PB_Pack494

I will admit that I haven't had to complete one since I crossed over to a troop this year, but I am a big fan of the online version compared to the old method. My council never turned them around as fast as some of you are getting them, but I really liked getting the confirmations through email. I never heard back on the few old style forms that I faxed in. The methods of gathering and storing information were not what I expected, but once I figured out how they wanted it, filling out the forms was easy. I liked that it had all the information as well as previous submissions available for reference. The online forms sure beat using scissors to cut and tape the signature of the second leader who knew what was going on but was not physically present when I wanted to complete and submit the form. With the online form, the second leader receives a copy of the submission as well as the confirmation/rejection. In my opinion, that gives a much better opportunity for them to review the trip plans then when they glance at a paper form and provide a rubber stamp signature.

We usually took some frisbees, a playground ball, and some cones to family campouts. As the BALOO trained organizer, I didn't plan down time, I planned unstructured time. The campout was generally advertised as a relaxing family activity with a few structured things like a hike or GPS geocache. I let people know that I would bring some frisbees and a ball and encouraged them to bring their favorite game. Remember, this is a FAMILY camp out, not summer camp where every minute of the day is planned from morning to night. Families should take responsibility for themselves and you shouldn't try to plan out every hour for them. "Dinner is probably burgers or hot dogs, dad grilled, so not much involvement from the Cubs." If Dad grills the dogs, you miss a great opportunity for the kids to have a valid reason for holding a stick over a fire. Let them cook their own hot dogs - they'll love it! I didn't allow boys to play in the fire, so cooking hot dogs was a way for them to interact with the fire. As the BALOO trained leaders for the pack, you should be in charge of planning and they should be listening to you. After all, you went to the training and understand the purpose and methods of the pack family campout. With the exception of Webelos leaders who can take their dens camping by themselves, the other den leaders should be checking with you because this is a PACK family campout, not a bunch of dens who happen to be camping at the same place. Even the Webelos leaders should be working with the pack on a pack campout. Now, there is nothing wrong with having a specific den responsible for coordinating an event for the pack. The difference is that everybody who wants to will participate in that event. My pack would provide breakfast on Sunday morning as a fun/nice thing to do. After a couple times of watching people pack up, eat, and leave while I was stuck cooking and cleaning up for them, I decided that the combined meal would be Saturday night. That seemed to work better as people were more willing to help with cleanup and I didn't feel like I was stuck in the kitchen the whole time. It was kind of a self-inflicted struggle because I wanted to expose people to the broad possibilities of Dutch Oven cooking, but that was often in sharp contrast to the people that brought their pre-packaged no cook meals. After the switch, it no longer bothered me when people packed up while I was cooking because I ate gourmet food while they ate their cold whatevers.

I was worried about the direction he was headed, but he ended the article very nicely. All in all, a nice piece of PR for BSA. Same with the Jeopardy category last night. Pat

By all means, multi task your activities. If you are going on a hike, you can bring some trash bags for a trash treasure hunt, discuss the principles of Leave No Trace and practice them during the outing, find a geocache along the way, identify plants or wildlife along the way to work on an achievement, etc. Your participants end up with a hiking segment, a partial toward the LNT award, an appropriate amount of time attributed to a service project, a rank achievement, etc. As Bulldog indicated, your service can count toward a centennial award, Good Turn for America, a rank achievement, and possibly the CS World Conservation Award. Pat