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Re: Wood Badge
Ian Shedden (di.shedd@SYMPATICO.CA)
Wed, 18 Nov 1998 19:14:08 -0500
-----Original Message-----
From: Fogeyman <fogeyman@BIGFOOT.COM>
To: Multiple recipients of list SCOUTS-L <SCOUTS-L@TCUBVM.IS.TCU.EDU>
Date: Wednesday, November 18, 1998 9:52 AM
Subject: Re: Wood Badge
I don't know what you've done before, but our Wood Badge courses here
in GSLAC have been using the "SPL splasher" -- a catapult. The
Snip and End -----Original Message-----
I have seen many Scout camps in this neck of the woods where catapults
were an assigned project for each attending Troop. The idea was to have
all contestants launch test balloons into a defined "firing range" and
the Troop with the farthest throw was recognized at camp closing.
These sessions inevitably and invariably turned into huge water balloon
fights that made for a marvelous expenditure of energy. The only time I
ever heard about anyone getting hurt was at a camp where one Troop
entered the contest with a ballista (a variation of a catapult that
fires a projectile in a flat trajectory with incredible speed and force
of impact) and an unwary Scouter took a direct hit in the side of his
face. The blow knocked the man senseless for several minutes and (no pun
intended) put a heavy damper on the proceedings.
At my Woodbadge course each patrol was assigned a "camp gate" project
that had to include identification of the patrol and define the entrance
and perimeter of the chosen patrol site. One of our number designed a
patrol pennant depicting a large polar bear in white on a blue field
with the name "Nanook" (Eskimo word for polar bear, so we were told) in
white below the bear. This was mounted on the flag pole incorporated
into our counter balanced entrance. Suspended from the top bar were two
additional parallel bars defining the height of the gate. What was
really neat was the suspended bars were mounted on a pulley system of
ropes that caused them to lift and retract upwards against the top bar
as the gate was raised to allow entrance.
I believe the gate plan is included in one of the two books by John Swee
t ("Pioneering for Town and Country" ?) and, as mentioned by Gary
Burkhardt in his post, available from Scouts Canada.
Ian Shedden,
29th Nepean Scout Group
Ontario, CANADA
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