But you just might find you get what you need..

[Eamonn]

Back when I was a Scout Leader(SM) in England, Summer camp was a two week event organized, ran and completely in the hands of the Troop.

Some years we might camp at a National Camp site, but while some offered activities,like sailing or climbing most offered a place to camp.

We brought our own equipment, cooked our own meals and for the most part were independent.

When we camped in Ireland, we got permission from a farmer to use a field which was near the lakes of Killarney. The farmer was a nice old Lad, he came over most days for a cup of tea and brought fresh eggs for us at no cost.

We camped at the Scout Center in Rotterdam and never seen a soul from the center. Again we had loaded all of our gear on the mini vans and made our own way there. Bought all of our food locally and cooked it on site.

I think that I should point out that Advancement wasn't based entirely on merit badges.

I had a hard time getting used to the BSA Council ran Summer camp.

It would seem on the surface that Council ran summer camps offer the Scouts a lot more to do. But with so many merit badge classes going on, a little Lad might not get to do what he wants to do unless he is prepared to take the class.

Parents and some leaders seem to view how many merit badges were earned at summer camp as the yard stick that measures the success of the camp.

I'm not anti organization.

I really think that the Jamboree should be the model that all Council Summer Camps should use. Sure there is a Merit Badge Midway, but I really like that Scouts are free to go out and try their hand at new or maybe not so new activities.

I also have to admit that I had one Summer camp in England which was just a miserable time. It rained hard every day and it seemed the more it rained the more fed up and down hearted that everyone got. Cooking over wood fires was almost impossible, we were in the Lake District and had hoped to go out sailing but it was a no go.

Still, within a few weeks of coming home we had bounced back and were making plans for the next summer camp.

I really think that Council Summer Camps are a drain on the resources of a Council.They are very expensive to maintain and operate.

I get very upset when I see all the work that goes into our Summer camp for seven weeks and as the seventh week is the week with the fewest campers things start to get taken down before the campers are even out of camp.

We get a lot of our Scouts to attend Summer camp (Of approx. 1,750 Scouts in the Council we have about 1,000)Last year the camp fee was $175.00 and we lost a lot of money. Food and wages take up a good part of the camp fee.

There doesn't seem to be an sort of depreciation in place of equipment. So when new stuff is needed it really hurts.

It seems that just about every year we get hit with some type of big project which costs a bundle. New shower houses, swimming pool needs work and the list goes on.

Right now there is a move to see about a new dining hall. The price tag is a little over one million dollars!!

This seems like a big investment for something that is only going to be used for less than ten weeks a year.

Of course I like our camp and have very fond memories of the camp. I know that we have people who think of it as hallowed ground. I'm not one of them.

At the end of the day I see a million dollar dining hall on one hand and on the other hand a farmer who was happy to see a bunch of kids having a good time and eating his eggs.

I'll take the eggs!!

Eamonn

[Prairie_Scouter]

Hi Eamonn,

 

It'd be nice if things were still that way. But, as I'm sure you've seen, land is at a premium near any large city. If Scouting didn't lock up some of that land as a sort of preserve, it'd be gone, and our ability to have things like summer camp would be a lot more limited. Even with that, some Council camps are closing as less and less Scouts and adults are willing to put in the time needed to attend and/or support those camps. And yes, sometimes, there's a certain amount of greed involved; it can get easy to think of reasons to close a camp when someone puts a big bag of money in front of you.

 

I don't think that summer camp is as much about "roughing it" as it is about being able to get together with lots of like-minded kids to do things that Scouts like to do. We cook outside all year; it's kind of nice to go to a place for a week that lets us concentrate on other things and leave the cooking to someone else. And, these organized camps provide Scouts with opportunities to do things that would be much more difficult at home. Shooting activities are one example. Our Council is in the midst of a building plan to upgrade our facilities, and yes, it's very expensive. A well-managed facility, tho, will be used much more than just for summer camp. It should be busy most of the time. And, by updating the facilities, it becomes more likely that we'll draw more people to camp.

 

So, yeah, it'd be nice to just make arrangements with some farmer to let us use some of his land to camp on. These days, tho, his lawyer would tell him not to do it because of the potential liability if someone gets hurt.

