300 Feet Apart

[Kudu]

Gold Winger, did you take the time to talk to the Ranger and pet his dog?

 

 

 

 

[Gold Winger]

He didn't have a dog. Are they supposed to?

 

 

[Kudu]

Gold Winger,

 

We have three Council Camps. All of the Rangers have dogs and plenty of suggestions as to which areas of the camp offer the best Patrol camping.

 

Maybe he thought you were a cat person.

 

Kudu

[Gold Winger]

Never saw a dog at a camp.

 

Cats are footballs with legs.

[Horizon]

I am trying to get a good listing of sights here in Southern California where I can separate my patrols safely.

 

Our toughest issue is reservations are required at a lot of the parks, or you run into 1st come, 1st served areas. We spent a little over $200 on reservations for a local spot for my troop over the weekend. I could have booked multiple group camping areas, but then I have to raise the fee to go camping. I do plan on bringing that up at the parent's meeting.

 

We also have issues in some of the campgrounds around here of safety from other campers. When we hit the large sites, we have been neighbors to some large groups of folks treating the woods as their favorite place to bring stereos and multiple cases of alcohol. I am working on familiarizing myself with enough of the local sites so that I can make the best possible camping situation for the boys, where they can separate safely.

 

The other key task is turning the troop into more of a backpacking group for at least 1/3 of the campouts. Getting boys into backpacks with camping stoves is important, and that is going to be the focus of the next few meetings.

[Eagle69]

Our Council and District have never heard of this rule. When we have District/Council Camporees at our Council Camp they cram everybody together one group after another in a big field. I've had the next troop 6 inches from my tent. In National Forests if you are camping in a campground most of them where I come from don't want you camping outside the designated campsites and some have a rule for how many people and tents can be on a site, if you are out on the trail and stop for the night you can usually camp anywhere so spreading out is possible. National Parks and State Parks no camping outside of designated campsites, limits on how many per site, and even if they have group sites they aren't big enough for 300 feet between patrols.

[ASM857]

In our district this would not be possable, plus this would raise the hairs on the necks of our parents. At State Campgrounds we make sure that we have adult leaders tents at the end of the patrol rows.

1 To ensure Scouts are in Bed

2 That no one enters the campsite

 

Were very lucky that the 4 leaders that go the most are light sleepers and used to not getting a full night sleep.

 

I'm glad if this works for you but we wouldn't be able to pull this on off.

 

YIS

Doug

[Kudu]

Eagle69,

 

Camporees are what inspired Baden-Powell to invent the term "Parlour Scouting." They are a social event, not real Patrol camping.

 

As far as the three National Forests in Arkansas are concerned, call them at 501-321-5202 and ask about "Primitive Camping." The Ranger who answers will tell you that you are allowed to camp "Almost anywhere between the sign that says you are entering the National Forest and the sign that says you are leaving the National Forest" except within a couple hundred feet of a parking lot and/or trail-head.

 

Kudu

 

[OldGreyEagle]

Gee Kudu, most of the photos I have seen of B-P are while he was attednding a World Jamboree or some other mass gathering of scouts, why he have lent his prescence to the masses of Parlour Scouts in attendance I am not sure. And he addressd them as well as Chief Scout of the World. In all the recordings I have heard of him at these events he usually opens with something like, Greetings Fellow scouts, I am not sure I have ever heard him say, Greetings Parlour Scouts.... So B-P despised Jamborees?

[Kudu]

Yes, OGE, Jamborees are Canvas Town Pageants.

 

Even Baden-Powell used the parlour in his house to entertain guests on occasion.

 

Why help brainstorm reasons not to try something new? Have you never even once in your lifetime of service tried out B-P's advice just to see if it works?

 

What better real-world test of all our Scouting Leadership theories than to get those Patrols wide apart and see how well they actually do?

 

Kudu

 

[Beavah]

Yah, Kudu, I think B-P reserved "Parlour Scouting" for his criticism of the James West / BSA corporate-headquarters types, eh? I can't think of any time he used it to refer to camporees or jamborees.

