NYLT 2021

National Youth Leadership Training, called NYLT, is the youth leadership development training program of Scouts BSA. Each summer, Scouts, Venturers, and Sea Scouts attend this six day, intensive leadership training program. This summer Troop 148 sent 10 scouts and 2 adults to NYLT at Maumee Scout Reservation so they can learn what a leader must BE, what a leader must KNOW, and what a leader must DO.

While at NYLT, we learned quite a few things. We learned how to be leaders, and we learned the “neutral position”, which is used when presenting information. We learned how to set up a good presentation, and there were quite a few other things. However, the most memorable idea that we learned was the four stages of team development: Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing. We were tasked with recording what stage we were at over the days. By the end of the course, every patrol had reached Performing!

We did quite a few fun things, too. For example, in my patrol we built a functioning rope swing using just a few logs and some rope. One night, all of the patrols watched a movie together, and Art, the head chef, made some great snacks. On the final day, the morning flag ceremony was quite eventful, with Paul becoming our leader after the previous one was overthrown.

But probably the main highlight for a lot of scouts was the big 5 mile hike on the 2nd day of the 2nd weekend. We all loaded up our big backpacking packs with our belongings, and moved our camp to somewhere else. The hike covered multiple types of terrain, ranging from dense forest to hilly roads. My patrol got relatively lost within the forest, which ended up extending our hiked distance by about a mile. It took most groups around 6 to 7 hours to travel from point A to point B. It was hard work, but so much fun! I will never forget it.