[John-in-KC]

Eamonn,

 

You put a LOT of meat on those bones

 

To my way of thinking, the biggest single problem we have in the LT camping system is the DINING HALL.

 

Why? Simple: When Scouts eat food prepared for them, they don't cook.

 

Now, cooking, in the current BSA program, is as close to an afterthought as anything I know. Pioneering is probably the second closest item in that regard.

 

Once upon a time (1960s and early 70s), when the Green uniform and the overseas cap were de riguer, the Cooking MB was required for Eagle. Requirements for Cooking have not changed a lot over the years. The MB requires a Scout to step up to the prep table and the stove and COOK!

 

The activities associated with a meal: Stoves/fires, water fetching, KP, cooks helpers, all reinforce the Patrol Method AND use up some of that time. They teach teamwork, discipline, and the skills of converting raw food into a meal.

 

To my way of thinking, bringing an emphasis on cooking back into the Scout program would go far towards making a more holistic camping program AND leveraging a Scout Camp for advancement without having to do 'merit badge school.'

 

My thoughts. Some may agree. Others will disagree. That's OK.

[evmori]

John-in-KC,

 

Gotta agree! The dining halls should go! The summer camp we attend has a dining hall camp & a patrol cooking camp. We have always attended the patrol cooking camp. We refer to the other camp as the "3rd Year Webelos" camp. The Troops that attend this camp use the rational there is more time for the Scouts to devote to other things. To me, it's more of an excuse than anything. Boy Scouts should be cooking their own meals at summer camp. It helps develop their skills & leadership.

 

Ed Mori

Troop 1

1 Peter 4:10

[Venividi]

Gotta agree with all these posts.

 

Our troop returned to our council's patrol cooking camp after 3 years at a neighboring council's dining hall summer camp. Our observations were that teamwork within the patrols suffered during those three years. They didn't get enough cooking on weekend campouts throughout the year, and combined with each weekend trip being composed of a subset of the patrol membership, the scouts became more a collection of individuals at the same place.

we noticed that the patrol goal of preparing meals (reinforced 3 times per day) was replaced by individual goals of completing merit badge work.

 

Patrol cooking isn't for everybody, and seems to be for less and less. Our council's camp is touting their plans for a dining hall, necessary because more and more of their customers are going elsewhere. In a discussion with a friend at another troop, he said their troop liked the dining hall camps because it was less work, and summer camp was viewed as a vacation, and no one was interested in spending their vacation cooking. It was interesting to see the difference in perspectives.

 

Eamonn wrote: Parents and some leaders seem to view how many merit badges were earned at summer camp as the yard stick that measures the success of the camp.

 

It always bothered me when leaders at our summer COH's would praise the number of merit badges earned, and the scouts that had 7 got much more recognition that the scout that got 3, but showed better scout spirit by helping new scouts, or convincing a group of his buddies to take time out from pursuit of merit badges to go down to the lake during "free swim" time. I'ld much rather see a scout spirit award given by the troop to those scouts that most exhibited scout spirit.

[Venividi]

Got to thinking more on this from Eamonn's orignal post:

Parents and some leaders seem to view how many merit badges were earned at summer camp as the yard stick that measures the success of the camp.

 

I think the sports analogy to this is the parent that wants their child to be the leading scorer on their soccer or basketball team. Perhaps it is a bit more intuitive that these are team sports, and parents need a bit more time and instruction to recognize that scouting can be just as much a team activity.

[John-in-KC]

Problem is this:

 

BSA emphasizes a maturation process. Football camp, band camp, baseball camp, space camp, not to mention swimming camp and soccer camp all emphasize skill development. Very, very few of the specialty camps I see pay any more than lip service to "the whole man."

 

Parents have choices. BSA is ONE choice on the plate for a summer camp experience. Parents expect the program their child attends will produce results. No results, don't expect the parent to let the child return the following year.

 

As far as fixing the attitude described above, I wish I knew...

[Kahuna]

I agree that summer camps are expensive to own and operate, but to me they are absolutely vital to BSA program. There are lots of ways to finance camps, capital campaigns and major sponsors among the main ones. In Central Florida, we had the Winn-Dixie Scout Reservation. The commercial name didn't bother me a bit and brought a lot of goodwill to Winn-Dixie.