 

The point yeh make about patrol distance is well taken, though. I reckon we've done the lads no good and made da rank badges meaningless if they can't successfully camp and hike on their own away from us adults and other supports. That distance between patrols matters.

 

Now here's a question for yeh: Does the same apply to Proficiency (Merit) Badges? Should lads who hold Backpacking MB be able to backpack on their own, well-separated from others? How about Whitewater? Climbing?

 

Beavah

 

[OldGreyEagle]

"Why help brainstorm reasons not to try something new? Have you never even once in your lifetime of service tried out B-P's advice just to see if it works?"

This is the text of a speech by B-P that I listen to quite frequently:

Address to the Public

Ladies and Gentlemen. I have been asked to explain to you what the Boy Scout movement is. It is a tall order to compress into three minutes the ideals that are being followed by over a million and a half of boys. The movement primarily is a brotherhood of service of boys and men. Its school of character of citizenship, of personal efficiency for the good of the community. This sounds high-falootin. For what is as we know it, a band of bare-kneed rascals, with cowboy hats and staves in their hands. But remember, you cannot give them character through ordinary classroom methods. You have to use other means. The boys are eager to join in a jolly game of fellowship, with its Healthy camp life and handy pioneer training. Their moral character is developed by our method of self government under a code of chivalry in the Scout law. Their spiritual character is developed by their being brought face to face with the wonders and beauties of nature. The boy is naturally active, rather than passive in temperament, and we give him opportunities of performance rather than of profession. Scouts make themselves efficient not merely for their own good but in order to be helpful to the community. In other words, they train to be good citizens. Character is far more essential to a successful career of a man. Character in its individual members is essential for the character of the nation. And character in the nation is similarly essential to its welfare. As a school of character therefore, the Scout movement is non-military, non-sectarian, non-political and non-class. On these lines the movement has come in the space of twelve years to be adopted by every civilized country. The brotherhood spirit has thus grown up automatically. It is forming a personal tie not only between the states of the British Commonwealth, but also between the different foreign counties, it may just supply that soul which is needed to make the form of the League of Nations a living force, such as will render war impossible in the future. The movement is growing every day in size and in effect. All we want are more men in this great brotherhood of service to do this joyous work for God, their country, and the boys. The work, for all who try it can testify, is well worthwhile.

What I read is that the scouting movement is a brotherhood of service producing citizens of charactor by means of camping and pioneer training. The Troop is to be boy led and B-P fervently hoped that scouting would end the need for war. It would take a military man to want to end war and eliminate and his profession, for he had seen first hand the results of war. Producing citizens of charactor who are service minded. That is the advice I follow from B-P, not how far apart patrols camp.

I wish you Happy Scouting

 

[Eamonn]

One thing that seemed odd to me when I moved from down town London to rural PA, was that people didn't seem to have fences.

Up until I seen this 100 yard idea here I have to admit to not knowing about it!!

Back home when we camped with the Troop each Patrol made a big thing of roping of their site.

This was back in the days of Wet-pits, dry-pits and when Burn'em, Bash'em and Bury'em was thought to be the best way of disposing of cans.

 

Patrols camped as patrols, they cooked as Patrols, they slept in a six -eight-man tent as a Patrol. The Patrol had it's own tents, Patrol Box, cooking equipment, dinning fly.

Scouts who didn't belong to a Patrol didn't enter another Patrols site without being invited.

We tended to do more Patrol Camps than seems to be done here in the US.

Depending on where the Patrol opted to go, we either used the Troop van to drop them and the Patrol equipment off or they used light weight equipment and made their own way.

At summer camp we had as many as 14 Patrols camping in the same field.

The patrols were busy doing what they were doing. Them being busy meant that visiting other Patrols just didn't happen.

If a Lad did want to visit or waste time by go to another Patrol? I don't think 100 yards would make a heck of a lot of difference.

A quality program which kept the Scouts busy would to me seem more of an answer than a couple of hundred yards.

Eamonn.

