The DE's Blog:
Dan Gelis - District Executive
With the year-long celebration of BSA's 100th Anniversary in 2010, the National Council has approved several new advancement opportunity for Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts:
New for Cub Scouts Thirteen new belt loops and pins are being added in the Cub Scout Academics and Sports program. It's been more than 10 years since the program expanded, so volunteers and Cub Scouts from around the country have been waiting for this change. In late January, Scout shops across the country should begin selling a new edition of the Cub Scout Academics and Sports Program Guide (No. 34299), which will include these additions:
Academics Subjects:
- Disabilities Awareness
- Family Travel
- Good Manners
- Nutrition
- Pet Care
- Photography
- Reading and Writing
- Video Games
Requirements for the new awards will mirror those for the existing belt loops and pins. Besides the addition of the new awards, the Cub Scout Academics and Sports program remains the same.
Sports:
- Hiking
- Hockey
- Horseback Riding
- Kickball
- Skateboarding
New for Boy Scouts Scuba Diving is the first new Boy Scout merit badge in three years; it will become available in December. Four other new merit badges will appear over the course of the coming year:
- Inventing (First quarter 2010)
- Geocaching (Second quarter 2010)
- Scouting Heritage (Second quarter 2010)
- Robotics (Fourth quarter 2010)
These badges are being introduced because they received positive feedback in a youth interest survey. If five new merit badges seems like a lot, it is. By comparison, the BSA introduced just six new merit badges between 1992 (Collections) and 2006 (Composite Materials).
When you have an idea for a new merit badge, the first step is to complete a proposal form, which you can get by e-mailing merit.badge@scouting.org. Proposals that fit merit-badge criteria and rank highly with youth members are sent to a volunteer task force and the Program Content Committee for review and development.
But the new badges aren't the only innovation. In the past it took three years to create a merit badge. Now, that time has been cut to just less than a year, helping to keep the badge topics and content fresher than ever. As always, www.scouting.org is your best source for the most current information about these awards.
Website & Other News
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The Seattle Council is moving off of Doubleknot and onto another web hosting provider. They are also building the new site using Joomla (a Content Management System). This means that "normal folks" that don't know HTML and other languages with a acronyms (PHP, ASP, or .NET), will be able to update the site using only a browser! The Aquila site will convert over sometime this month or later. This URL will change, we will add a re-direct notice when it does.
-Rick 2/1
See this [Link to "Dirty Jobs" blog] with an inspirational Scouting message
Check out the How to Conduct Board of Reviews document. You can find the link to the pdf under the Advancement menu or right here.
If you see any highly technical questions, contact Rick, the Webmaster at rickfleehart _at_ yahoo.com (replace the _at_ with a @ and don't leave any spaces. For other questions, please contact Dan Gelis - his email is below the left-hand navigation buttons.