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Boy ownership of summer camp


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I hope this gets some feedback. Last year when we went to camp, the boys had absolutely nothing to do with the planning for their week at camp. The worst part was how they spent some of their down time. I, the SM and a few other ASMs are working on getting the boys to start leading their troop again. I was asked to run all of the logistics for this years' camp, and another of the ASMs will be the SM for camp.

 

I get to be the "planner" and that was one of my ticket goals. Do any of you have experience with having the PLC designate a few Scouts (who are going) to help with the planning of their week? I'm referring to the common activities, like teambuilding, patrol cooking, pioneering, etc. Those things were noticeably absent from camp last year. I think it hurt us in developing leadership and teamwork in the younger Scouts. I liked the scout spirit award I saw in another thread as a measure of a Scout's success at camp. Camp will be in late June, and this planning will probably be a full-Scouter-time pursuit up to that point.

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Now that you mention it, our troop hasn't done much program planning for summer camp either ---and has probably suffered for it, just as you describe.

 

An off the cuff way to begin to change that might be to have a brainstorming session in which all the Scouts are invited to suggest ideas for things they would like to do at summer camp. If you took those ideas and the program information supplied by the camp to a PLC meeting, you might begin to set prorities for things you want to accomplish as a troop, and patrols might begin planning for things they want to accomplish.

 

And I wouldn't be limited to the official program if you want to do something else. If a patrol wants to do a backpack trip, I'd get on the phone and talk to the camp ranger about backpacking opportunities around the camp. It may be quite possible to do some backpacking right out of the camp even if it's not on the official program.

 

But, you say, wouldn't that interfere with earning merit badges? Not at all --- you can work on merit badges on the camping trip, and probably do better than the regular camp merit badge classes. If you talk with the MB counselors, I'd be surprised if they wouldn't be glad to get rid of some of their little darlings for a couple of days and give you a list of the topics you could cover on your own!

 

Good idea.

 

 

 

Seattle Pioneer

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To be honest my boys had so much going on at summer camp that they didn't need to do much planning. They would have maybe 2 hours out of the entire day that they didn't have activities.

 

They actually enjoyed having some down time.

One afternoon late we had a great water fight with another troop. Water bottles with a hole poked in the top make great water guns.

 

I think we can many times over plan for our boys. Sometimes they simply want to "Hang"

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I'm sure most of you do this also, but since it wasn't mentioned, I'll say it here. As far as planning, we go through the list of merit badges offered and ask the Scouts to pre-sign up PRIOR to camp, so they can obtain the phamplets and necessary materials before they get to camp. We look at their rank advancement and make recommendations, especially for those merit badges where we don't have counselors in the troop. We also gauge interest in the overnight programs offered.

 

Our summer camps are pretty busy, and we don't have a lot of downtime, so we don't do much more planning than that. The SM's usually make plans for a cobbler one or two nights though...

 

 

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As an 18 year old adult leader I would recommend that troops allow its scouts some "down" time. After working on Merit Badges, attending open sessions, and doing Merit Badge "homework" the scouts are quite active at Summer Camp.

 

Also, don't just look at what is pre-planned and carried out at Summer Camp for leadership. Consider also what the boys plan and come up together. Frisbee, Wiffleball, hikes,large boad games like Risk? do the boys do some of this? Leadership (things like planning, direction, etc.) are part of these "down" time activities.

 

Adults need vacation, so do scouts. Allow them time to interact with the other scouts doing the things that they want to do. Summer Camp can either be great for Membership Retainment or lousy (like it was for my troop in 2003) because of forcing the scouts to do too much at once.

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I know from experience that summer camp can be a great time, yeah the boys are there to learn and earn merit badges, but they also get to meet new people from other units. I believe that camp should also be fun. You as an adult can take away as much as a boy can fromcamp. I recomend that you give the boys a chance to have some down time. Let the PLC choose what they want to do with that down time. A properly run troop is run by the boy leadership not the adults, let them take some of there down time and decide what camp stuff they want to do extra that is fun (if the camp does stuff like this) like polar bear swim or evening swim, if they do a camp wide games do them, help and encourage the boys. Scouting is suppose to be fun and they learn while they are doing there activities. Keep up the good work and Happy Scouting.

