What is Journey to Excellence?
Troop 1430 was recognized in 2013 and 2014 with the Journey To Excellence Gold Award. To achieve the Gold award, the troop met (and exceeded) national benchmarks for youth outing and leadership activities, retention, advancement, service, adult training and organization.
Scouting's Journey to Excellence is the BSA's new performance recognition program designed to encourage and reward success and measure the performance of our units, districts, and councils. It is replacing the Centennial Quality Awards Program as a means of encouraging excellence in providing a quality program at all levels of the BSA.
Troop 1430 is a boy-led troop. We use the patrol method of organization. Patrols are composed of approximately 8 boys of varying ages. We do not separate our young scouts into a separate patrol, but we do be make sure activities are age appropriate and the troop focuses on new scout advancement. Each patrol has a leader, who are in turn led by a Senior Patrol Leader and assisted by other scouts in positions of troop-wide responsibility. Elections for leadership positions are held every six months.
The troop's program and activities are led by our scoutmaster, ably assisted by assistant scoutmasters. While the troop is boy-lead, our scoutmaster and assistant scoutmasters provide ample guidance and support.
The Troop Committee is the liaison with our sponsor, the Arcola Pleasant Valley Volunteer Fire Department. The committee is responsible making sure the troop and our members are properly registered with the Boy Scouts of America, as well as rank advancement, merit badges, conducting Boards of Review, maintaining the troop's finances, setting troop policy, and now, starting and updating the troop web site.
The troop is always seeking new assistant scoutmasters and committee members. Many of the jobs are discrete and involve a limited amount of time. The troop encourage every scout parent to not only help out, but to take on a project or a position in the troop. Experience shows that scouts stay engaged in scouting longer and have more fun when a parent or guardian is involved.