Your first night
Show up a few minutes early. Someone will meet you at the door and hand you off to a Scout — not to an adult — who will take you round. Wear whatever you would wear to school. We open with the Pledge and the Scout Oath, break into patrols, do a skill, usually play something loud, and close about 8:30.
Parents are welcome to stay. Most do the first couple of times, then discover the troop runs fine without them, which is rather the point.
Who can join
Scouts BSA is for young people who have finished fifth grade, or are eleven, or have earned the Arrow of Light — and are under eighteen. You do not need to have been a Cub Scout. Plenty of our best Scouts joined at thirteen having never camped in their lives.
Joining, once you have decided
- Fill in a youth application.
- Complete parts A and B of the Annual Health and Medical Record. Part C, with a doctor, is needed for summer camp.
- Pay registration. National dues plus a troop fee — ask the Committee Chair for the current figure. No Scout is ever turned away over money. Ask quietly; it gets handled quietly.
- Get a handbook and a field uniform shirt from the Scout Shop on University Parkway.
What things cost
Roughly: uniform shirt and handbook to start, monthly campouts in the region are usually $15–$30 including food, and summer camp is the big one at a few hundred dollars in June. The troop runs fundraisers and there is help available. Ask.
What to bring to your first campout
Not as much as you think, and none of it needs to be new. Borrow before you buy — the troop has tents, stoves, and cooking gear, and the quartermaster can usually lend a pack. Start with the equipment list and ignore anything trying to sell you titanium.
Questions people actually ask
Is this a religious organisation?
We are chartered by Cokesbury United Methodist Church Men, who give us the Scout Hut. Scouting expects a Scout to be reverent, but the troop includes families of several faiths and of none, and nobody is asked to explain themselves.
Do parents have to camp?
No. We always need drivers, and adults are welcome on any campout, but the programme does not depend on your family attending. Every registered adult on a campout has completed Youth Protection Training.
Girls?
Scouts BSA troops are single-gender. Troop 3 is a boys' troop. If you are looking for a girls' troop, email us and we will point you at the ones nearby — we would rather you found the right troop than no troop.
How much time is it?
One evening a week and one weekend a month, plus a week of summer camp. Scouts who come to most of that advance quickly. Scouts who come twice a term do not, and no amount of paperwork fixes it.