 

It's very difficult to run your own summer camp program in today's world. Hard to find land to camp on where you can do it and hard to meet BSA standards for proper staffing.

 

My troops camped every month year around. The kids camped, cooked and ate as patrols. We camped in primitive and less primitive sites, swam in rivers and lakes and hiked on all kinds of trails. For summer camp in the deep South, we wanted an air conditioned mess hall with three meals, pre-positioned tents with platforms and a junior olympic swimming pool. The boys were free to earn as many or as few merit badges as they wanted, but we always tried to arrange a white water rafting or all day canoeing experience as part of the week.

 

I think it's great that a lot of camps offer patrol cooking sites for those who want or need it. I also think it's great that camps like Daniel Boone in North Carolina offer llama treks in the mountains for older scouts in place of merit badge classes. Then, there's Philmont and the canoe base in Minnesota.

 

Whatever these camps cost, I'm for preserving them. I don't give much money to any charity these days (old age and retirement you know), but I always give to capital campaigns for council camps. And I guess I will as long as I'm able. As I said on another thread, if I were in a council that had closed its summer camp, I would demand that the professionals close their office and go run a camp in the summer or quit their jobs and do something else.

[Lisabob]

Eamonn,

 

I see where you're coming from. But I wonder if this is partly a culture thing? Going off to (organized) summer camp is still a rite of passage for most American kids and a cherished memory for their parents too. I have lived in various parts of northern Europe and rarely found anything similar to the American camp experience there. Not surprisingly, most of my friends there didn't seem to understand the cultural importance of summer camp in American life. In fact I recall that many of them thought it sounded a bit silly.

 

 

 

[ManyIrons]

Eamonn, I'm with ya on the merit badge thing. This year in one of my Summer Camp Prep emails to the parents I specifically cautioned them about using the number of completed badges to rate the quality of camp:

 

"Finally, when your son comes home please guage the quality of his summer camp experience by the enthusiasm he shows when talking about the things he did, the friends he met, and the opportunities he shared. In other words measure the success of his camp experience by the amount of fun he had, not by the number of badges he completed."

 

Did it work? Not even close. Too many Scouts view summer camp as the merit badge express lane (safety in numbers, cooperate and graduate) and this is reinforced by their parents -- usually the same ones that want me to schedule Eagle required merit badges as part of the troop meetings so "these kids can get their requirements done". Just for the record, my son, "Young Many Irons", spent the whole week at the C.O.P.E course. He checked out a few merit badge classes, but didn't complete a single one. What was his assessment? He loved it and wants to do C.O.P.E again next year.

 

As for the dining hall issue, I don't care if it's there or not. We camp approximately 9 other times a year and the Scouts cook at every one of them. If you're not cooking throughout the year, 1 week at summer camp won't make up for the other 51.

 

My only complaint about dining halls is that it's usually 1000 degrees in there. Why do so many councils think a D.H must have 4 walls? Pavilions are the way to go!!

[lynncc]

Okay my main job in scouting is as a cub leader. But I am having so much fun with it that this year I volunteered for boy scout winter camp. Of course this year we called it last chance for summer camp. Unseasonably warm for this time of year. Except the last night (most of the boys had left after friday nights campfire) it froze. I wondered all night why my hind end was cold all night...found out the next day...

 

Our summer camp has a great C.O.P.E. course and climbing tower. We have the nice airconditioned dining hall. it has huge windows that open when the weather permits otherwise its the AC. East Texas can get quite warm. The hot is okay but combined witht he humidity it is nice to excape into AC for a little reprieve.

 

Our council uses our camp for all sorts of stuff. Woodbadge, the OA lodge is there, cubscout mom-n-me, dad-n-lad, you can reserve a spot to camp there anytime it is not in use. We do camp school there, train the trainers classes and all sorts of other things there.

 

They always have some kind of unit cook off contest. Winter camp has the full meal cook-off and summer camp has the cobbler cook-off. You are always free to cook any and all your own meals.

