A note from the National Office: Effective December 31, 2024, the Journey to Excellence unit recognition program will be retired.
Journey to Excellence was Scouting America’s program to help Packs, Troops, Crews, Ships and Posts to plan, monitor and evaluate their performance and their ability to serve youth. There are specific criteria for the unit to plan and accomplish. These standards are reviewed each year and revised standards are published.
The Journey to Excellence Standards and scorecards are available on the Scouting America’s National Website
There is no requirement, no expectation and, in fact, we believe a great unit is balanced in the service that it provides to youth. There is no shame and no problem if a unit achieves Silver or Bronze. That unit is serving youth.
What Journey to Excellence Brings to Your Unit
- A framework for planning the year.
The Journey to Excellence standards are based on what successful units do to
continually improve. If your unit plans to achieve gold or silver Journey to Excellence, you’ll have a strong and active program. - A method for evaluating your unit.
Journey to Excellence provides tangible measurements based on things you are likely
already tracking, such as how many campouts you have, how many youth are
advancing, etc., and uses simple ways to calculate your performance. - Guidance in areas where you might do better.
As you track your performance against the Journey to Excellence standards, you can
easily see where you could do better. - Specific guidelines and standards of what is considered good performance.
Journey to Excellence has specific, simple measures to help you. You can easily
compare what you are doing against the standards. - Early warning of potential problem areas.
You track any areas where your unit is not performing as you might like and have
plenty of time to make corrections. - Recognition for good Scouting.
You can proudly receive your bronze, silver, or gold recognition for your Scouting unit
for the year. - Benchmarking to get ideas and tips from other good units.
You can receive help and best practices in areas where other units have met the gold
standard. In the areas where you are doing well, you can give help and ideas to other units.
A Special Note About Journey To Excellence (JTE)
Journey to Excellence (JTE) Unit Recognition Program to Be Retired
Effective December 31, 2024, the Journey to Excellence unit recognition program will be retired. Moving forward, metrics for Scouting and Exploring unit success will be seamlessly integrated into unit leader support materials and resources. These metrics will be consistent with those used by the Commissioner corps to support Scouting and Exploring units. This new approach aims to provide a consistent and more streamlined and effective method for evaluating and enhancing unit performance. Feedback from unit leaders and survey results played a crucial role in making this decision. We believe this transition will better support our unit leaders and ultimately improve the experience for all participants as we continue to develop and deliver relevant programs. Units can continue to purchase 2024 Journey to Excellence recognition items through December 31, 2025.
The Alamo Area Council encourages units to earn the Baden Powell Award.
