Mile swim for adults?

[King Ding Dong]

I have seen references the the Mile Swim patch can be awarded to adults but nothing in official BSA guides. I know it will be up to camp policy to administer it or not. Anything official?

[wagionvigil]

adults can and do get the mile swim. Our camp has always included adults in it as long as they attend all the training swims each day with the boys.

[mt_goodrich]

I completed the Mile Swim as a 15 year old. It was at a lake at Camp Makajawan in Northern Wisconsin. Camp belonged to the Northeast Illinois Council.

Now that I am an adult, can't believe I actually did it.

[Quailman]

I don't know what council you're in, but mine allows adults to try. It gives the boys an even bigger feeling of accomplishment when they see grown-ups getting pulled out of the water.

[Nuts4Scouts]

Obviously, some councils do award this emblem to adults.

However, per BSA literature, the award is for Boy Scouts, and Venturers, not adults -

http://www.bsaseabase.org/seabase/sitecore/content/home/awards_central/mileswim.aspx

http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/33066_Section3.pdf , See page # 67.

[razor_strop]

Nuts, the insignia guide excerpt you linked may not be the best source for that information, as on the page preceeding the one with the Mile Swim badge it makes no mention of the fact that adults can earn the Emergency Preparedness Award. For that matter, the Sea Base link to the Scouting.org site says only Boy Scouts can earn the Mile Swim, and doesn't mention Venturers, so that isn't entirely correct, either.

[King Ding Dong]

I don't know what council you're in, but mine allows adults to try. It gives the boys an even bigger feeling of accomplishment when they see grown-ups getting pulled out of the water.

I am a Red Cross Life Guard and YMCA certified swim instructor. I would certainly want to train some to attempt it, but I have done it before. I wonder what the impact would be on the scouts if a 45 year old fat man completed it and some of them couldn't. I certainly would not want to do it if there would be a negative effect on the scouts. But a part of me would enjoy the snickers from them as they saw me line up to try. I suspect many of them do not realize it is not a race and is about pace and survivability and the elementary backstroke is an important tool to use in survival mode.

I am in the Greater St. Louis Area Council, but we are going out of council for camp. Camp Bunn (they better have good coffee) in the Abe Lincoln Council in Springfield, IL. Even if the award is allowed for adults by BSA, I would certainly respect the Camp's policy on allowing adults to participate. It is not listed as an adult activity in the camp leader guide. I will contact the director after I have a more definitive answer on official BSA policy.

[King Ding Dong]

Nuts, the insignia guide excerpt you linked may not be the best source for that information, as on the page preceeding the one with the Mile Swim badge it makes no mention of the fact that adults can earn the Emergency Preparedness Award. For that matter, the Sea Base link to the Scouting.org site says only Boy Scouts can earn the Mile Swim, and doesn't mention Venturers, so that isn't entirely correct, either.

And the it shows the BSA life guard as only for scouts and venturers and adults can earn it.

[King Ding Dong]

Another indication it can be awardeded to scouters

http://www.scoutstuff.org/boy-scout-mil ... ingle.html

This card is used to honor each Scout and Scouter who accomplishes the feat of swimming one (1) continuous mile. There are spaces on the card for the Scout or Scouter's name, the signature of the person who witnessed the completion of swim, and the date of the swim. This mile swim BSA card is great for recognizing the youth or adult in a troop meeting or court of honor.