Taughannock District
Baden-Powell Council, BSA
Announcements
Advancement News - Activity and Program - Upcoming Events - District News - Council News - National News
Latest Announcements...
Our Scouts enjoyed the 2012 Winter-Ree
Thanks to Brian O'Donnell and Jim Graney for putting
on a great event!
For more pictures, look here!
Welcome to our new Council Field Director
Bob Clark is the new Baden-Powell Council Field Director, second-in-command to Council Executive Roger Hoyt. Bob will be helping out in Taughannock District until our new District Executive is hired. His e-mail address is Robert.Clark@Scouting.org
Scouting District Update
We are officially a Gold Level District
in the 2011 Journey to Excellence
"Congratulations and thank you" to all of you for your efforts.
Today I had a meeting with our Scout Executive Roger Hoyt and our new Field Director Bob Clark. During the meeting I learned that we are officially now a Gold level District in the Journey to Excellence program for 2011. We are the only District to earn this level in the Council.
Previously, I'd reported that we were Silver and we were close to Gold. Some of the criteria measurement results I was previously using including numbers that I knew were not the most recent, though they were all I had at the time. Roger had some updates for me and several of those that are easily trackable came in higher than expected. Thusly, without any question at all, Roger has approved the Taughannock District as having earned the Gold level JTE award for 2011.
Please know I thank you all for what you do to support our program; and that I firmly believe that we could not have achieved this without the combined efforts of each and every one of us, and all the leaders, parents and scouts throughout our District. Here's looking forward to more fun times and excellence in the coming year as well!
Appreciatively, Yours in Scouting.
Jim Graney
Taughannock District Committee Chair
chair@tompkinscortlandscouts.org
607-327-1226 (work/cell)
Cub Resident and Day Camp Flyers are here!
Download them from our Camping page
Change to "Trained" Requirement for Unit Leaders
National has announced that "This is Scouting" is no longer required for a unit leader to be considered "Trained". "Fast Start" is not required, either (and has not been since 2009). For more details, see our Training page.
Welcome to the new TompkinsCortlandScouts.org Website!
You probably didn't know is that while we have had the
TompkinsCortlandScouts.org domain name for many years, we never really
had a place to put the website. The domain was actually just an alias
for some other website. So, every time you accessed
TompkinsCortlandScouts.org, some other address appeared in your
browser's address bar - mostly, home.htva.net/~wb2jwd/,
which is the space my cable company gave me, but sometimes www.bpmlegal.com,
my office website - and if you bookmarked the site, you wound up
bookmarking the actual address, not TompkinsCortlandScouts.org. Worse,
htva.net only gave me 20MB of storage space, total, so we were very
limited in how much we could post on that site.
Thanks to Mark Travis of Pack 197 and Good News Computing, the
Taughannock District Website now has a real home, and oodles of space to
live in (one "oodle" = several gigabytes). And, thanks to a
suggestion from Oliver Habich of Troop 4, we also have a shorter,
easier-to-type domain - TCScouts.org
- two names, the same website. Also thanks to Oliver's suggestion, we
will now be able to offer sub-domains and forwarded troop e-mail
addresses to any unit in the district.
What this means to you is:
- Old Bookmarks won't be right:
If you have any bookmarks in your browser for any of the pages in
the Taughannock District Website, they probably point to the actual
site of the old page, not the new site. So, you'll need to...
- Change your Bookmarks: At least in Firefox or IE, that means
right-clicking on the bookmark, click on "Properties" and
change the part of the address which says "home.htva.net/~wb2jwd/"
or "www.bpmlegal.com"
to --www.TCScouts.org-- or --www.TompkinsCortlandScouts.org--
(either will work, if you're lazy like me, use the shorter one). The
rest of the address remains the same.
So, "http://home.htva.net/~wb2jwd/announce.htm" becomes --http://www.TCScouts.org/announce.htm -- - Or, save new bookmarks:
If you don't want to edit your old bookmark, you can always follow
one of these links http://www.TompkinsCortlandScouts.org
or http://www.TCScouts.org
, find the page you want, and save a new bookmark.
- The old website will be taken down
after January 1st, and all of the pages will be set to redirect to
the new server. So if you don't update your bookmarks now, now you
can always follow the forwarding link and save a new bookmark later
on.
