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Troop is unable to attend summer camp-Doing it on our own


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Fee structures will vary greatly from camp to camp/council to council. Our council rules are that if the unit we participate in both council fundraisers and FOS, we get the use of camp facilites for free (outside of council sponsored events). This includes camping, all buildings/meeting faciliites, and even camp canoes/trailers for troop canoeing events (we took 9 council canoes 5 hours away for a 60 mile canoe trip at no cost).

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new Scouts with less than a year of being Scouts. First, you need to decide how the requirements are going to be earned. Do they really have to learn and understand the material, or do they just attend a demo and then get signed off? If you're going for real learning, then a good T to First will take the entire week, and there won't really be time for merit badges. These Scouts, young, don't need so much summer classroom; they need fun in the out-of-doors.

Don't forget that T to FC in itself has a lot of first aid to learn and practice, as well as first time cooking requirements.

So, camp needs to be on a swimming lake (no leeches or swimmer's itch). What is camp? It is swimming. There should be a horse livery nearby for a two times ride, a shooting area within reasonable driving distance (start requesting loans of .22s & archery equip & targets). Sleeping in tents -- of course! There should be a mess hall they can use to practice Scout skills in case it rains. Fields large enough for a daily wide game. If enough pass their swim test, then a canoe livery near for a one day trip in very calm water. Do you have a lifeguard/water safety instructor lined up?

While I've claimed there won't be time for merit badges - unless some of the Scouts are very near First Class - the hiking merit badge would fit in well, especially if you can come up with a different trail at least every other day. Can you find a nearby naturalist to teach the plant identifications? Someone to show how to find the North Star and the simpler constellations (ex. Orions Belt)

In your case, I would postpone the first aid mb until fall or spring, and take it with the Red Cross or at the Y. (And have a review of T to FC first-aid a week or two before.)Most eleven year olds - the new Scouts - aren't ready for the pioneering, cooking, orienteering mb

It would be great if you could have a nightly campfire with patrol skits, songs, storytelling. This may require dragging an outdoor fireplace with you if you can get advance permission from the landowner. And, a place to cook outside once in a while

There should be someplace to hike to for a primitive overnighter with different starting times for each group of 3-4.

Coming up with a patch to hand out at the end of the week would be great.

These are little kids. Make the program fun instead of ambitious. The SPL/ASPL need to start training the trainers now -- shakedown cruise, and all that. Good luck! Have fun!

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Addendum: Can't think of anything more boring, as an 11 year old, than to get dragged inside a museum in August. Now, if you could visit a fire tower, and get permission to climb up to the top of the tower, that would be something different.

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Theres nothing wrong with doing it on your own, its just more work  First Aid and Wilderness Survival are good choices for first year scouts, fun and ones the scouts can use toward advancement. Swimming would be nice, but that requires BSA Lifeguards, and a place to swim.

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OK, so it's crunch time.

 

Our troop is ready for our troop run summer camp next week. We got hooked in with the local scout camp who will be able to accomodate us. THe cost is very reasonable and they are excited that we're coming. One of the camp staff is a First aid MBC. We've got everything scheduled out for a 5 mile hike, orienteering and all the water stuff. Our State Senator who is also the Senate Minority Leader will be joining us for a discussion on the boys duties as citizens.

 

We've got the meals planned. Logistics would be way to difficult to have the boys plan and get the food mainly because we need to have a couple deliveries for the perishables so me and the SPL made up most of the menu and a couple of the mom's are buying the food for us. We'll do it quartermaster style where the boys get a box of ingredients and get to cook their food by patrol. They are ordering pizza on Friday though.

 

Night time will be working on the MB and playing games, maybe with a night hike too.

 

Our troop hasn't had our own tents so we're using some personal ones but we just came up with some money and ordered two new ALPS Taurus 4's. Scoutdirect.com is awesome. I told them that I was hoping to get the tents delivered by next Monday and they rush packed them for me. Just arrived at my house. Give them your gear business. Excellent quality and incredible service and prices.

 

My biggest fear is downtime. I'm not sure I planned enough or too much. We can always find more stuff to do so it should be OK.

 

I'll report back when we get done with the results.

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>

 

 

A LOT more work, to provide a quality program. But you are going to get a program clearly superior to that of the typical summer camp.

 

A troop I volunteered for briefly had a tradition of doing their own summer camp in a wilderness area. That was fine but they didn't have the leadership resources to carry it off so boys did no summer camp, a leading reason the troop failed.

 

A conventional summer camp experience is far better than an excellent program that doesn't actually happen.

 

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Sounds like summer camp will turn out well, afterall. From reading your post, you'll be doing rank advancement in the morning? I'd like to suggest you add the totin' chip and fireman chit as part of that. Nothing improves morale like intermediate awards while working on a larger program.

As for downtime, I'm sure the camp staff can find the troop a service or quickie conservation project to do on the grounds.

Have you planned for rain? Something to do indoors or under the tarp?

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Boomer-Thanks for the hint. I thought about rain a while back and promptly forgot. I'll have them bring some games and stuff. The campsite has a large overhang. The scouts all earned Totin and Fireman at our first campout in February.

 

Seattle-We're charging $100 per scout. Majority of cost is for food plus camp and pool rental. The camp is very reasonable at under $100 for the week. I'm going to have about $100 in my pocket for any incidentals. Program cost is almost zero. Pool, some topo maps of the camp trails and I still need to get a few hundred feet of manila rope for lashings. The rest should be no real cost.

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Board games are great. My favorite rainy day activity (for the Scouts) is to work on the woodcarving merit badge. Get a lumberyard to cut & donate small blocks of basswood.

 

$100? Truly a miracle

 

(last time I tried to delete a duplicate post it dumped all of them, not just the dups. So we're going to live with it this time) (This message has been edited by a staff member.)

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