AwakeEnergyScouter

I thought about it, but I'm old-school and want to keep all electronics at home. We go out into nature to commune with nature and each other, not to fiddle with devices. Plus, GPS is to map and compass as a TI-83 is to doing it by hand. I think you should know it the hard way before you take the shortcut, at least if you can make it fun enough when it's not school. Given how much fun they had with the map and compass, I see a yes there, at least for these particular kids. I was thinking about essentially converting the geocaches into an unconventional orienteering exercise by marking the

A bit off topic at this point, but I would love to beta test that orienteering lesson with my wolf-soon-to-be-bear den. We just did Finding Your Way and they loved it, so I see an opportunity to feed that beast with orienteering. I'm not an expert myself, just loved orienteering in gym class, so would love a plan to execute... Plus an excuse to go trail running 😇

What? You would think he would come to ours! 🤪 Actually, now that I think about, he does. The rumor went around camp that the King was there, but my patrol couldn't figure out where in time to see him.

Wait, what? American jamborees have big-name non-scout performers and add-on tours? No wonder it's so expensive. Our campfire arena had 100% scout talent and there was nothing to tour because we were sitting in the middle of the forest in a temporary city made out of slender young trees and rope and tents. Granted, this was now decades ago so I'm sure it's more expensive now in Sweden as well, but still... We were dropped off by our parents or by buses and picked up 1-2 weeks later.

Oh, sorry, I thought you might have sung the song.. the twist in the original is that the parakeet wants ice cream and Coca-Cola 😂

🎶 Jag är en liten undulat,som fått för dåligt med mat,för dom jag bor hos,för dom jag bor hos,Dom är så snåla.Dom ger mig sill varenda dag,och det vill jag inte ha,för jag vill bara,för jag vill bara,ha lax med dillsås 🎶 Good improvising on the verses situation 😂 I don't remember when the formal split was, but the church lost its social power long before then. When my parents were in elementary school, they sang Christian hymns in music class, even though not everyone believed. We would have been shocked to do so in the 1990s and 2000s. Most of the people I knew that got confirmed di

Oh, wow, you guys in NSF scouts must have been very religious! I noticed the mention of confirmation at a scout camp earlier, which struck me as very unusual, but I thought maybe it was some extra thing a few scouts happened to be doing at the same time the scout camp was on. Is NSF a Christian organization? I thought they just wanted people to drink less. This is a scout song I've never heard! We just trolled our leaders by drumming our cutlery on the long tables like a drum circle until someone announced that we could come take food 🤭 Bonus points for for chanting Mat! Mat! Mat! I do th

Thanks @MattR, but I know the melody very well from scouts already. We sang it around the campfire all the time, usually followed by joking about all the ways we were going to traumatize our leaders and get them sent to jail 😂 There are lots of other Swedish scout songs I wish I could share with my cub scouts, but of course the only scout who would get the jokes is mine (who speaks Swedish), so not much point. I see a modified BP Spirit in the Cub Scout Songbook, and a few English scout songs we also sang, and here I found what I thought was a Swedish scout song already has an English tra

I wasn't sure if my scout was ready to enjoy camping yet when we planned to go to our first pack overnighter - for only one of the two nights in case it went poorly. While I had to bribe them with a surprise present to go, once they did it was a done deal and they forgot about the present. They absolutely did not want to go home, and getting to go camping for a whole weekend with the other scouts to play with is THE major draw of scouting for them. Staying two nights is also much more relaxing for me. I am completely failing to see what the problem is, and don't have a guess either. Other

Thanks for posting this! I had no idea that this was originally an American song. We sang what apparently was an inspired take on this original by singer-songwriter Cornelis Vreeswijk around the campfire. Our version is definitely less clean, though: Hey mom, hey dad! Here's a letter from your favorite son We're having fun at summer camp There are 28 of us gangster kids in a Large barrack with lots of beds Can you send more money? That would be a good deed I have lost it all playing dice It's lots of fun here I can promise Although a

Conveniently, I already tested pre-mixing the dry ingredients for bannock in a plastic bag and kneading the dough in the bag after adding water and taught my scout how to bake it on a stick. We're ready to make bread for the pack also!

I see a few of those freeze-dried meals that might be worth a try... After all, if kids have run around enough to be hungry they might be more willing to try new things. Last I heard quinoa was boring, but being outside can shake things up. Thanks for the tip. I was wondering if I'd have to dry my own ingredients to make my own dried meals 🤔 That patrol soup looks great! I think the recipe is too big for our Trangia kitchen, but the pack has some big cast-iron pots ☺️

When I was a child on hike, I ate meat and dairy. Now I don't, and am struggling to come up with good outdoor menus - my ideas are either very heavy and/or require a very long cook time. Even worse, my scout doesn't like the camp classics I grew up with that are veg and often turns their nose up at anything with sauces. (Except Indian food, go figure.) So, that rules out most of the freeze-dried meals that used to be my go-to. We have pre-made Indian in bags as a solid meal for both of us, but that's it! However, since we're about to tackle Bear Picnic this upcoming school year, I se

Tack ska du ha! It is always time for fika! I plan to teach the cub scouts how to bake a sponge cake in an orange over the coals on the next campout, and I of course always bring coffee. They might also appreciate making strövargodis. Lärde du dig svenska på en sommar? Inte dåligt i så fall! My kår was Ludvika Scoutkår, then run by SSF. My dad was a member as well, and I took a peek at their Facebook page and it looks like things are still going there! https://m.facebook.com/100064894952670/ That location near Vättern looks lovely. We mostly built our camps from the t

Bit late here, but WOSM provides training and activities on the SDGs in a way that's linked to the Messengers of Peace program. If you follow the bread crumbs from Scouts BSA's website on MoP to WOSM's website on MoP, it links to Scouts for the SDGs. The activities provided there are really nice. I just facilitated a cub scout pack meeting around defining a MoP project with inspiration from the SDGs. (We figured that lions and tigers would struggle with even the simplest exercise from WOSM.) I heard a lot of good conversation around how we scouts can build a better world. I highly recomme

Hello! I'm a Swedish immigrant to the US. I was a scout when I was a kid and really enjoyed it, and my family did a lot of what we in Swedish call "fresh air living", hiking/fishing/camping/biking/paddling/skiing/skating kinds of things. We went tent backpacking in Lapland for vacations. (But then again, part of my family is from the Arctic Circle so knowing that nature and landscape intimately is also knowing my roots.) My troop met on the edge of a forested hill, so we spent a lot of our time outdoors. I made some of my best childhood friends through scouting! Anyway, because scout

Good morning, scouters! My cub scout recently finished their Metta Award, and as per the guidance I am planning an uplifted religious celebration for awarding the pin itself. Because our lineage also gives out pins for authorizations or empowerments, it makes sense to follow that custom for the Metta pin also. We do a lhasang, have the teacher purify the pin, and then student and teacher bow, the teachers gives the pin, and then they bow again. That's all fine and good, but then what? I think my cub scout is going to want a more lively party afterwards than we adults do, particu