in North Carolina. This spring, an entirely new, national ARC course titled Wilderness and Remote First Aid takes its place.

This new course has been developed in cooperation with the BSA and is based on our Wilderness First Aid Curriculum and Doctrine Guidelines - I bet you didn't know we had that, huh?

There's a flyer about the course Here.

It's 16 hours, like the previous course, but it should be less expensive, have more hands-on, and use consistent ARC materials. A few key differences about this new training:

• certification is 2 years instead of 3
• Current Adult CPR certification is a prerequisite
• Altitude Illnesses are included

This training is not JUST for Philmont and Northern Tier - every troop and pack should have people prepared to handle emergencies wherever they are. If it will take more than 20-30 minutes for an ambulance to reach you, these skills can be life-saving.

I'm really looking forward to presenting this new training to help keep Scouting safe!

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Driving to church with the family this morning with an uncharacteristic amount of extra time to get there.
A couple blocks ahead, in the right turn lane onto the freeway from the 4-lane road we are on, there's an SUV sitting there with its emergency blinkers going, blocking access to the freeway.

I say, "Hey, should we see if they need help?" (with my hopes high of maybe getting to do a real good turn today).
Both wife and son say, "Sure!", so I pull up beside them on their left and ask my wife to roll down her window so we can ask what we can do. I notice there are two carseats with children in them in the back seat.

Just as we get beside the driver's window, he pulls forward and makes the right turn onto the freeway and off he goes - and the driver still talking on his cellphone!

I had to say a couple extra prayers of forgiveness for some of the thoughts I had toward the guy. :-) I guess he didn't have his Tech Chip yet.

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I'm not really an advocate of pushing fast advancement on new scouts, but it's important to have opportunities for advancement available so those that participate are not held back from moving ahead. Not much worse than a scout not getting to forge ahead when he's chomping at the bit.

To help the Troop Guides and Instructors, there are a few documents and aids available. These aids give a structure to the advancement program and provide guidance to the scouts leading the new guys.

The New Scout Schedule has been updated with 2010 requirements.

The Advancement Tracking Sheet has been updated also.

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I've just finished updating the program guide our troop's Troop Guides use to help new scouts reach First Class. I added Leave No Trace and Water Safety, as well as an emphasis on EDGE. I also updated for the 2010 requirement changes.

With a big swarm of scouts joining this month, the Troop Guides have a big job ahead of them. Scouts in our troop don't typically reach First Class on the schedule presented in this guide, but it provides some structure for the Troop Guides to use for success.

You can download Troop Guide PDF if it might help your troop.

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While redoing our Troop Guide guide with the 2010 advancement requirements, I noticed the Second Class cooking requirement (3g) no longer says "over an open fire". The Second Class rank does have a requirement (3f) to build a fire, but the fire does not need to be actually lit.

With those changes, it appears there can be an Eagle Scout that has never started a single fire. None of the rank advancements or eagle-required merit badges require that a fire be lit.

I understand the changes are because of fire bans in arid states, but somebody tell me I'm missing it someplace.

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Tomorrow is Scout Sunday - the first Sunday before February 8. This is a great opportunity to recognize the 'reverent' point of scouting. Our troop is serving at the church where we've met for the past 12 years. Scouts won't have any role in the service but will be helping with refreshments, coffee, and such after the service.

If you need any last minute ideas for the Scout Sunday that you were asked to participate in and waited until the last minute to prepare, check out scouting.org page for ideas.

This Scout Sunday will be our last at this location. As our troop has steadily grown, we've run out of room here and are moving to a new location on March 1.

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