AwakeEnergyScouter

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 see an opening to work through this as a family, but I want to have some ideas ready. Veg scouters, what are your favorite camp and hike meals?

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 thin young trees (slanor) and ropes. One year we were so lucky that we had an international jamboree nearby outside Kopparbo (https://kopparbo.com/), for which we helped build a small city with nothing but axes and rope. That was also where I first encountered gender-segregated scouting for the first time, we met some English scouts that were all girls and were called guides. Perhaps you're onto something with the measurement systems idea. My American husband thinks he's being helpful with mnemonics for how many noses in a king's elbow, but that you even need a mnemonic illustrates the problem if you ask me. I'm all in for a combined solution to irrational measurement systems and duplication of scouting leadership effort if you have a suggestion. Coping with the heat isn't trivial... I know the symptoms and stages of hypothermia off the top of my head and I have gear and clothes and routines for staying warm, but I'm realizing that in 30+ heat - especially over 40 - you need to know the symptoms of heat stroke in just the same way. I have gotten many horrible headaches that don't seem to go away and gotten really lethargic a couple of times, and looking around I don't see others being as affected as I seem to be. My child also turns pink and red from the heat in a way that the other kids don't seem to. (It fades quickly in air conditioning, so it's not sunburn.) I don't know if it's my limited tricks for heat or if it's really the downside of physiological cold and dark adaptations. I try to drink all the time (used to live at altitude and am trying to follow that habit) and wear a hat (and tons of SPF a million sunscreen of course), but it's often not enough to avoid feeling sick. Got any tips? I hear they will arrest me if I go naked, and I will have to spend all my time reapplying sunscreen anyway so I'm pretty sure that's not the way forward.

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 recommend what WOSM has to offer on the SDGs.

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 scouting meant a lot to me, I sold my child on scouting adventure and we signed up with Scouts BSA in cub scouts after a lot of waffling on my part to understand this two aligned but gender-segregated NSOs situation. I'm still not sure I understand what's going on there, but we happened to have a well-run family pack very close to our house so that and the normalcy sealed the deal for Scouts BSA. After observing as a parent for a year, I have decided to help make sure this pack continues to be well run by becoming a leader myself to help ease the burden on those already serving. Our local council has wonderful facilities and regularly arranges suitably adventurous activities, so that's also very nice. My only complaint is that they failed to take the opportunity to teach the kids that you don't whine and quit just because it's cold when they cancelled the last adventure day due to cold when it was still well above freezing. There's no bad weather, only bad gear, as we say in Sweden. In Texas they think they're freezing to death if they're not sweating. (Ok, ok, I'm exaggerating, but there's a kernel of truth in there!) The Texans are teaching me about hot weather camping, though. I have now added a scorpion-finding UV flashlight to my gear along with a battery-run camping fan. International scouting adventure is always exciting!

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, particularly since we usually start with a dharma talk and then have a formal feast practice! I'm thinking dharma wheel cupcakes and maybe three jewels sugar cookies, but there needs to be some kind of activity. What have others done to celebrate cub scouts earning Metta Awards?