Beyond basic Scout skills: Best competitions

[shortridge 184]

A lot of our area camporees and Klondikes seem to be variations on a simple theme - some sort of round-robin basic Scout skills competition. Firebuilding, knots & lashings, compass bearings & paces, simple cookery, first aid challenge, nature ID, timed bow saw challenge, etc.

What are the best competitions you’ve seen to elevate inter-patrol competitions beyond the basic skills and games? How do you challenge older Scouts at these events while accommodating Scouts with less experience?

While we’re at it - what event themes have worked best for you for attracting interest?

Edited February 3, 2019 by shortridge

[Eagledad 2777]

Good questions. What has been lost from camporees is the bragging rights of winning. The older Scouts when I was a scout drove the younger Scouts to be experts in all the skills because they were either trying to hold on and their reputation or trying to make one. 

Today camporees are just skill demonstrations. Nothing new or different from most troop advancement programs. So, there’s very little to get a young adult exited.

I don’t see the serious competition of camporees, not sure why. Maybe they’ve developed such a bad reputation that there is know going back. Maybe there is very few of us who remember how to do it that way. I don’t know.

So, cleaver themes are the secret to bringing the older Scouts back. We find the older Scouts like planning and leading skills demonstrations more than participating.

Our troop has ran several troop level skills theme weekends under  the themes of Star Wars, star trek, and a couple I don’t remember. They even planned and ran a couple of trooporees where we invited other troops. Our scouts’ favorites skills theme activities are night competitions (boys love an excuse to stay up all night) where all the Patrols go to a Campfire around 10 or 11 o’clock and are launched to their events after the fire is over. The usually finish around 3:00 in the morning. The adults treat them by cooking the breakfast.

Another favorite is the triathlon theme camp out where Patrols had to ride their bikes several miles, backpack a few miles and canoe at to different locations on a lake. The Patrols had to use map and compass the whole time to find each of the 16 the skills and competitions through the course. That was, along with a couple our of free time (mostly bikes) is the most exhausted I have ever seen our Scouts. They cut Sunday activities short because they were just plain whipped. 😂

Our older Scouts loved planning these things and always did very well. The only adult involvement is being a resource for the older Scouts. 

Barry

[Eagle94-A1 2687]

A variation of knot tying and firebuilding; build a fire, boil water, cook a noodle, and tie a square knot under 30 minutes. You would be surprised at how many Scouts cannot do it. But everyone seemed to have loved the event.

Also a variation of pioneering was catapults: build the catapult, and launch tennis balls for distance and at targets for an event.

Dutch Oven Cook Off, both Scout Division ( for a prize and points) and Scouter Division (bragging rights) is poplar. Our OA members, who are the judges, eat well that weekend

Theme that attracted the most interest was a Wilderness Survival theme. While we had some challenges, mostly due to adults, overall the Scouts had fun.I think the fact that we encouraged them to bring, and use fixed blade knives was a draw.

One popular event was the survival shelter building. Scouts ate it up. Complaint we got from the Scouts was that it was one per troop. Not everyone got involved in building it. I admit I caved in on that with so many people complaining about building 1 per patrol. (an aside, My oldest son was responsible for building the troop's shelter. They came in 2nd overall, and it was extremely close. The judges liked how he used bamboo to collect water. But the side vent in the first place shelter, which prevented moisture accumulating inside the shelter since it was cold weather was the deciding factor.

[Eagle94-A1 2687]

7 minutes ago, Eagledad said:

Good questions. What has been lost from camporees is the bragging rights of winning. The older Scouts when I was a scout drove the younger Scouts to be experts in all the skills because they were either trying to hold on and their reputation or trying to make one. 

Today camporees are just skill demonstrations. Nothing new or different from most troop advancement programs. So, there’s very little to get a young adult exited.

I don’t see the serious competition of camporees, not sure why. Maybe they’ve developed such a bad reputation that there is know going back. Maybe there is very few of us who remember how to do it that way. I don’t know.

