Adult free campouts

[GernBlansten]

I posted this thread about 16 months ago. Since then, I've gotten buy in from the CC, the SM, the other ASMs, pretty much every adult in the unit. We offer it at every PLC that patrols should take advantage of it. Initial interest is high, but when push comes to shove, they don't follow through.

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THESE KIDS!!!!!!!?????

OK OK, I know that is what I would have loved to do if I were their age. I'm not. Heck, its what I love to do at my age. I certainly ain't gonna plan their adult free campout weekend for them am I?

You can lead a horse to water, but your job is to make it thirsty?

[Beavah]

Clarity would especially be nice if insurance coverage is at stake. Does the insurance apply if you are found to have failed to follow BSA safety policy?

 

Yah, Tawahk, there's some fine threads on da insurance issue for you to peruse. Short answer to your question is that BSA insurance coverage is not related to BSA guidelines and policy documents. Same as if you wrote a policy manual for your family, your homeowner's insurance coverage would not be voided if your wife broke one of your policies. There's a difference between internal BSA documents and da real world of insurance and jurisprudence, eh? So yeh can relax on that score.

 

I think you're also gonna chase your tail if yeh try to read BSA documents like they're Federal Regulations, where lots of professionals and citizens with special interests try to make all definitions clear and conflict-free. In the big scheme of things, BSA is a small organization publishin' youth program materials. We don't pay 'em enough to employ a continuity editor . Besides, if you're doin' your taxes this week, yeh know that the Federal Regulations aren't always a masterpiece of clarity either, eh?

 

Gern, I think you're runnin' into a classic kid-thing, eh? Kids are a conservative lot. They're afraid of doin' anything new. They might not be good at it. They might look bad in front of their peers. It might not be fun. The unknown is a scary place.

 

I think yeh have to enthuse and push and pull to get 'em past that initial reluctance is all. Once one group has an adventure "solo", the barriers are down, it's somethin' that is no longer unknown.

 

For the parents too, eh?

 

Beavah

 

[oldsm]

Sometimes we have to start small with the independence thing. Next weekend the troop is going to help run a Cub Scout Gold Rush - day/evening activity for them, although the troop will be camping overnight. I presented one patrol that hasn't done much on its own (an overstatement) with the prospect of camping on the far side of the lake (primitive to non-existent sites) -- sans adults: pack it in, camp/cook on your own, get yourselves out, etc. They jumped at the opportunity. "We CAN?!!" Duh! These are responsible guys 13-15 years old, on council camp property. We'll see where this leads. I can't wait.

[Kudu]

I've had a few successes with adult-free campouts but I don't push them. Most often they occur under the leadership of a gifted natural leader in a neighborhood dynamic between the Scouts and their parents. Scouts start out in their own backyards and usually include friends that are not Scouts, then gradually camp farther from their homes by hiking or biking to get to land owned by someone they know.

 

The twelve-year-old Patrol Leader featured in the Winter 1998/1998 issue of Scouter.Com's old print publication Scouter Magazine had a "tribe" of around a dozen boys that camped regularly, less than half of whom were registered with our Troop. They hiked out on a public railroad right-of-way.

 

The Eagle son of our District Commissioner (SPL of our Troop) would drive three or four Scouts and non-Scouts a couple of hundred miles away to the Adirondack High Peaks, just as I did when I was their age. It never occurred to us to ask our Scoutmaster for "permission" :-/

 

GernBlansten writes:

 

You can lead a horse to water, but your job is to make it thirsty?

 

Before 1972 it was the Scoutmaster's job to make them thirsty for adult-free campouts, yes.

 

"Patrols are ready to go hiking and camping on their own just as soon as the Patrol Leader has been trained, and the Scouts have learned to take care of themselves....It should be your goal to get your Patrol Leaders qualified for hike and camp leadership at an early stage [Handbook for Scoutmasters, 4th & 5th editions, pages 118-119, emphasis added]."

 

The basic method was to train the Patrol Leaders to lead their own hikes FIRST, then to get them to think of a Patrol Campout as an extended hike.

 

The Patrol Leader's Handbook also stressed unsupervised campouts and hikes early on, instructing Patrol Leaders that their Patrol was not a "real" Patrol until they did so:

 

"As soon as you are able you will want to take your boys on Patrol Hikes. You want your Patrol to be a real one, and only a hiking Patrol is a real Patrol [Chapter VII, emphasis added]."

 

But remember that before 1972 the Scoutmaster responsible for conducting a six-month "Patrol Leader Training" course, not generic "Junior Leader Training" or the Ken Blanchard manager school stuff we have today! See:

 

http://inquiry.net/patrol/green_bar/index.htm

 

Today the most practical method is to use Scout camps. Oldsm offers some really good advice in just a couple of sentences, as did Mike F, SR540Beaver, and ozemu (above, 11/17-20/2005).

 

Most camps have plenty of extra room (if not whole unused Troop campsites) for Patrols to get some real distance between them, and that is what the Patrol Method is all about!

 

Kudu