Scoutmaster Musings

Looks like it is going to be a perfect fall evening here for a fun Halloween. Our maple tree is bright orange, I have a bucket of candy - the good stuff - and my magic campfire is ready to light. I have "stuff" to change the flame color and make flashes and sparks to make it a bit magical while I sit outside by the fire for a couple hours.

Here are a few Halloween Jokes to make your trick-or-treaters groan, or maybe you will be lucky and get a laugh or two.

Since this is the last day of the month, you only have a few hours to enter my Monthly Give-away - winners will be picked tomorrow morning.

Scout On!

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Do you wanna go back to Philmont? Or, go for the first time? I have enjoyed the Philmont experience twice, once with each of my sons. There is a lot of planning and preparation that goes into a trek. You have 1 month to get registered in the lottery drawing for crew slots in the 2020 season at Philmont. Start at Philmont.org where you can get the 2020 Registration packet and register for the lottery.

It is a completely random drawing and a registration request made on December 2 has just as much chance as being drawn as one made on October 30. But, if you put it off until December 3, you will probably not get to go. Details about the registration process and a useful worksheet to gather necessary registration information is here - there is quite a bit of data to collect, especially the 5 dates your crew is willing to go.

Did you know?

• The Philmont 12-day trek fee for 2020 is $1025.00 - it has steadily risen over the years. Here are some past fees: 2005=$495, 2008=$560, 2011=$725
• There are still openings for 57 crews at Philmont between July 30 and August 9 in 2019. I figured all slots would be filled from the fire closures this past summer causing roll-overs of treks. If your troop is looking for a high adventure for next summer, take a look at the openings on the Philmont website.
• Your troop CAN go to Philmont each year - it used to be only every other year.
• Each Philmont crew is required to have at least two members trained in Wilderness First Aid and CPR - do not wait until just before your trek to get this. This training is often difficult to find!
• There are over 2500 slots for 12-day trek crews at Philmont each summer. That is room for almost 31,000 trek participants. If all the slots were filled with the maximum 12-person crews, that would be over 381,000 peopledays.

Scout On!

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2019 will be a special year, actually an extraordinary year, for youth joining Scouts BSA.
With girls joining starting February 1, some folks have been concerned that they won't have time to work their way up to the Eagle rank. Since there are minimum timed requirements for some ranks, new members that are over 16 years and 7 months old will probably not have time to complete the trail to Eagle before their 18th birthday.

The BSA National organization has decided to make an extension to the 18th birthday time limit for this extraordinary circumstance of opening up Scouts BSA to female youth. To ensure every youth that is motivated and putting in the effort to reach Eagle has the opportunity to reach the goal, BSA is making this change:
Youth 16 years of age or older, but not yet 18, on February 1, 2019 who register as members of Scouts BSA on or before December 31, 2019, may request extensions to complete the Eagle Scout Award requirements after they turn 18 years of age.

This extension will not apply to scouts younger than 16 years old on Feb. 1, 2019 and will not apply to youth older than 18 years on Feb. 1, 2019.

Th goal of this declaration is to ensure that older girls joining the program have at least 24 months to earn their Eagle which is long enough for the time constrained requirements. The extension also applies to older males joining, to be fair.

It is important that unit leaders are aware of, and understand, this extension. Please read details about it Here.

Scout On

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This event would be interesting to discuss at an Emergency Preparedness merit badge meeting, or as the topic of a Scoutmaster Minute about Being Prepared.

At 1:18pmCDT on Wednesday, Oct. 3, your cell phone will alarm with an emergency broadcast message from the President. Don't worry, it's just a Nationwide Wireless Emergency Alert Test, not a real emergency! Have you ever received an Amber Alert msg? It's similar to that, except for everyone in the country rather than a specific area.

It will be the first such test of this nationwide system, and is coordinated through FEMA, FCC, and your wireless providers. Since it's the first, I bet there are a lot of nervous people with their fingers crossed that it all goes well. :-)

Read more Here or Here.

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