VISIT...... The U.S. Scouting Service Project's ScoutCamp.org website
We want to announce the completion of a major upgrade to ScoutCamp.org, a member website of the U.S. Scouting Service Project. This is the largest database of Scout Camp properties in the USA as well as other places that scout leaders have recommended other units consider visiting for campouts.
At ScoutCamp.org you can search, state by state for all council owned or operated properties, see maps, get weather forecasts, go to the council's web page for that camp, as well as other pages that have been developed for that camp and even post your own comments, critiques, and recommendations for any BSA Camps. We also have several hundred State Parks, National Parks, and other places with "scout camping areas" and other special places that Scouters have posted with their comments. There are even at least 21 Scout Unit owned camps & cabins that other troops can visit just like they could for any council owned camp.
The ScoutCamp.org website has been around for some time, some of you will remember Lloyd Dalton who really started the website about eight years ago. Since then it has become a part of the family of website at USSSP and grown to more than 1,200 camp listings. Today I just wrapped up about 200 hours over the past six weeks updated every Boy Scout Camp property in the nation.
As you know councils acquire & sell camps, and about 80% of them either changed a URL for their camp properties or finally got around to creating web pages for all of their camps since I completed the last major update in 2002. Even a majority of the some 200 State Parks, etc. on the site needed some edit modifications to their listings. Right now we have 817 BSA properties in the database but I am certain, even now, there are some we probably overlooked so I need the help of Scouters to visit the site and see if we got all of the details correct for the camps in your council.
What we have now is, hopefully, an up to date & accurate database of all of the Boy Scout operated camps in America. Hopefully all of you have been to at least one BSA property this summer, why not check out the site and post your own comment.
During this update I have also corrected the data for all Boy Scout Councils in the U.S. Scouting Service Project's ScoutSite search. Area Codes change, councils build new Service Centers, there have been about a half dozen council mergers over the past few years, and unfortunately nearly every month every few months at least one council will forget to renew their URL domain and they get cybersquatted with their URL domain getting hijacked so there is always at least one council out there that seems to be changing their website URL All of this has been updated as well.
What do we have at ScoutCamp.org? Here are the listings as we have them now:
- Scout-owned or operated: 817 Camps
- State Parks: 146
- Other Camps: 48
- Private for Profit Camps: 45
- County Parks: 38
- National Parks: 29
- National Forest: 24
- Unit-owned Camps 21
- State Forests: 21
- Historical Sites: 8
- Military: 7
- City Parks: 6
- Learning For Life owned:: 2
We also have Camp stories, a list of O.A. Where to Go Camping Guides, and more items are planned!!! An O.A. Lodge considering a "Where to Go Camping" on-line guide could easily make ScoutCamp.org a part of that effort.
Please let me encourage you to visit ScoutCamp.org today and check out on any and all of your favorite camps as well as your comments on where you camped this summer and let us know if we got your council's total camp data correct & complete.
ED HENDERSON
Board Member: U.S. Scouting Service Project
ScoutCamp.org webmaster
BigEd@UsSCOUTS.org
http://usscouts.org/henderson.asp