As
to the new capabilities, contact me by e-mail at DC@TompkinsCortlandScouts.org
if you are interested in any of these:
- Unit e-mail addresses:
We can set up a "generic" e-mail address for your unit,
which will forward any e-mail it receives to any other e-mail
addresses you want. So, you can use
"Troop123@TCScouts.org" and have it forward to the troop's
Scoutmaster, as well as one or more Assistant Scoutmasters, the
Committee Chair, and so on. The only limit is that the total length
of all of the forwarding addresses has to be less than 255
characters. This will allow you to use one address in all unit
publicity and on the unit and district websites, and if the adult
leadership changes the e-mail address won't. You just change the
forwarding.
- Unit website sub-domains:
If your unit has a website, we can set up a subdomain under
TCScouts.org which will point to it. So, you can use
"troop123.TCScouts.org" in addition to (or instead of) the
actual address of the troop website.
- Unit Website Hosting: If
your unit doesn't have a website, but you'd like one, contact me.
While
I'm at it, the new District Website has a page of pictures from the 2011
Barton Cub Resident Camp - if the parents in your Pack would like to see
what Resident Camp is like, have them look at
http://www.tcscouts.org/2011-barton-cub-resident.htm
(also linked from the Cub Scouts page http://www.tcscouts.org/cub.htm
).
See you next year!
Yrs. in Scouting,
Mike Brown
District Commissioner
Questions on Advancement Policy?
National HQ has published a Guide to Advancement - see Advancement Page for details.
Know a Scout seeking a little extra motivation to finish his Eagle
requirements next year? I’ve got it.
This year will mark 100 years since Arthur Rose Eldred became the BSA’s first Eagle. Since that date — Aug. 21, 1912 — more than 2 million outstanding young men have earned the award. To celebrate the centennial of Scouting’s top honor, all recipients of the Eagle Scout Award in the year 2012 will be eligible to wear a special version of the red, white, and blue badge, seen here.
The special-edition patch, available at local Scout Shops after the first of the year, will help make an already-special honor even more noteworthy.
Why the special patch? I’m told that after the overwhelming popularity of the 100th Anniversary of Scouting rank badges, Boy Scouts of America officials said it made sense to find a similarly unique way to celebrate the 100th Anniversary of Eagle Scouts. A cool, new patch that will motivate Scouts? You won’t hear any complaints from me — or your guys!
- Bryan Wendell
http://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2011/10/14/special-badge-for-scouts-who-earn-eagle-in-2012/
Your Scouts, Explorers and
Venturers, 14 years old and older,
can earn the Duke of Edinburgh Award!
See our Advancement Page for details
Recent District Doings...
The District Committee has held its annual Planning Day on January 7th, and the District Calendar has been updated to reflect District dates through 2013 (tentative after June 2013).
Do you need some neat recruiting material? 
Check out National's "Words to Live By" marketing website for a selection of great color recruiting flyers, posters and ads for every Scouting program. You can download and print the posters and personalize them for your unit's contact and meeting information. There are even e-mail templates for mailing invitations to prospective members.
Download posters material for:
Advancement and Recognition News
- Cub Advancement News: See our Advancement page for more information.
- Scout Advancement News: See our Advancement
page for more information.
- Life to Eagle Training will be offered at several roundtables throughout the year. See the Advancement Page for details.
- Merit Badge Counselor List: Download the latest list from the Advancement page.
- Attention Merit Badge Counselors! The Advancement Committee will be contacting all Merit Badge Counselors over the summer and fall of 2012 to make sure all Counselors are registered and trained. Please be sure to return your paperwork ASAP when you get it!
- Merit Badge Counselor Form: there's a new form as of June 2011 - be sure to use it instead of the National form or older local forms. You can download it here, and see the Advancement page for registration instructions for Merit Badge Counselors.
- BSA introduced a number of new merit badges
for 2010-11:
- Geocaching requirements were announced in April 2010 - download them here (PDF).
- Inventing requirements were announced in June 2010 - download them here.
- Scouting Heritage - requirements have been announced - download them here.
- Robotics -requirements released April 2011 - download them here.
- Chess - requirements released September 2011 - download them here
- Welding - requirements to be released by January 2012
New Award Recognizes Active
Alumni
(updated 2/21/11)
In
the coming months, a new patch, the BSA Alumni Award knot, will begin
appearing on some Scouting volunteers’ uniforms. The red, blue, and
gold square knot will designate its wearer as a Scouting alumnus who has
helped other Scouting alumni reconnect with the program. (A lapel pin is
also available for civilian wear.)
Developed by the national Alumni Relations Committee, the award recognizes accomplishments in four areas: Alumni Identification/Promotion (any 3 of 5 requirements), Alumni Engagement (4 requirements), Personal Participation (4 requirements) and Personal Education (any 1 of 3 requirements). Specific requirements include doing things such as helping to plan an alumni event, convincing unregistered alumni to register with Scouting, and completing online alumni training.
