Fw: Re: Summer Camp Trends
Daniel Smith (dansher@SPRYNET.COM)
Sat, 31 Jul 1999 17:14:34 -0400
> On Sat, 31 Jul 1999, Anthony Mako wrote:
>
> > One of the causes of this trend around here is that many troops from
> > neighboring councils aren't happy with the program at their local camps.
> > Manatoc sees a lot of campers from outside the local council, and many
local
> > troops have a hard time getting reservations for camp at Manatoc. Seven
> > Ranges sees a lot of out-of-council troops as well. As the Great Trail
> > Council camping committee has already discovered, solutions to this
> > particular trend are expensive. In our case, it means building a new,
bigger
> > dining hall for Camp Manatoc and not only upgrading the facilities at
Camp
> > Butler, but also building a dining hall and hiring a staff (Camp Butler
Cheryl wrote:
> Ummmm -- wouldn't it have been (A) Cheaper and (B) more user-friendly to
> have simply CLOSED reservations to out-of-Council troops?
>
> As I understand it, Councils prefer their Scouts to go to their camps.
> That being so, it sure seems simpler to get all the in-Council Troops in
> and then allow out-of-Council Troops to register. If In-Council fills
> all available slots, c'est la guerre. If they do not, they at least had
> first shot.
> It wouldn't even take much extra effort from the staff. Application
> comes in; is it from IN Council? Y = red box N= blue box. When comes
> time to assign slots, open everything in the red box first. If you end
> up with Camp Yahoo only half-full for a week, you open envelopes from the
> blue box until you fill it up. If you end up with 6 slots at Camp Itchy
> the last week, yougo through the blue box looking for a 6-man Troop.
I know that this is happening locally and I suspect it is much the same
elsewhere. The quest is for out of council dollars and while in most cases,
pressure is brought to bear to prevent troops from going out of council to
summer camp. In our council, they have almost dropped this pressure due to
the fact that they have built enough trade from out of council that the camp
is filled to capacity. They have shifted their energies to ways of
expanding the capacity in order to bring in more dollars. The camping
season has already been expanded to about the maximum number of weeks that
they can operate and now more tents and platforms are being added. New
shower houses and mess hall are on the agenda now if they can find donors.
Unfortunately I do not believe local troops or program (they have a good
one) are any longer concerns.
Our camp is filled by January and if you get left out, the result is an out
of council scramble to find one with space.
YIS
Dan Smith
Scoutmaster Troop 221
Chattahoochee District Commissioner