In my neck of the woods, council camporee does not have an overall winner. Instead patrols accumulate points and the color ribbon is based upon what range of points you score i.e. 151-200 points = blue; 101-150 = red; etc.whoopie you won a blue ribbon, just like a bunch of other patrols. The pst 2 years my old troop didn't go to council camporee. This year my new troop may not go. Although thatis mroe related to the fact that 2/3 of the troop may be at a state competition rather than how the camproee is.

District Camporee is different. We do points and there is a 1st place, 2nd place, and 3rd place patrol. We also do some specialty awards, i.e. Dutcvh Oven Cook Off, and when we have them Halloween Costume Contest.

[MattR 2659]

I just got back from our Klondike. The theme was zombie snowpocalypse. Half the events had patrol winners and half had other kinds of patrol challenges. There's no doubt that a lot of scouts absolutely thrive on competition and some don't. One competition everyone liked was the sled race. Each patrol brought a sled that a scout could stand up in while the rest of his patrol pulled him (they had to build them). We ran two patrols at a time so they could compete against each other but also timed them. Then we took that top four and had a play off.

BTW, the ones that don't like the patrol vs patrol competition still like to compete, just against themselves. We had a Clue like puzzle with a zombie theme they had to solve as well as a different type of fire building challenge (set the wood in a channel, light one end, hands off, and the fire had to travel to the other end and burn a string).

The common theme in all of these types of events is challenging with a mix of new and different. Another thing I'm adamant about is nearly all events are set up to be done by patrol. The one exception we had this weekend was the zombie vs human tug-o-war, which was really just a way to warm scouts up before dinner. If you're curious, the zombies won. One thing we push is teamwork. We had a high ball kick activity (similar to eskimo games) where the goal was to see how high up a scout could kick a ball. By themselves, not very high, working together, the good patrols did about 8 feet.

Before I started organizing district camporees I talked to a lot of scouts about what they liked and didn't like. The things they liked I mentioned, challenging and new. The things they didn't like was stale, waiting in line, and short 5 minute events. They want something they can spend some time on. So I pushed for half hour long events. This also means there's enough bandwidth to run a bunch of patrols at a time. Since I've started running camporees I've noticed that there are no more lines at events and by 9pm on Saturday most scouts are dragging or in their tents. It makes all the adults smile. At the same time there's need to allow for down time. I try to pack mornings and give flexibility to participate or not for a few hours in the afternoon. Older scouts do want time to just hang. For winter camping we give less flexibility because we want the scouts moving so they stay warm. Spring and Fall is different.

So, add that all up and it requires a lot of imagination and thinking things through. I've mentioned this elsewhere but it was Hillcourt that taught SM's to pick a skill and then dress it up in a lot of fun and games. It's not just a lashing competition, you lash together a travois and then race with it. Barry mentioned star wars and star trek. We've done hunger games and indian lore. The themes add color and a way to view a skill in a new light. The hard part is keeping things fresh. For training events geared towards adults it's possible to just make small changes. Adults don't usually repeat the training. When doing something for the scouts there needs to be something fresh. This is not easy and why getting in a rut happens a lot. One thing that works is the scouts do change after half a dozen years so we can repeat themes after a few years.

[mrkstvns 486]

Yep.  Competitions make for MUCH more fun and excitement than yet another skills demonstration...

The best I've seen is an annual orienteering event run by the Baltimore Area Council.  There is no lame-O classroom boredom and it is NOT a merit badge course for Orienteering.  Instead, it's a challenging orienteering course that pits scouts with orienteering skills against other troops throughout the region (not just within the Baltimore Council ---- troops attend from PA, VA, DC, DE etc...)

Take a look:  http://www.baltimorebsa.org/document/orienteering-flyer/171967 

Pretty cool, isn't it??  Yeah, the hundreds of scouts attending each year will tell you it is too...