Second Class Rank

Requirement 1a is the rank

Five separate troop or patrol activities since joining Scouts BSA. At least three outdoors. Of those outdoor ones, at least two including overnight camping. Troop and patrol meetings explicitly do not count.

In a troop that camps once a month, that is not a task. It is most of a year's programme. Everything else on this sheet can be done in a few afternoons. This one cannot be done at all except by turning up, month after month, and it is the reason Second Class usually takes longer than the work in it suggests.

Requirement 1c then has to happen on one of those campouts, and 2e on one as well.

Requirement 7a cannot start yet

It begins After completing Tenderfoot requirement 6c, and then runs four weeks at thirty minutes a day, five days a week.

So the fitness thread now looks like this:

• Tenderfoot 6a–6c: record, plan, track 30 days, improve.
• Second Class 7a: then four weeks of daily activity.
• First Class 8a, then four weeks again. None of the three can be brought forward and none can overlap. If Tenderfoot 6c is not finished, this requirement has not started, however much exercise a Scout is doing.

The fire is two requirements, in order

Requirement 2b is preparing tinder, kindling and fuel wood with a pocketknife and, if needed, a saw or axe. Requirement 2c then says to build the fire using the wood from 2b: light it, let it burn safely for at least two minutes, put it out with minimal impact, and deal with the ashes.

That is one continuous piece of work, and doing 2c with wood somebody else gathered does not satisfy it.

Money, in two parts that also run in order

Requirement 8c is deciding on an amount to earn based on a specific item, writing a plan, and following it. Requirement 8d is comparing the cost at three locations and then, after completing 8c, deciding whether to spend the money as intended, save it, or use it for something else.

Four points of the Scout Law, and not the same four

Requirement 10 asks for four different points not including those used for Tenderfoot requirement 9. First Class 11 then asks for four different again. Across the three ranks that is twelve, and the Scout Law has twelve points.

What this page is

The Second Class rank, drawn so the two long requirements look long. It is not a copy of the requirements: each step is a short label with the requirement number beside it, and the official requirements are what actually governs and are republished every year.