JudyB

We did this theme a couple of years ago. What our district did was to take games and crafts from all over the world and create a station around them. For example, we had:

Archery - England

Collage - France

Limbo - Jamaica

Bocce - Italy

We tried to be accurate about the known origin of the activity. (I'm sure we screwed up some, though!) What was really cool was that before camp we had made up den signs and each sign was for a country, and it had that countries Scout logo, and a boy and girl in native dress. We had researched the countries in advance, and had to come up with 11 that had a scouting organization logo and that we could find pictures of their native costumes. The boys were assigned to the dens prior to camp, and they had a chance, if they wanted, to look up information about their country before they came to camp. The signs were really cool. There are some craft books that have craft suggestions from around the world. We found the game suggestions on the internet.

Judy

Hi! I'm trying to come up with a solution or two to a camp promotion problem. Last year our council made up pack packages with registration forms in them that were distributed to the packs. The packs were then responsible to distribute the information to the cubs.

Council wide we had roughly 20% attendance at Day Camp. District wide we had from 2% to 45% attendance, depending on the district.

Somethings not connecting. Im figuring that in the districts with lower attendance either the CM/CC has decided that their pack isn't going to camp and isn't distributing the forms, or, if the forms are turned over to DL's, the DL's decide that they're not going to camp and don't do the den promotion. I've come to that conclusion because I've heard the complaints from parents after camp is over - they say they were never told about camp.

Our council is thinking about mailing the registration form directly to each registered boy for the 2005 camps. Theyre thinking of doing this because we have a different cub camping activity thats overnight and it's 1/1 ratio, and it's highly attended. They think that the high attendance at this activity is due to the fact that the forms are being sent right to the family, with no DL, CM or CC in the middle. The council is thinking that if the cubs can sign up for Day Camp separate from the pack they may have more participation.

However, those of us that run the district camps feel that we need registration to go through the packs because the packs are responsible for providing the staff for camp. (No paid staff) Each pack is supposed to supply 2 leaders for camp staff, and when the packs are helping with and monitoring the registration we have a better chance at getting the pack to take care of their responsibility. Our professional has asked us to think about this and come up with suggestions as to how we can best get camp information to all of the boys and still get staff needed from each pack. Any suggestions?

Judy

PS Sorry this post is so long!