“The requirements are tough—and that’s by design,” said Bill Steele, the BSA’s director of Alumni Relations. “We expect these folks to work just as hard as alumni as they did as Scouts and Scout volunteers.”
Requirements for the award have been announced and are listed on the alumni knot page on the US Scouting Service Project website. All requirements must have been completed after June 1, 2009. Applicants must be currently registered with the BSA, and their award applications must be approved by the local council Scout executive and alumni committee chairperson, along with the national Alumni Relations Committee.
Note that this new knot is not the same as the 2010 Centennial Award. If you have earned that patch using the Alumni requirements, you wear the 2010 Patch, not the new knot.
By the way, what is an "Alumni"? According to Myscouting.org, "The definition of a BSA Alumni is a former Scout, a current or former Scout leader, family members of current or former Scouts, and anyone who is supportive of the Scouting program and would like to be connected." Yes, I know "Alumni" is plural, and the correct singular term is "Alumnus" or, if you really want to be pedantic, "Alumna" for females. Complaints may be referred to the BSA Latin Nouns Committee.
- Mike Brown
Venturing and Exploring Volunteers - your Youth Protection Training (YPT) requirement is changing!
The "regular" YPT course will no longer be accepted for adults registered in the Venturing and Exploring programs. Venturing and Exploring volunteers who only took the "regular" YPT course Y01 should plan to take Venturing Y02 or Exploring Y03 (whichever applies), in order to remain current.
See the Training Page for more information.
Activity and Program News
See the Activities Page for information on upcoming events.
Cub Scout Pinewood Derby
February 18th
See the Activities Page for details and a flyer
Boy Scout/Venture
First Aid Rally
February 18th
See the Activities Page for details and a flyer
Cub Scout Loop-a-Palooza
March 3rd
See the Activities Page for details and a flyer
Boy Scout Fly-o-Ree
Ithaca Airport - May 20th
See the Activities Page for details and a flyer
2013 National Scout Jamboree
Now open to Venturers!
Summer 2013
The Baden-Powell Council is now starting to organize a Boy Scout contingent and Venture Crew for the 2013 National Scout Jamboree, which will be held at the new Summit Base in West Virginia during the summer of 2013.
This is one of the most significant events in a Scout’s career, joining the 45,000 Scouts from the United States and foreign countries. This announcement is to promote the Jamboree and invite expressions of interest from youth and adults who would like to attend the 2013 event. Planning is underway and we are initiating the process of selecting leaders and establishing Scout Troops and Venturing Crews that will begin to operate in early 2012. Click Here if you would like to download an application to be considered for a spot.
There are plans to have the Contingent stop along the way at historic Gettysburg, PA before continuing on to West Virginia to join the Jamboree for 10 days and stopping on the way back at Hershey Park in Hershey, PA. Our contingent will include one Troop comprised of 36 Scouts and 4 Scouters and one Venturing patrol comprising of either eight youth (if male and female mix) and two adult leaders (one male and one female); or nine youth (same gender) and one leader (same gender). Boy Scouts must be 1st Class and 12 years of age by July 15, 2013, but not have reached their 18th birthday by July 24, 2013. Venturing Scouts must be 14 years of age by July 15, 2013, but not have reached their 21st birthday by July 24. Troops/Crews will form in early-2012 and begin operations including development of adult leadership, youth leadership, committee support, fund raising, planning, fellowship and great Scouting! The cost of this event will be $1,400 per Scout/Venturer. Scholarship support may be available on an individual situation basis.
For information, see the Council website
District News
-
District Executive Wanted - contact Roger Hoyt at Baden-Powell Council if you know anyone who would be good for the job!
-
Help Wanted - Experienced Scouters wanted for Taughannock District Committee positions. Openings in Activities (Cub, Scout and Venturing), Advancement (Cub and Scout), Finance, Membership and Commissioner Corps. Long hours, no pay, great job satisfaction. This opportunity won't come again (until next week), so act NOW! Contact the District Executive or District Commissioner, or e-mail to info@TompkinsCortlandScouts.org
Council News
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Council Website - The Baden-Powell Council has launched its new and improved website. This website incorporates the latest in branding and formatting to standardize information that you will find throughout the Boy Scouts of America. This is a new tool for us, and we are still learning all of the features and capabilities associated with it, so we apologize in advance for any bad links or formatting issues. This is a work in progress and we hope to bring you and the Scouting community the best online experience possible to support your Scouting program.
National News