Boy Scouts and PADI Partner to Create New Scuba Merit Badge

The Boy Scouts of America is pleased to announce the release of the Scuba Diving merit badge. The official earn date of this merit badge is December 1, 2010. Pamphlets will be available for local council service centers and scoutstuff.org just in time for Christmas!

The first new merit badge in over three years, Scuba Diving reflects the new direction of BSA to develop merit badges based on youth/Scout input to assure relevance and excitement around the merit badge offering.

This merit badge, developed in association with PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors), leverages the BSA's spirit of outdoor adventure and expands its aquatics offering. More than 84 per cent of Scouts surveyed were interested in the merit badge and recommended that BSA adopt it.

Key facts you need to know about the merit badge are as follows:

·         Completing the Scuba Diving merit badge will result in the boy achieving an open water certification enabling him to dive around the world with the appropriate supervision, based on his age.

·         There are two important roles for this merit badge - the merit badge counselor and a certified dive instructor.

·         Sometimes this may be the same person.

·         More likely, the counselor will be an existing BSA adult member.

·         Always the instructor will be one certified by one of a number of instructional agencies.

·         The instructor does NOT have to be a BSA member.

·         Earning the Scuba Diving merit badge is open to all Boy Scout-age youth. There are, however, limitations based on age with respect to how deep and with whom a boy can dive. These limitations vary by certifying organization.

·         Completion of the Swimming merit badge is a requirement of the merit badge and must be completed prior to entering into scuba training portion of the requirements.

·         Boys with a current open water certification will NOT have to recertify in order to earn the merit badge. They will, however, have to have completed the Swimming merit badge, present their certification to the merit badge counselor and complete all the other requirements.

·         There are three important pieces of information which must be fully reviewed by the merit badge counselor prior to approving any Scout for the merit badge: the merit badge requirements, the notes to counselor and the scuba policy of the Guide to Safe Scouting.

For more details, visit www.ScoutingMagazine.org.

Published Courtesy of The Boy Scouts of America

NFL Power Rankings Week 15 – After a challenging Week 14 of the NFL season and the 49ers vs Cardinals’ Monday night football game has just wrapped up, it’s time and let’s get going with theNFL Power Rankings for Week 15.

In the Monday night game, San Francisco defeated Arizona and I’m ready to put out my week 15 NFL power rankings.

Here are some NFL Power Rankings for Week 15 (NFL Week 14 Rankings are in brackets):

1 (1) New Orleans Saints (13-0): Another week, another close win and struggling against bad teams but still undefeated.

2 (2) Indianapolis Colts (13-0): The Colts just won their 22nd regular season game.

3 (3) Minnesota Vikings (11-2): Dominant victory against the Bengals last time out and nice to see Adrian Peterson return to form.

4 (4) San Diego Chargers (10-3): The Chargers continue to roll in December and Heading into week 15 with 8 straight wins.

5 (7) Philadelphia Eagles (9-4): 4 straights wins is good for a top spot in the power rankings and a messy win, but still a win. Are the Eagles starting to utilize Michael Vick?

6 (9) Green Bay Packers (9-4): Green Bay might actually have a defense and with cold winter weather in full effect on the Frozen Tundra of Lambeau Field, Aaron Rodgers may start passing less, leaving Ryan Grant to pick up the slack.

7 (5)  Cincinnati Bengals (9-4): The Bengals passing game needs to improve if they want to be an elite team and will the real Cincinnati please stand up?

8 (6) Dallas Cowboys (8-5): Another week of the “Tony Romo doesn’t produce in December” conversation and home loss to the Chargers sends Dallas down to #8.

9 (8) Arizona Cardinals (8-5): Nothing went right on Monday night football and still maddeningly inconsistent. With a division title in their grasp, they give up seven turnovers.

10 (12) New England Patriots (8-5): Brady’s injury is affecting that offense and the rankings and at least took a couple of seasons for Randy Moss to implode?

11 (15) Baltimore Ravens (7-6): Nothing went wrong against the Lions and the Ravens are hurting at the tight end position.

12 (10) Denver Broncos (8-5): Brandon Marshall had a great day.

13 (11) New York Giants (7-6): So talented yet so inconsistent this NFL season and the Giants defense can’t seem to stop anybody.

14 (13) Jacksonville Jaguars (7-6): Maurice Jones Drew has been solid in fantasy and how are the Jaguars still in the playoff race? They might not be for much longer when the face the Colts on Thursday.

15 (16) Miami Dolphins (7-6): Putting themselves back in the NFL playoff picture and with the Pats floundering, could the Dolphins win the division?

16 (17) New York Jets (7-6): 3 straight victories have the Jets thinking playoffs again and don’t look now but the Jets have won three in a row.

17 (18) Tennessee Titans (6-7): Could move up in our power rankings with a week 15 victory and Chris Johnson continue to dominate.

18 (20) Houston Texans (6-7): Offense is so good but the defense and Matt Schaub had 300 yards in passing by halftime.

19 (21) San Francisco 49ers (6-7): 49ers showing life after a rough stretch and after going to the spread offense, it’s nice to see the Niners go back to Frank Gore and the ground game.

20 (14) Pittsburgh Steelers (6-7): 5 straight losses heading into week 15 and who would have thought the Cleveland Browns would hand the Steelers a death blow?

21 (19) Atlanta Falcons (6-7): Missing Matt Ryan and Michael Turner badly and as if the team doesn’t enough problems with its injuries, Jonathan Babineaux goes and gets himself arrested.

22 (22) Carolina Panthers (5-8): Are you allowed to call out an opponent for “quitting” after they just beat you? Injuries are killing these guys this year.

23 (26) Buffalo Bills (5-8): Another NFL team that could use some consistency and their defense came up big against the struggling Chiefs.

24 (23) Chicago Bears (5-8): Such a good arm and such poor decisions and just playing out the string.

25 (24) Seattle Seahawks (5-8): Not much love for Seattle in the week 15 power rankings and ditto for the Seahawks.

26 (25) Washington Redskins (4-9): Playing much better football lately and Quinton Ganther looked promising.

27 (27) Oakland Raiders (4-9): Is Justin Fargas really the son of Antonio “Huggy Bear” Fargas? Looking good until JaMarcus Russell came back.

28 (28) Kansas City Chiefs (3-10): Offense is struggling heading into week 15 and the Chiefs offense is a mess.

29 (30) Cleveland Browns (2-11): Doing their best to avoid the top draft pick and I’m sure the Browns stink, but they stink less than they used to.

30 (29) Detroit Lions (2-11): Played about as bad as possible last week. Running back Kevin Smith, one of the team’s few bright spots this season, is done for the year.

31 (32) Tampa Bay Buccaneers (1-12): Not getting blown out has them here in our rankings. Stretching back to last season, the Bucs have lost 16 of their last 17.

32 (31) St. Louis Rams (1-12): Last in power rankings but let’s expect some thing about Keith Null.

Football betting offers great many picks and odds for upcoming week in this NFL Regular season.

So far so good for the last 3 days i haven't got the chance to really log in and write about my races, but all thos three days were nothing but a good beat up yeap really hard races this is like one of the most exausted, hard and just really good i feel proud with my new times, looks like those really hard training drills paid off they were worth it, yea i only broke my 200m fly personal record for this couple of 3 days but just by 20hundreds of a second and still i am no longer one of the top 5 times im one of the top 3 getting close to my achievement, Josh and me are like the stars from our club tomorrow is the last day i qualified for 200m fly, 100m fly, 400IM & 200m free and the last event wich will be next tomorrow

4x100m freestyle relay team hope our club wins wish us luck.