Outdoor adventure scouting for all
Everyone needs more camping nights for their ranks and badges. But we are in a county, country and global pandemic lock down.
Hummm.
Let’s do another backyard campout! Fires, tents, camp stoves and card games. The only things missing was the being physically together… and the catholes 🙂
Yes, we’re scouting from home again, but that doesn’t stop the crack squad of scouts that form the Troop 260 Patrol Leaders’ Council coming together.
To help scouts advance during this restricted time, we are doing a “focus” badge each month (Pets for January) as well as continuing with our online rank advancement process. For some scouts and adult Merit Badge Counsellors – meeting to review requirements online is actually preferable!
We also have kahoot quizes, self-made instruction videos and other projects on the menu.
With the Covid situation in Santa Clara County regressing, and a number of scouts keen to rack-up overnight activity nights for rank advancement, the Patrol Leaders’ Council scheduled another backyard campout in December
The weather wasn’t too cold – but it did rain the next morning! Not a problem for all the expertly pitched tents from T260 🙂
(noting that for team Davis, who were mid-way through a back-yard renovation, this did result in an unexpected mud bath on the way to preparing the morning cup of tea)
Well done Troop in keeping your experience fresh – we are all looking forward to real adventures as soon as possible.
Times might be tough for our Troop and Scouts right now, given the restrictions around our usual outdoor program. However, in true spirit, that didn’t stop our most recent Eagle Scout – Weston S. – from arranging his Court of Honor: virtually!
A great way to close of a year of adaption and ‘firsts’
Weston arranged this all in only a couple of weeks, and we had over 30 groups / people joining. We all missed the food and in-person get-together, but were very pleased to help Weston close-out his scouting achievements.
With County guidelines allowing some level of distanced but in-person activities, we were able to hold our annual Junior Leadership Training at the scout hall. This was the first time most of us had been back at the hall since March and it was nice to be around some familiar facilities.
Naturally, we were all masked-up, distanced sitting and during the activities and there was gobs of hand sanitizer flowing around!
Our Scoutmaster drive a full 3 hour program of meeting planning, Scouts and Troop organization, roles and responsibilities review, and a focus on the upcoming Troop elections. This was all peppered with some fun 🙂 – including 2 quizzes, and a pioneering (poles and lashings) leadership game.
[backdated post / published Jan 2021 for a Sept 2020 activity]
Back in September 2020, Jimmy H. took the chance of what turned out to be a short respite between Coronavirus waves to execute his Eagle project.
Jimmy was keen to have an environmental impact, and worked to create four receptacles for used fishing line to be placed at a local park. These had to be built to a standard design and quality and then firmly installed.
By splitting the work up into smaller groups, working outside, and ensuring masks were worn, Jimmy was able to ensure public health guidelines were followed while still delivering this community project. Nice work!
We have been doing well for a couple of months having scouts share skills through presentations, or discussion, on our weekly virtual meetings. I wanted to go further and experiment with a live-stream of a demo: this would give an experience closer to that or a regular, in-person, Troop meeting.
This post covers the technical setup and experience in streaming a scout meeting live – it may be of interest or use to some!
All the hardware components I had at home as part of working-from-home or general home tech.
Software used was as follows
Physically setup your cameras as you wish, plugin them in, and make sure they are recongised by your laptop. Then install your flavour of OBS (in my case, the experimental pkg that included the virtual cam tool for MacOS).
Install the virtual cam plugin tool, or check that it is active under Tools > Start VirtualCam. At this point, i fired up meet.google.com and checked I could see “OBS Camera” as a video input option. If you can’t – restart Chrome, or your mac and try again.
For sound, I wanted to use a mic close to the presenter and the webcam mikes would have a lot of noise. So I bluetooth paired my Bose Revolve to the laptop and simply set the speaker and mic in meet.google.com to use this source.
At this point, you are into the realm of OBS setup – and definitely watch a few YouTube intro guides on OBS: I kept it super simple with a “scene” for each camera (one wide angle and one close-up) and using the Studio mixer to cut between the two as required,
The scariest thing was installing the un-signed pkg with the experimental inclusion of the virtualcam plugin for MacOS. I also turned of OBS auto-updates to stop the build breaking. I hope the main branch of OBS for MacOS gets this capability soon – it appears to be in progress in github.
It was fun to do, and I felt the combination of having the close-up and wide camera angles, and the quality mic / speaker near the presenter allowed for a much more natural Troop skill share. You can watch below!
Thanks to Mary B for some help updating the Troop roster (public version with redacted personal info available here and linked from the home page) we have a fresh set of stats about the Troop
We have 37 scouts that are registered or in the process of registering. This does include a few that are inactive but still formally a part of the Troop.
We can see a spread of ranks below. A good number of Lifers stacking up to work through final Eagle requirements and projects, and a good number of new scouts (and some less active scouts) that are starting their journey.
As we run an integrated Troop to the extent we can, it’s also interesting to look at the gender split. Note that we record gender as provider by the scout on their form which currently only allows for male-female choice. We have 10 female scouts, or 27% of the Troop.
If you have any questions, feel free to drop a question below or get in contact.
COVID-19 response: Troop policy (effective immediately)
COVID-19 response: virtual scouting – a guide
Virtual Scouting resources
As the outbreak of COVID-19 in Santa Clara County continues to accelerate, BSA Scout Troop 260 has established the following policy. It is effective immediately, as of March 14 2020. Troop 260 has put in place this policy and associated guidelines to keep scouts and adult volunteers safe during Troop 260 activities as well as be socially responsible in support of limiting the spread of the virus.
Troop leadership (uniformed adult leaders and committee members) is following guidance and recommendations set forth by local and national health authorities. Where ambiguity exists, we are erring on the side of caution.
COVID-19 brings unprecedented and challenging changes to our normal routine. However, there is a determination by troop leadership to keep our Scouts BSA program by using virtual means!
We encourage scouts and adults to read, understand and – where required, suggest improvements to – this policy and the virtual scouting guidelines. At the same time, we challenge scouts and adults to show their scout spirit in adapting to what we all hope will be a relatively short disruption.
— Troop 2/260 Scoutmaster and Chair
Almost a year after our last visit, the Troop once again headed South to Pinnacles NP: only 1.5 hours from San Jose, but a world apart from the bustle and business we experience locally. A healthy sized group of 22 used all the daylight on Saturday to carry full packs almost 10 miles with nearly everyone doing an extra quick 2+ mile loop through some caves to the reservoir.
En route, we didn’t get to see the mythical Condor Whisperer didgeridoo player, but we did get some glorious weather as the clouds broke and enjoyed spectacular views over the rock formations, some hawks and possibly a condor or two. Scouts and Adults alike carried full backpacks, including our evening food. As we enter the new calendar year, it’s essential to get more practice in carrying loads of terrain for longer periods as we get towards 50-miler planning.
The Group campsite in the evening was excellent. A huge oak tree, tables, bear lockers and a bathroom block nearby — luxury not enjoyed on the open trail! The adults enjoyed Chicken Curry and cookies, whilst the scouts boiled tortellini and waved sausages (pre-cooked) at the fire. The night was calm, punctuated with some very vocal owls.
This trip was an important milestone for two of the party: Tristan and Weston. Both (almost) Eagle scouts turn 18 in a few days time and thus “age out” of the BSA program. We are sad that our future adventures will not have them along as Scouts, but they are always welcome as Adults (providing they do their YPT!). Thanks, and bon chance to both.
