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BSA Troop 45 – Oxford, MS
A question often asked is how your parents can help.
1st parents should have access to the Scoutbook app, or website. This allows them to follow your progress throughout your scouting tenure.
2nd you should be discussing things were doing at meetings and campouts with your parents. Keep them informed and involved in your scouting career.
3rd teach your parents how to do the scout skills. If you are working on knots and need to be tested on them, teach your parents how to tie the knots, that way when you go to get tested by your patrol leader you will know the skill.
Lastly, we will need our parents’ help throughout the year, you can do this by volunteering a few hours of helping stand around during popcorn and football parking. The boys will be coming to ask y’all for help, please give them a few hours of your time this upcoming year.
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Scoutbook is a tool provided by the BSA as a an electronic advancement record used by parents, leaders, scouting professionals to help track the scouts advancement, awards, camping nights, service hours and so on. We encourage you to help keep track of their advancement through the app. We put all advancement stuff in Scoutbook as soon as we can, however, we sometimes get caught up in the other aspects of our life and it takes time. If you have questions, please feel free to reach out.
Communication is key. Boy Scout troops are boy led and adult guided. What exactly does it have to do with communication. Well, what this means is you will have to communicate with your parents to get information at home. The troop will publish a semester schedule of meetings, campouts trips and camps. You, the scout, should learn to carry a notebook and write the important information down for easy reference. The leadership will provide reminders during the week of the events coming up. We will also have a Troop Facebook page and a Troop Website. Schedules and reminders will also be on these sites as well.
The Order of the Arrow is the BSA honor society. Once you have reached the rank of 1st class and has obtained 15 nights of camping with the troop, one being a long-term camp (summer camp or winter camp) within the past 24 months they are eligible to be elected for OA. Once elected, you will need to attend ordeal and pass the ordeal, then you will be in the OA. We want to encourage all our scouts to be active in OA. The district OA has quarterly meetings, and if a scout attends the OA meeting in lieu of a troop meeting that week still counts as being active in scouts. Sometimes OA events will fall on the same dates as the same time as troop activities, it is okay for the scouts to attend the OA event and it will still count as them being active in the troop. If the Scouts campout under the stars at an OA event they will be counted as nights camping as well as it is a Boy Scout event.
For more Order of the Arrow information see these links
About the Order of the Arrow
Order of the Arrow Membership information
https://oa-bsa.org/about/membership
Order of the Arrow Forms:
The goal of any troop is camp or go on a trip one weekend every month. Camping is done in tents, hammocks, or just under the stars. You will have the opportunity to work on outdoor skills each time you camp with the troop.
Remember you will have to camp at a minimum of 20 nights and 21 days to earn your Eagle Rank.
There are a few different types of camps for scouts, the two most popular are Summer and Winter Camp.
Summer camp is offered in weeklong sessions during the summer at different camps throughout the country. At summer camp you can work on different merit badges, rank requirements as well as other fun activities. You can also attend any summer camp they want to as a provisional scout. A provisional scout is one that attends summer camp without their troop. Winter camp is offered, well in the winter. They are shorter in length and the merit badges and activities schedules are pretty much set for the scouts by the staff.
You will also have the opportunity to earn awards. These awards are earned just like ranks, and merit badges. There are many awards you can earn in your scouting career. Some are knots worn on the uniform, some are patches to put on blanket, vests or sashes, and others are in the form of medals. One of the first awards the scouts will work on are the Totin’ chip and Firem’n chit. These are required to carry a knife, use an axe or a saw, or start a fire on Campouts or on BSA property. Those of you who earned their AOL award through Cub Scouts, earned their whittlin’ chip to be able to carry a knife. These do not count in BSA, and you must earn the totin’ chip to carry a knife.
There are 135 merit badges in total. Merit Badges are areas of interest that will give you a place to discover whether they want to investigate the area further. Some of the categories of merit badges are: Citizenship, Outdoors, STEM, Career Oriented, Hobbies and Sports to name a few.
You can obtain merit badges one of 4 ways. Merit Badge Colleges; Summer Camp, with the troop, and individually. Merit badge colleges are set up to allow you to go over things as a group, as well as having you do things on your own. At Summer camp you will have the opportunity to work on a variety of merit badges just like a merit badge college except more in depth. Some of the merit badges are taught before regular troop meetings throughout the year. The last way you can earn merit badges is on your own. Scouts should go online (only after completing their cyberchip) and look at the merit badges offered through the BSA. Once you choose an area of interest, you need to come talk to one of the leaders in the troop. If you do not have access to a printer, we will provide you with a Merit badge pamphlet and connect you with a merit badge counselor (some are in our troop, others are not). Once you are connected with a merit badge counselor you will need to work with the merit badge counselor to complete the requirements. Each counselor is different in how they present or make you explore the requirements.
The Citizenship Merit Badges teach Sscouts about their Duty to Country and Duty to Others. How to apply the Oath, Law, Motto, Slogan, and Spirit to our everyday life.
Outdoors merit badges include camping, cooking, Pioneering, orienteering, and other outdoor scouting stuff. These merit badges teach Scouts how to be prepared for things that come at you in the outdoors.
STEM merit badges, well that’s self-explanatory. These merit badges teach them to cool tech things people are into these days. Robotics, game design, Digital technology, are just a few of the merit badges in this category. Career Oriented merit badges teach the scouts about different careers. Archology, Dentistry, Architecture, and Aviation are just a few of these merit badges.
Once you obtain the rank of Star you will begin to be required to teach younger scouts, scout skills using the EDGE Method. Don’t know what EDGE is, don’t worry you will. You will be required to come up with a lesson plan and teach the skill assigned to you by the SPL and Patrol Leaders at a meeting. You will have at least four weeks to prepare.
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