Boy Scout Troop 108

Three Boy Scouts are recovering from burns suffered during a "ring of fire" demonstration that went awry at the Joseph A. Citta Scout Reservation.

Deputy Chief Michael Mohel of the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office said the incident occurred about 11:30 p.m. Sunday, when an 18-year-old Scout, who is also a senior staff member at the reservation, used rubbing alcohol from a bottle to create a flammable circle on a makeshift table, Mohel said.

The BSA’s new MyScouting portal provides an Internet gateway to a variety of programs and services for volunteer Scout leaders.

The program was launched in August 2007 as a joint project of the BSA Information Systems Division and Custom Communication Division, located at the national office in Irving, Tex.

A wide variety of important and often required forms for pack, troop, team, and crew activities and programs are conveniently available as downloads from the BSA national Web site at http://www.scouting.org/Media/forms.aspx.

While forms are available at local Scout council service centers and in some BSA publications, the online source offers a convenient way for Scouters to obtain copies at any time.

Members of a troop committee can now take training online by completing the Troop Committee Challenge at the BSA Learning Center (http://olc.scouting.org).

The fun and interactive training is a vital tool for both new and veteran troop committee members. It is designed to help the troop committee work as a team to improve the Scouting experience for adult and youth members while also helping to build the commitment of individual committee members.

The BSA has a new online resource regarding questions of health, safety, and risk management. The information can be found on the BSA’s Web site, www.scouting.org.

By clicking on the “Scouting Safely” tab along the left-hand side of the home page, volunteers can access risk management, health, safety, and training information. The Guide to Safe Scouting, as well as health and safety alerts and other health- and safety-related publications, will be available. A frequently asked questions (FAQ) section will be updated periodically with new information.

Don’t let your Scouts take the plunge without reading and referencing the new leaders’ guide to BSA aquatics.

"Aquatics Supervision: A Leader’s Guide to Youth Swimming and Boating Activities", serves as an invaluable resource for learning the roles and responsibilities of council aquatics committees, provides support to unit leaders so they have the training and resources necessary to supervise swimming and boating activities, and gives direction for dispensing special aquatics awards such as Snorkeling BSA and Boardsailing BSA.

Learning how to save lives at BSA-operated facilities like summer camps just got a bit less complicated.

Over the past 25 years, the lifeguard program had grown to include many other specialized skills such as swimming, lifesaving, canoeing, rowing, first aid, and even spinal-injury management. It had become difficult for Scouting to meet the needs of both unit leaders and summer-camp lifeguards in a single course of doable length.

Now, though, the BSA Lifeguard program will focus solely on teaching the necessary requirements for professional lifeguards at BSA aquatic venues.