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I'm with those who are against structuring free time, the next thing you know you will be pre-arranging "play dates" :-/

 

Scoutcraft competitions and "recreational" games like "capture the flag" are as old as Scouting itself. But there is no game that will "develop leadership and teamwork" as well as the Patrol Method. The perceived need for "leadership games" and "team-building activities" is almost always a sign that a Troop is not really using the Patrol Method as it was designed by William Hillcourt. Scouting is a game, and artificial "games with a purpose" to pick up the slack are redundant.

 

The key to what you are looking for lies in your interest in "Patrol Cooking"!

 

Try finding a summer camp that offers Troopsite cooking rather than a central dining hall. Hiking to the cafeteria in Patrol lines is not the Patrol Method!

 

Make sure ahead of time that your campsite is arranged so that the Patrols are all set up in their own distinct areas. This may involve moving some of the tents. We camp in late July, always at a different camp, and for some reason we find that the adjoining Troop campsites often are not rented out that week, which helps to spread out our Patrols as Baden-Powell intended (I believe he suggested a minimum of 200' between Patrols).

 

Our Scouts usually start the week enrolled in five Merit Badge classes, which in the real world makes washing the dishes in the morning without a lot of yelling difficult at best. Our work-around is to have the Patrols cook the adults' meals, and to have the adults wash the morning dishes in return.

 

Some Troops turn their backs on Merit Badge factory summer camps altogether, and plan their own summer camps as was detailed in the early Scoutmaster handbooks. Now that is true "Boy-ownership of Summer camp"!

 

Some practical advice can be found at The Inquiry Net:

 

http://www.inquiry.net/outdoor/summer/camp/troop

 

Kudu

 

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I am not a fan of summer camps. The PLC spends more time planning a 2 hour meeting or a weekend campout than a weeklong summer camp. An adult calls for the reservations and the scouts just show up. No planning, no appointing tasks for the instructors, no nothing, just show up and work on merit badges.

Watercub

I think it would be great idea for the PLC to plan out tasks, games, and patrol meetings, during summer camp.

During wood badge we had some down time (at least the 2nd weekend) BUT it was called a planing meeting or patrol meetings. I would like to see my sons troop do a lot more planning, I think that during a weekened campout the entire weekend should be planned out, no need to leave free time. The same could be done for summer camp, but it would be alot harder with all of the scouts doing merit badges at different times. Building on Eagle97_78 ideas, the PLC could write up a bulliten board that shows all of the camps activies and have the scouts sign up for them, and go as a patrol.

 

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No down time? I don't know about the boys in your Troop, but I know that ours would boycott any campout like that.

 

Watercub, you should not be the "planner" for the Scouts summer camp experience/activities. That is not the SM or ASM's role. That is up to the boys. What they want to do, when they want to do it, how they want to do it, & even if they want anything past merit badges planned at all, is up to the BOYS.

 

As others said, our summer camp is pretty busy. The boys pick the merit badges they are interested in prior to camp. The camp also has things the boys can sign up for there. They do NOT have to sign up as a patrol. Individual boys can sign up for what interests them. Free time depends on when & where their merit badge classes are. Running from one end of camp to the other, up & down hills, gets old quick. Free time tends to be spent near where their next activity will be held. They can easily find others to start a game of frisbee, play cards, climb trees, have water fights (yep, those $1 bottles of water with the push tops are useful after all!) or wander & babble with.

 

Sometimes, it's those impromptu activities with new people they meet, that they remember the most from camp!

 

 

 

 

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I appreciate all of the positive feedback I have received. There were lots of great ideas to take to the next PLC meeting. The PLC found it very unique when I asked them for their help, so as a newer ASM I realized there had to be a heavier adult presence in the past few years.

 

I would love nothing more than for the boys to completely run the Troop. We're not back there yet.

 

Happy holidays!

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