Citizenship in the Community Intro

Hello scouts and parents (scouts, please share this with parents, parents, share it with scouts),

I wanted to get this sent out while I'm still thinking about it, to lay out the basics for Citizenship in the Community, and try to get a framework for working through it.  The requirements can be seen at:   http://usscouts.org/mb/worksheets/citizenship-in-the-community.pdf 

You should look at all of them and start thinking about them, some can be done quickly, some will take time and research.  As you can see, there is a fair bit of academic work for this badge, with presentations and discussions.  For anything that says "explain" that can be done in writing or by talking.  For items that need "discussion", scouts need to be ready to talk about it, with me and probably some of the group. My plan is to set some times for presentations and discussions with the whole group, so the work will need to be done outside of troop or merit badge meetings.  The more work you do on your own, the better the group meetings will be, and the faster you can get done.  Some of the simpler ones can be done on troop meeting nights in a few minutes, the big ones will be the extra meetings, probably on 1 or 2 weekend afternoons.  

Not everyone may get done in the same amount of time, and I know schedules may not get everyone all together at the same time.  That's fine, I will stick with everyone as they work on it, and try to keep everyone on track.  Parents can definitely help their scouts, a lot of these requirements need guidance towards resources.  Also, for requirements 3, 4, and 7, any parent info or connections that can help with that would be great.

For now, take a look at requirements 1 and 2, and get working on those, so that we can knock those out at our first session (TBD, probably on a troop meeting night).  For #3, attend a city or county council meeting, school board, or a court session, we can try to work out a group trip, but that's something that can be done on your own, or with just a few scouts.  If you have a chance to do that on your own, go for it.  The Wake county commission meets first Mondays at 5PM, Raleigh city council first Tuesdays at 7PM, Wake county board of education meets alternate Tuesdays at 5:30PM.  That can also go into requirement #4, you can use one of the issues at the meeting for contacting a member about that issue.

That's probably enough for now.  I will throw out the 20th as a time to meet after the scout meeting, to go over requirements 1 & 2.  Let me know if you have any questions, or if there's anything you can help with.