Our Scouting Journey

Founded in December 2019, Troop 802B Blackhawks emerged as a purely virtual troop to help tie Lone Scouts across Europe and Africa together.  While some would say our start came out of the COVID-19 pandemic when the world went virtual, our founders were in fact already working to tie together scouting families into a group of consolidated 802 virtual units (Pack, B/G Troop, Venturer, and Ship). 

    We are a part of Scouts BSA, in the Transatlantic Council,  Charlemagne District (chartered but have scouts across many districts), and are proudly sponsored by American Legion Post BE02.

Our troop calendar is full of adventure.  From camping in great places like Croatia, Switzerland, or Kenya to working through merit badges digitally, our Blackhawks are highly engaged scouts and scouters on the scouting journey.  Many of our scouting families are engage in unprecedented adventure while living for a season in a host country for a few years; we thrive by sharing these experiences and advancing through Scouting ranks along the way.

Because of the unique nature of our global Scouting experience we value highly engaged parents ("Scouters") to journey with their Scouts.  Whether your family is living long-term as a global expat family, or posted for a few years to another country, our troop is full of scout families like yours that could be your scouting home.  For families with multiple children, know that we are thrilled to journey alongside Troop 802G for girls, Pack 802 for Cub Scouts, Ship 802 for Sea Scouts, and Crew 802 for Venture Scouts.  

We track advancements and awards using ScoutBook, a simple, online tool that we offer to parents as a way of viewing their Scout's completions as he moves through the ranks of Scouts BSA.  If a Scout transfers into our Troop from elsewhere in the world we will help the family transfer in the scout's online Scoutbook record (maintaining the same BSA Member ID).  If a Scout is new to Scouting, an invitation is sent for parents to connect to their ScoutBook profile.  We regularly communicate with Troop families using the ScoutBook program, so it's important that you accept that invitation and complete your own profile to include your email address and cell phone number.

Most of our meetings currently take place on Wednesday evenings, cycling through a monthly schedule of troop, patrol, merit badge, and camping meetings.  How does a scout go camping virtually?  Harnessing the power of a positive online experience, we find that learning about camping skills online with other scouts living abroad increases how often scouting families then get out into nature in their respective countries (from Bahrain to Chad to France!), even scouting with youth from other national scouting movements!

    We welcome you to join us in this fun-filled adventure we call Scouting!

Yours in Scouting,
The 802B Scoutmaster Team

Our Team