Boy Scouts of America

Abilities Digest Archives

Volume 9 – 2022

1. Winter 2022

  • Adapting Events: Focus on long-term summer camp planning and communication for campers with special needs or disabilities (SND) between parents, unit leaders, and camp staff; helping adult volunteers outside your unit.
  • Enhancing Awareness Seabase Keys Experience, Philmont Zia Program, 2022 National Order of the Arrow Conference (NOAC).
  • Awareness Events: Philmont SND Conferences, SND Roundtable, and Fall national SND training conference.
  • Recognizing Abilities: The Torch of Gold Award.

Volume 8 – 2021

1. Spring 2021

  • Adapting Activities: Preparing for summer camp; parents and youth with special needs sharing tents; waterfront and boating accessibility.
  • Adapting Advancement: The ISAP and the IEP.
  • Awareness Events: Membership and unit growth roundtable for special needs and disabilities; training events at the Summit Bechtel Reserve in 2021; making family memories at Philmont Training Center.
  • Recognizing Abilities: Warren Wenner and Deb Reidmiller receive the 2021 Woods Services Award; nominate a fellow Scouter for the Torch of Gold.
  • Helpful Links: Accessing special needs and disabilities materials.

Volume 7 – 2020

1. Late Winter 2020

  • Adapting Activities: Tranquility Base: a safe space; Philmont’s Zia Experience for youth with special needs this summer.
  • Enhancing Awareness: Training conference at Philmont this summer.
  • Adapting Advancement: Changes to youth registration beyond the age of eligibility; Youth Protection Training exemptions for mental disabilities.
  • Recognizing Abilities: Presenting the Torch of Gold Award.

2. Summer 2020

  • Adapting Advancement: Joining conferences for new Scouts; saying good-bye to board of review anxiety.
  • Enhancing Awareness: The experience of blindness.
  • Adapting Activities: Choosing a unit for a Scout with special needs; Responses when a unit leader rejects a proposed accommodation.
  • Awareness Events: Staffing opportunities for Disabilities Awareness Challenges at the upcoming National Scout Jamboree.
  • Recognizing Abilities: The Special Needs Scouting Service Award.
  • 2021 Philmont summer events.

3. Spring 2020

  • Enhancing Awareness: Q&A on COVID-19 and special needs Scouting; mental health first aid.
  • Awareness Events: Adaptive Special Needs conference still open for registration this summer; Zia Experience delayed until summer 2021.
  • Adapting Activities: New Scout Orientations and beyond.
  • Recognizing Abilities: Rich Gambrill honored with 2020 Woods Services Award.
  • Adapting Advancement: Being prepared for physical disabilities; advancement with physical disabilities.

Volume 6 – 2019

1. Spring 2019

  • Adapting Activities: The Chief Scout Executive speaks on Scouting with disabilities and special needs; summer activities for Scouts with special needs.
  • Enhancing Awareness: Revised Special Needs and Disabilities Introduction now available; Philmont training program on special needs Scouting.
  • Recognizing Abilities: Scouters recognized this year for service to Scouting with special needs and disabilities.
  • Adapting Advancement: Perspectives on comparable challenges and expectations in advancement.
  • Helpful Links: Accessing Disabilities Awareness materials.

2. Winter 2019

  • Welcome our new National Committee Chair, Warren Wenner.
  • Awareness Events: Training opportunities at Seabase this winter and Philmont this spring; Philmont offers a new experience for Scouts with special needs.
  • Recognizing Abilities: Dori Hammer receives the Woods Services Award.
  • Advancement help may be right down the street.
  • Adapting Activities: Special Needs at the World Scout Jamboree last summer; “Wizard Academy” hosted by Three Fires Council, Troops for the deaf and blind in Palmetto Council.

Volume 5 – 2018 and before

Archive of Abilities Digest back issues

Bray Barnes

Director, Global Security Innovative
Strategies

Bray Barnes is a recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award, Silver
Beaver, Silver Antelope, Silver Buffalo, and Learning for Life Distinguished
Service Award. He received the Messengers of Peace Hero award from
the royal family of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and he’s a life member of
the 101st Airborne Association and Vietnam Veterans Association. Barnes
serves as a senior fellow for the Global Federation of Competitiveness
Councils, a nonpartisan network of corporate CEOs, university presidents, and
national laboratory directors. He has also served as a senior executive for the
U.S. Department of Homeland Security, leading the first-responder program
and has two U.S. presidential appointments

David Alexander

Managing Member Calje

David Alexander is a Baden-Powell Fellow, Summit Bechtel Reserve philanthropist, and recipient of the Silver Buffalo and Distinguished Eagle Scout Award. He is the founder of Caljet, one of the largest independent motor fuels terminals in the U.S. He has served the Arizona Petroleum Marketers Association, Teen Lifeline, and American Heart Association. A triathlete who has completed hundreds of races, Alexander has also mentored the women’s triathlon team at Arizona State University.

Glenn Adams

President, CEO & Managing Director
Stonetex Oil Corp.

Glenn Adams is a recipient of the Silver Beaver, Silver Antelope, Silver Buffalo, and Distinguished Eagle Scout Award. He is the former president of the National Eagle Scout Association and established the Glenn A. and Melinda W. Adams National Eagle Scout Service Project of the Year Award. He has more than 40 years of experience in the oil, gas, and energy fields, including serving as a president, owner, and CEO. Adams has also received multiple service awards from the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers.