AltadenaCraig

Very impressive, @MikeS72; thanks! I've googled dozens of Camporee Guides, but they've all been District- or Council-produced documents and only underscore the disparity among programs. Your link is to an apparently official BSA guide - dated 2009 so relatively recent. For me the most valuable blurb is "The camporee involves the type of equipment that can be carried in a pack by [scouts] and can be set up entirely by [scouts], allowing them to be completely self-sufficient for a self-reliant experience over a period of two or three days." Our district's Camporees have featured nothing l

Agreed. My troop prefers the single-serve PB cups (Jif or Skippy). I'll risk hijacking this "breakfast" thread by noting the single-serve PB cups, along with restaurant-type jellies and a tortilla (or the mini-rolls of ritz crackers) make for great PBJ lunch. Safety tip: When taking PB cups to altitude, be sure to pack them in a ziplock and consider puncturing the lids with a pin-prick. We didn't and found a mess upon arriving to basecamp in the Sierras.

I think we can start with some guidance & standards. I don't disagree and several previous posts in this thread underscore your point. Some Camporees (such as our District's) are 100% adult-run. Appears @cocomax is as well: While @qwazse recalls 100% scout-lead: Not to mention @Jameson76 point that points for subjective criteria such as "scout spirit" or enthusiasm and such are inviting trouble. Bottom Line: Has anyone seen "Best Practices" for Camporees published by any Area, or National? Seems like all of us on this thread, including me, are winging it.

I wonder if any Districts are holding separate boys' and girls' Camporees? Some Districts won't yet have critical mass of girl patrols, I get that, but for those Districts that do have ample girl patrols has anyone heard of separate Camporees? Venturing has been coed for years (and btw if shenanigans are the worry such would occur in Venturing, not in Scouts BSA, so that's not the issue), but I gather in Scouts BSA the thinking is the boys need their scouting experience and the girls need theirs. Consequently Scouts BSA isn't organized like Little League - with girls & boys intermin

Yeah, this nonsense was called-out in our District Comm meetings after last year's Camporee. We (adults) are taking steps at this year's Camporee in two weeks to separate adults who are "just trailing" and get them well away from the patrols in general and the competitions in particular. We'll see.

According to the "Interplanetary Chief Astronaut", in 1961 such a suit cost $18,000. But then it did have "two pair of pants". [sketch below from "The Ed Sullivan Show", portions of which featured in "The Right Stuff", book & movie]

You've put your finger on a larger issue than boys vs. girls ... re: my comments at bottom. Bingo. Four years ago I'd just taken a troop that hadn't been to Camporee in over a decade. The PLC agreed to send one patrol as a "test", and our next-to-youngest patrol was registered. Our scouts took to heart the Campmaster's instruction to "enjoy the experience" and my ASM and I left them alone. Agreed, they weren't one-month-fresh, but they certainly were among the least prepared. This as opposed to other troops' patrols, which annually take the whole thing so seriously they hold "camp

Ooooh, thanks SO much for reminding me. HUGE SAFETY TIP: Nestle unfortunately packages the Nido whole milk so it's nearly identical to their baby-powder. DON'T CONFUSE THE TWO !!

Nice tip about the Knorr sides, @mrkstvns ; thanks. Yes, our troop has hit on the backpacker's shepherd's pie as well. Our scouts call it "cow-in-the-cloud". The one tip I'll pass-on is this: "Nido" whole-milk powder. You can typically find a large canister of the stuff at Smart-&-Final, which is just fine as you'll use it again and again. Unfortunately the usual-suspect grocery stores (Ralphs, Vons) carry only the non-fat powdered milk, which is unusable for our purposes. But the Nido whole-milk powder is perfect for adding to morning Oatmeal or to evening dessert (just-add-mil

So this past weekend both of our troops (boys & girls) held their March overnighter at a nearby US Forest Service campground. The two SPL's asked my cohort SM & me for advice on where to emplace the patrols of both troops. Seeing an opportunity to work-in some European history and Norse mythology - as well as avoid the awkward "male patrols" & "female patrols" monikers - I suggested they might "place the Paladin patrols in these campsites and the Valkyrie patrols in those campsites". After some quick explanation, the boys' SPL seemed agreeable with the comparison to Charlema

Very interesting topic. Thank you @shortridge . My $.02: Biggest problem with youth skills instruction. For me, it's First Class Nature; specifically 5a): 5a. Identify or show evidence of at least 10 kinds of native plants found in your local area or campsite location I interpret "kinds" as "species" within the plant kingdom. I'm terrible at it. I find guidebooks difficult. What I need/want to do is get a local botanist to really train a few of us adults in the field so that we can in turn train our senior scouts. After that it's purely monitoring/mentoring as the scouts

Here's a useful and to-the-point video on the "Turk's Head Woggle":

No, no, I think you read it correctly. I'm being loose on the definition of "his own patrol". While some troops I've seen are rather strict in their construction of patrols (duration, age-group, etc.), others I've seen are so loose as to cobble them together almost ad-hoc for every outing. My own troop is somewhere in the middle, with established patrols supplemented by temporary "crews" for high-adventure summertime activities. Accordingly in this instance I imagine the SM cobbling together an ad hoc "patrol", including himself, for the benefit of the scout. Admittedly mine is a loos

I may be whistling past the graveyard, here, but I'm hopeful the introduction of girls into Scouts BSA will spark a turnaround in Venturing. As Cub Scouts have sub-segments of Webelos, Tigers, etc., it's always struck me as odd that Boy Scouts (now Scouts BSA) ran from ~5th through ~12th grades without sub-segments of its own. Even G2SS discourages tent-sharing among scouts > 2-grade-levels apart. Alas, before girls were able to join as scouts, promoting a follow-on co-ed Venture crew - where late-teen boy scouts, but not the girls, could continue to pursue Eagle - always seemed awkw

Oops. My mistake. I was going off of here-say and I should know better. Here's an apparently official GSUSA document that includes shooting sports (p.139). My apologies: https://www.girlscouts.org/content/dam/girlscouts-gsusa/forms-and-documents/cookie/Resources/GSUSA_Safety-Activity-Checkpoints_2018.pdf

Moreover, her comments were charitable. GS/USA restricts range activities to archery only. Shooting of guns is not allowed. My earlier post, in italics immediately above, was incorrect. Here's their version of Guide to Safe Scouting: https://www.girlscouts.org/content/dam/girlscouts-gsusa/forms-and-documents/cookie/Resources/GSUSA_Safety-Activity-Checkpoints_2018.pdf Ref. p. 139

I agree - it's the MB Counselor's call. I take a different view. For the purposes of this campout, if I read the OP's scenario correctly, the group for which the scout prepared meals WAS his patrol (even if it included adults). Agreed. Gotta love any SM who's looking to set scouts up for success as opposed to nit-picking requirements in search of technicalities to use as road-blocks.

Of course there is! Here's my quote (with emphasis): For most parents that will be enough to assuage their need for involvement. If you feel you can go farther, you can train for the Scoutmaster Corps. BTW, I'll fix my quote to read "the PLC with support from the Scoutmaster Corps will take it from here."

Agreed. The question is, why? Some would argue this is purely due to human development during Jr. High / Middle school. I say its because quality scout units successfully ween over-indulgent hyper-involved Akela's from their newly minted Scouts. I see the same thing, but I draw a wholly different conclusion. During Webelos, if not before, we should be marketing Scouts BSA as "break time" for Akela's Give these parents the "well done" thank-you's and then invite them onto the Troop Committee, but emphasize that activity involvement is the role of the SM/ASM's and the PLC, with supp

Love this idea. Agreed, Jameson76. But how do we "laser-focus" without some kind of metric? I'm a big supporter of JTE, but I think it needs to measure scout-lead outdoor activities. Our district is chock-full of adults who are focused on completing "Merit Badge Packets" but who couldn't "Go Do Stuff" to save their lives. If our girls-in-Scouts-BSA is to be successful. We HAVE to have metrics that accurately identify and discriminate the Green-Bar-Bill units from the posers. From your words to God's eyes. Amen.

Like DuctTape, I too agree with your observation that the methods are largely complimentary. However I subscribe to the notion there's one common denominator: The Patrol Method. Clarke Green over at scoutmastercg.com posits one can reasonably derive the others from this one method, but not necessarily vice versa. If not the primary method, I would at least consider The Patrol Method the first among equals. Clarke similarly finds "Character Development" as a common denominator among scouting's Aims. Here's the link to his podcast where he says it much better than I: https://scoutmastercg.

Agreed. We're all adults (not to mention volunteers & teammates) and should behave as such. It's one thing to approach adult personal behavior In General as an educational opportunity - of course we should all be students of the scout oath and law (though, alas, I personally require repeated instruction). It''s another for any of us to appear to call-out the behavior of other adults under the veil of championing those values. No one appointed any of us Lone Ranger.

Qwazse: I follow your posts and appreciate them as coming from a good egg. I expect you'd be the kind of person to take any constructive criticism well. My guess is that if I heard you say something that really offended me I'd have the confidence to approach you personally and mention my discomfort, knowing that you would appreciate my sharing my feelings. If her relationship with the potty-mouth is secure, I'd advise Wisconsin Momma to similarly make mention of her feelings one-on-one. If it's not, then let it go. We're here for Scouts' character development, not that of Scou

WisconsinMomma: Keep your focus on Scouts, not on adults. You don't have time for this rabbit-hole, inviting the risk of being seen as a moralizer or a prude, etc. Of course, if this language is used in earshot of Scouts that's a different matter. Adult-only committee meetings? Let it go.

Thanks to all ... I'm really getting a lot out of this thread. I'm encouraged by my younger patrols - they're exhibiting high enthusiasm for what I'll call "vanilla scouting": Patrol method in the outdoors. They're engaged and reasonably attentive at PLC's, they have fun with one another, and the more advanced of my younger scouts exhibit care and concern for the youngest - taking them under their wings and helping them with skills, advancement, etc. Perfect! My struggle is with my oldest scouts. I hate to "write them off", but I'm just there with them. I've concluded that my pr