May 20, 2020

Dear Hudson Valley Scoutmasters, Scouting Families and Volunteers,

National Youth Leadership Training (NYLT) has been conducted continuously for the past twenty years in the Hudson Valley Council. It has become the best training course that empowers our youth leaders to make their home units become, truly, youth led. Our current youth and adult staff have invested a tremendous amount of time and effort to continue this legacy.

Due to the current pandemic our camps are still closed and we are not sure when they will be allowed to open. The state of New York and the Dutchess County Board of Health are developing guidelines that must be followed, if and when the camps are allowed to open. We are not sure that we can comply with all of their regulations and ensure that we keep our scouts and staff healthy and safe. Safety is our first concern.  We are not sure that we can provide a quality course and stay in compliance with all of the guidelines that the board of health requires.

It is for these reasons that we have come to the difficult decision to cancel NYLT for August of this year.

The NYLT staff will continue to meet so that we can carry on the legacy of an excellent NYLT program next year. We are planning to have an NYLT course in August of 2021.

Stay well. Stay safe and keep on scouting.

Yours in Scouting,

Tom Florio, Council Vice President for Programming (Training)

Christian Miller, Council Training Professional

HUDSON VALLEY COUNCIL

National Youth Leadership Training

For Scouts BSA˜Venturers˜Sea Scouts

Sunday, August 9,2020 (11:30 a.m.) – Saturday, August 15, 2020 (11 a.m.)

Camp Nooteeming, 22 Camp Nooteeming Road, Salt Point, NY 12578

REGISTER HERE:

NYLT strives to teach participants the leadership skills necessary to be effective leaders in their home units, while helping them experience the fun and challenge of Scouting at its best.

For More information contact Council Training Chair Art Olson or Course Director Sherri Raco

What is NYLT?

NYLT is not “summer camp.” It’s an intense, week-long leadership course for experienced Scouts, Venturers, and Sea Scouts. As the second step in BSA’s Youth Leader development program, NYLT provides your youth the opportunity to develop executive-level leadership skills that they need to be truly effective both in Scouts and later in life. It is one of the most advanced youth leader trainings that Scouting offers.

• The elected youth leader should receive an Officer Briefing. This is the individual counseling that the unit leader does with a youth when s/he undertakes a new position. It orients the youth to the specific functions of his or her new position in an individual, informal fashion.

• The first step of formal BSA youth leader training is “” This formal training helps the unit’s members do a better job of working together. It addresses practical situations a youth leader may encounter in the unit. (The syllabus can be found on the scouting.org Training page.) This training can be effectively carried out at the Troop/Crew/Ship level, and works well with the “on-the-job” experience a youth leader gets.

The second step of training is “National Youth Leadership Training” (NYLT). The interaction among participants from all over the Council is a major ingredient in the course. NYLT supports and builds upon the training done by the home unit. Upon completing NYLT, Scouts may attend further national training (NAYLE, Powder Horn, Kodiak), if desired.

˜All of these development steps are necessary to fully develop the youth’s potential.

We’ve never sent anyone to NYLT before… Why should we now?

Sending your youth to NYLT helps them develop their leadership potential and results in a smoother-running unit. Then, your adults will be able to spend more of their time doing their jobs with the unit, while the youth take the lead. If your unit is committed to having a truly youth-run unit, your youth leaders require the skills presented in NYLT to ensure success!

Isn’t the Unit training enough?

No. Unit training sessions were designed to briefly introduce youth leaders specifically to their new leadership roles within the unit. NYLT builds on and enhances the skills and ideas introduced in the other sessions, giving the Scout practical experience with advanced leadership techniques. NYLT does not replace the training done by the unit; it is designed to provide additional leadership skills and enhance the youth leader’s relationship with the unit and the unit’s leaders.

What Will the Participants Learn?

Participants will learn the fundamentals of good leadership, including the skills of motivating people and getting the job done, presented in a form that encourages the youth to practice these skills as they are learned.

They will learn the importance of forming a group into a unit that is working together because they want to. The tools of communication, creating a vision for success, goal setting, team building, and conflict resolution will be presented. Skills related to planning, effective teaching, and servant leadership will also be covered.

These skills are the ones that will get the job done in your home unit. Your youth will have an opportunity to see these skills in action, will be challenged through various patrol activities that provide practical, hands-on experience in the use of these skills, and will learn the kinds of results good leadership can bring. Participants leave with a handbook full of aids to help him or her in applying these newly acquired skills back in your unit.

Does NYLT teach Scoutcraft skills or Merit Badges?

No. Our focus at NYLT is on the leadership skills and on providing youth an opportunity to use and strengthen those skills. Because of this, Scouts must be at least 13 years old and have achieved the rank of 1st Class or above prior to attending NYLT (For 2020, 1^st class requirements are waived for females scouts BSA). They must have completed Introduction to Leadership Skills (ILST, ILSC, or ILSS). They should hold or will hold a leadership position in the home unit.

How is the course organized?

   The course is set up to represent a month in the life of a Troop (Venturers and Sea Scouts should understand how a Troop’s organization corresponds to a Crew/Ship). Camping and working together in patrols, participants experience the stages of team development. Through accomplishing the tasks of the week, they discover in a hands-on manner that leadership requires vision, goals, and planning; they learn how to define a vision of success for themselves and their patrol, to set goals for achieving it, and to plan for accomplishment of those goals.

   Built on the legacy of past youth leader training courses, NYLT integrates the best of modern leadership theory with the traditional strengths of the Scouting experience. Through activities, presentations, challenges, and discussions, NYLT participants will be engaged in a unified approach to leadership that will give them the skills and confidence to lead well. A wide range of activities, events, games, and adventures will cause the NYLT participants to work and play together as they put into action the best that Scouting has to offer.

   NYLT is a very intense week-long outdoor experience; it is a fun, focused, and challenging week of leadership-building activities and training that requires all of the energy and focus that a participant can bring to bear on it. We highly recommend that youth do NOT report to NYLT directly from summer camp or other exhausting experiences. It should be clearly understood by the participant, parents, and Scoutmaster/      Advisor/ Skipper that NYLT is NOT “just another week of summer camp.”

Who should we send?

   Youth who are in leadership positions (e.g., SPL, ASPL, Junior ASM, PL, Troop Guide, President, VP, Activity Chair, Boatswain, Mate, Crew Leader, etc.) or soon will be. The real answer to the question of who to send is more questions: who do you think is mature enough to take part in a week-long, intensive training course, and who do you believe the future leaders of your unit will be?

   Because of the limited space in this program, units will be limited to two registered youth prior to June 15 with the rest of your troop’s signups waitlisted at that time; after June 15, if any of the slots on the course remain open, participants will be added from the waiting list in rotation, in the order signups were received at Council (sort of like the lunch line: everyone gets “firsts” before it’s opened up to “seconds”). So, sign up early! Cost of the course $325

National Youth Leadership Training

Helping to build America’s leaders of tomorrow…one Scout at a time.