Fred Flinstone
New
My 12 yo son is a Star scout and a PADI Junior Master Diver. He really enjoys scuba and scouting. This summer he had been looking forward to getting his scuba merit badge, bringing together the two things he emjoys most. Ultimately he did get it, bit not the way he thought. All of our scout camps cancelled their scuba merit badge classes as none of the dive shops could manage the logistics of getting empty tanks from camp to their shop and back to camp. Most of our camps are 90 minutes or more away from the nearest dive shop. He did find a merit badge counselor and finished off the requirements on his own. But it made us think about all the boys who were so disappointed due to not getting to try scuba diving at camp.
We spoke with 3 dive shops that had spoken to our local council about running scuba merit badge classes at summer camp but they all said logistics just would work. The councils are not allowed to have their own compressors and provide compressed air and none of the dive shops are willing to put up the rather large amount of money needed to acquire a portable compressor.
So we were thinking about getting scouts together in each council to raise money to buy a compressor that could be used at scout camp by whatever dive shop was offerring scuba merit badge training. For one scout to raise $6,000 is tough. But if 40 scouts got together and each scout raised $150 that would work. Would any other scouts be interested in helping? Perhaps we could get a seperate Forum set up on here for this?
We spoke with 3 dive shops that had spoken to our local council about running scuba merit badge classes at summer camp but they all said logistics just would work. The councils are not allowed to have their own compressors and provide compressed air and none of the dive shops are willing to put up the rather large amount of money needed to acquire a portable compressor.
So we were thinking about getting scouts together in each council to raise money to buy a compressor that could be used at scout camp by whatever dive shop was offerring scuba merit badge training. For one scout to raise $6,000 is tough. But if 40 scouts got together and each scout raised $150 that would work. Would any other scouts be interested in helping? Perhaps we could get a seperate Forum set up on here for this?