[Kudu]

Beavah writes:

 

Yah, Kudu, I think B-P reserved "Parlour Scouting" for his criticism of the James West / BSA corporate-headquarters types, eh? I can't think of any time he used it to refer to camporees or jamborees.

 

If I read the 8th footnote in Chapter 15 of Tim Jeal's biography of Baden-Powell correctly, B-P uses the term "Parlour Scouting" in a June 1927 memo to James West and others about "West's encouragement of vast 'community gatherings,' which left no scope for a sense of adventure. American boys were hampered too by numerous regulations governing the amount of equipment which had to be taken on expeditions and the exact ratio of adult supervision. Baden-Powell described such highly organized camps as 'Parlour Scouting'."

 

As OGE points out, B-P encouraged some "vast community gatherings" of his own. Certainly the circus midway atmosphere can be an exciting novelty.

 

The downside of Camporees is that new volunteers often see model midway Troops set up on a tight grid in a small area (where each Patrol magically has the exact same number of identical tents) and assume that this is what Scouting is all about.

 

OldGreyEagle writes:

 

What I read is that the scouting movement is a brotherhood of service producing citizens of character by means of camping and pioneer training. The Troop is to be boy led....

 

B-P is very specific about how to camp so that a Patrol is truly boy-led: "each Patrol should have its own separate tent at some distance (at least 100 yards) from the others. This latter is with a view to developing the responsibility of the Patrol Leader for his distinct unit."

 

The fact that you think B-P's pretty words about citizenship and character justify stamping out his actual methods to achieve those ends speaks volumes about the downside of forcing Scoutmasters to attend a Wood Badge designed for Cub Scouts just because they share the same abstract goals.

 

Camping close together in family campgrounds is the Den Method.

 

Eamonn writes:

 

We tended to do more Patrol Camps than seems to be done here in the US. Depending on where the Patrol opted to go, we either used the Troop van to drop them and the Patrol equipment off or they used light weight equipment and made their own way.

 

Yes, Patrol Camping was also the objective of William Hillcourt's Patrol Leader Training course in the States before 1972. But now that we must teach the same generic "leadership skills" to Scoutmasters and Den Leaders, how does ASM857 get from setting up an adult's tent with every Patrol to a practice where the Patrol Leaders are in control?

 

Your idea of Patrol fences are probably the way to go 1) in his Troop where the parents micromanage the program to the point of forbidding Patrols to be 300 feet apart even in the safety of a Boy Scout Camp, 2) at Camporees and other situations where the space is actually tight, and 3) in Troops where the adult leaders simply prefer state parks and other family campgrounds.

 

To me it is just a whole lot easier and a much bigger adventure to let the Patrols explore the woods for their own cool Patrol Sites.

 

How else could you possibly interpret the 2nd Class requirement, "On one of these campouts, select your patrol site..."?

 

Kudu

 

[OldGreyEagle]

when you talk about B-P's "pretty words" I certainly hope there was no sarcasm associated with it. I thought B-P was an excellent speaker and the recordings and movie clips certainly show a man of superb wit and excellent humor. If all he was good for was "pretty words", then we all may be in the wrong youth group.

 

then I read

 

"How else could you possibly interpret the 2nd Class requirement, "On one of these campouts, select your patrol site..."?"

 

Well, unless that ellipsis cut off the phrase "300 hundred feet from the other patrols" I am not sure how it relates to this topic.

 

And finally, with my finest Jim Mora voice:

 

Wood Badge? Wood Badge? Don't talk to me about Wood Badge! Wood Badge? Wood Badge? Are you kidding me? Wood Badge? Wood Badge?

 

I thought we were talking about patrols camping 300 feet from each other, I am not sure how Wood Badge snuck in, again, but it did.

 

I think I have already said this, but I will try to make it clear. If you want to take the name of Wood Badge and turn it back to one of it's previous incarnations go right ahead. If you want to rename the Current Wood Badge for the 21rst Century the Administrative Skills Course, fine, start to work on it. If harranging us is part of the plan, I guess I can put up with that although I think we have proven most of us here can't change anything on a National Level so you should have other irons in that fire as well.(This message has been edited by OldGreyeagle)