Manitoba Geocaching Association

[candaceandwill]

Scouts Canada has introduced an official Cub and Scout Geocaching badge:

http://www.scouts.ca/sites/default/files/Cub-Specialty-Geocaching.pdf
http://www.scouts.ca/sites/default/files/Scouts-Specialty-Geocaching.pdf

Badge designs have not been published yet.

My Cubs (crestviewcubs) have found 41 unique caches over the last few years and currently own 6 caches around the province. Many of them have picked up caching with their families. They should not have any trouble earning this badge.

[jleecollins]

Being a Scout/Cub leader, it is about time that these badges were setup. I have been doing geacaching with my scouts and cubs for years. We even geocaching on the way to the CJ07 in Taramcouta Quebec. I even have several scout/cubs caches set up - the first one in 2004

Scouter Jim - 1st Pictou County Scout - formally 1st Marathon Scout/Cubs

[lizardo]

Have these badges been made available to the scout shop yet? Our pack (1st Southdale) has been doing a bit of geocaching already. We also hosted a Geocaching activity at the Area 9 camp in BHP last year.

[jleecollins]

When I went to order geocaching badges from Scout Canada (Scout Shop in New Brunswick) recently because our cub pack and scouts have been doing a lot of geocaching - I found out that there is NO specific badge for geocaching.

They said that you have to use the "Cub Individual Specialty Badge" and the "Scout Individual Specialty Badge".

This was confirmed by my scouting friend in Thunder Bay who write historical articles for the Scouting Magazine.

I even talked to Boy Scouts of America to see if I could get some of the BSA geocaching badges but that was impossible due to the system they have to award merit badges.

So we need to put some pressure on Scouts Canada to come out with a proper special geocaching badge.

This is a great activity for youth and they should be awarded appropriately. So in the meantime we will continue our geocaching activities with the scout, cubs and even beavers. We have set up 8 different 1st Pictou County geocaches.

[lizardo]

That's too bad. Seems odd that they have the badge requirements listed. Oh well.

[candaceandwill]

The reality is that there is potential for dozens of specialty badges such as this one - another good one is for martial arts. There are already so many badges that if a youth earns them all there isn't actually enough room for them on the uniform. Creating yet another physical badge didn't happen so a standard set of requirements for a youth to earn an Individual Specialty or a section to earn it as a Pack or Troop Specialty made more sense. Fear not, geocaching is huge in Scouting and has become a more fun way of introducing traditional map and compass - which still needs to me taught in my opinion. Next time you are out caching grab a compass. Turn your gps on at your car, determine the bearing and distance to the cache and then put the gps away. Now go find the cache the old fashioned way.