Anyone Involved in Scouting out there?

[cooker52]

I was just wondering if anyone was involved in Scouting. No, this isn't the tye of scouting like you would do in the pits durring regionals and championships, this is scouting like Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, etc. My family has been heavily involved in it and I was just curious how many people in FIRST are, or were, too. So, if you are in scouting or have been in scouting, go ahead and post it. Stories to go along would be great. I'll start.

I've been a Boy Scout for about 5 years now. Recently, I have recieved my Eagle Scout award. Once, when one of our team members was still involved in scouting, we went on a week long canoe trip. Till this day, he blames it on his mom, but he brought this heavy, heavy purple bag that I could have sworn was a body bag. It barely fit in the canoe, let alone removing and portaging it! It's just been a funny stroy ever since (not to mention how much space in the tent it took up! ).

[VEN]

I was at Boy Scouts for 2 years until I moved houses. I was the troop leader. Oh man...Jamborees, canoe trips in the middle of nowhere...I miss it all I have so many badges/patches. Speaking of Scouts, I should stop by at one of the meetings in the near future to say hi.

[Faith]

Girl scouts since Kindergarten. Thats... 11 years I think?

[MGoelz]

I have been a Girl Scout since 1st grade. I have earned the Bronze Award, and I am currently working on a project for my Silver Award. A friend from my church and I are making blankets to give to children that stay in Riley Hospital for extended periods of time. We make the blankets, wrap a stuffed animal in each, put a note of encouragement attached, and deliver them to the Ronald McDonald House, which, in turn, hands them over to the actual hospital. It's a lot of fun, though it has been a little difficult lately, due to robotics and other activities that I do within the school.

[Graham Donaldson]

I've been involved in Boy Scouts/Cub Scouts since 3rd Grade. I attended the 2005 Jambo (Northern New Jersey Council, suckers- X-Men patches, and my troop was Wolverine! Suffice it to say that near the end, they had high trading value- ), and I just made Eagle Scout on March 29th of this year. Scouting is an excellent program, and extremely useful. It takes some guts sometimes to stick with the program (Scouting's kind of a teenager social taboo nowadays), but the rewards are great if you see it through.

[Ben Martin]

I've been in Boy Scouts since I was a Tiger cub in 1st grade. Though I have had a lot of difficulty staying active during my past three robotics build seasons, I managed to earn my Eagle Scout award last November. Scouting stresses many of the same principles that FIRST does, and I'm glad to be a part of it.

A large portion of our team is involved in Scouting. Besides Miranda and I, we have at least one Girl Scout Gold award winner, one other Eagle Scout, one former Star Scout (now 18), and three Life Scouts. Also, two 234 alumni are Eagle Scouts.

[IndySam]

We have two Eagle Scout mentors and one team member who just made Eagle the week before ATL. We also have two former scoutmasters and two other Life Scouts who are “on the clock” if you know what I mean.

[Mark McLeod]

We have always had quite a few scouts on Team 358.

I'm Scoutmaster of Troop 343 in Hauppauge and was a Cubmaster before that. My oldest son, now in college, is an Eagle Scout and my youngest is currently Senior Patrol Leader and beginning plans for his Eagle Project. My wife has led a Girl Scout Troop for many years and my daughter, a robotics team officer, has her Silver award.

It's great to hear about all the Scouts also involved in FIRST.
Congratulations to all you who've attained leadership ranks, especially Eagle Scout and Silver/Gold Award.

[MGoelz]

I was just wondering...Is anyone involved in Ventures? I've heard about it and someone recently asked if I would be interested in joining a group of them. It's co-ed and the age range is larger. Quite a few of the boy scouts in my cousin's troop joined. That's about all I know. It sounds like it could be fun. I was just wondering if there are any people in the FIRST community involved in this.

[Mark McLeod]

My daughter's also on a Venture crew.
They have a lot of fun and have shared campouts with our Boy Scout Troop. They've been doing whatever strikes their fancy such as rock climbing, snow tubing, and wilderness hikes. Next summer they'll be going to Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico for 10 days.
It's a great chance to try things you've never tried before.

[Danny McC]

I was a boy scout for all of..... three weeks. Quite impressive I know. But I just kinda stopped being involved after that.

[ErikSR71]

I've been in boy scouts for almost five years now, and I'm the SPL of my troop. We just got a ton of new scouts who bridged over, and we have two months to train them for camporee. My troop takes camporee very seriously, and has won best troop overall two years running, so we are putting together an intense, sped up program to teach the new boys the skills they need for their events.

I also have a question. My district's camporee this year has a ridiculus event called the pancake toss, and I was wondering if any other districts were having to do that as well.

[cooker52]

WOW! Truly, I didn't expect to see this many people in FIRST to be active in scouting. I am glad to see that so many rank advancements have been made, too.
I am a freshman this year. As chessking132 said, it is hard to jugle everything around. FIRST, school, scouts. It was really hard for me. From mid-September to Thanksgiving, I was gone on a cross country bike trip. It wasn't until I got home that I joined FIRST. Since then, I have joined the Sound and Light crew at our high school. Between FIRST and Sound, I have missed many scout meetings. It has been a stressful year so far, but hey, it's my Freshmen year, this is the time to learn what to do and when to do it. Chessking132, learn from your stress and see if you can't make it less stressful next year. I know that I will try to do some of my extracurricular acitivities durring the begging of next year rather than durring the FIRST build season.
One last note, congragulations to everyone who has earned their Eagle Ranking. It isn't an easy trek, and from what I hear, Girl Scouts can be just as hard, if not harder, to finish. Once more, congragulations to everyone.

[Graham Donaldson]

Yeah, for all thos involved, DO NOT plan on doing anything advancement-wise from January to the end of March (AT THE VERY LEAST), and get it done as soon as possible, because it'll just get harder to do them as you get older (i.e. project, merit badges, etc...) (oh god just had my dad's words come out of my mouth-and i'm only 15-)

[chessking132]

I also whant to congragulate all the Eagle Scouts and Gold award achevers i know that both take alot of time and efert to acheve.

Now what i think would be cool if FRIST had a rank like Eagle for indavigil pepole. I think that would give pepole something to do during the off season.

O and for all the pepole that have not made the highest rank yet keap trying because i know it's worth all the hard work.