 

Of course like others have said parents want results. It is hard for Parents to judge scout spirit and the fact that they came together as a group and helped other scout groups or individual scouts but they can see those little round merit badge patches. They often like has been stated equate that with success. The more money you have the more badges you have the more successful you are. What a shame. but that is our society. We can only hope as leaders to teach our younger ones that this is not success, being a good citizen/scout is. Accomplishments/money is not the be all end all. How you conduct yourself in all situations is.

 

most of our troops do view summer camp as an opportunity to work on merit badges. They also plan a different camping experience that is pure fun. Week long hiking in Colorado, week long canoe trip or some other 7-10 day camping thing.

[darknite]

Re: Cooking

Our Troop goes on monthly campouts during the school year, and twice monthly during summer vacation. 2 years ago, one of our council's camps built a dining hall. We tried it out and got into the dining hall food plan. Big Surprise! It added 3 hours back into program time! More free time, or more water front time, or more rifle range time, or more merit badge time. Outside of summer camp we cook in patrols at least 14 times a year. The 3 extra hours per day of program time is a huge benefit. We will probably never go back to cooking at summer camp.

 

 

[darknite]

Merit Badges, Advancement, Camp Spirit

Our troop won the highest honor in camp, the Baden Powell Award. They have a tough set of requirements. Each boy must earn 5 merit badges, participate in a 4 hour service project as a troop, attend all opening and closing flag ceremonies in full uniform, participate in 2 camp wide games, Have the SPL attend all daily SPL meetings, Have all adult leaders attend all adult leader meetings, participate in at least one outpost overnighter (away from the main scout camp) participate in a scout's own, and participate in the skit night campfire program, and do a camp opening or closing flag ceremony, and earn 10 service beads for performing service in different areas of camp, and at least a 90% on the daily campsite inspection.

 

Most of our scouts got 6 merit badges, but 3 boys set a goal to get 12-13. With alot of precamp work on pre-req requirements, the 3 boys acheived their goal.

 

2 of the boys that went with the Baden Powell winning group attended another council camp with half of our troop members that couldn't go to the first camp. The second group also won that camps highest award, the Wakara Arrow. The campers in the second group earned one merit badge the entire week, except for the 2 boys who went to the first camp. They earned 4. The 2 boys that went to the first camp said the second was really lame. No one wore uniforms, no one attended all the ceremonies, no merit badges were required for the Wakara award. They felt ripped off during the 2nd camp.

 

So, yeah, # of merit badges, chances for recognition, real patrol participation and working hard as a team towards a common goal IS a very important measure of success for a summer camp. When you consider that a troop spends about a years worth of weekly meeting hours during a full week at camp, they had better come back with some merit badges, new skills, and progress towards rank advancement to show for it.

 

BTW, The boys that earned one badge got equal recognition for their acheivments as the boys with 13. Same with earning the camp honors. On the other hand, if the boys who only earned one make a personal decision to earn more next year by setting higher goals and working hard towards those goals, great. No one will complain. Summer camp is THE Hilight of our scouting year, for activities, advancement, merit badges, everything.

[eagle90]

Not to open a can of worms here, but Dining Hall or not, I question the validity of any scout earning 13 merit badges in one week of camp. That is completing over 2 merit badges per day? Is there any quality control on these badges?

Are these kids having any fun at camp? We have our kids do 2-3 MB's. They are kept busy and have some free time to walk in the woods with a buddy, shoot a rifle, fish, go to a free swim period, or just relax.

[darknite]

The 3 boys who finished 13 badges at camp started doing the work 8 weeks before camp.

 

They spent a month tracking planets, spotting constellations, going to the library, science museum and planetarium for Astronomy.

 

They built rain gauges, made weather observations, visited the local university and TV station for weather.

 

They taught orienteering skills and set up courses for cubs, webelos, new scouts, and at a girls camp for orienteering.

 

They spent time with the forest service learning about our local national forest, fire and avalanche control, animals, and water management techniques and collecting specimens and photos for forestry.

 

Back to the university and science museum, out in the field, and back to visit with the forest service rangers for mammal study.

 

They spent time online, at local history museum, and visiting a reservation to prepare for Indian Lore.

 

They spent time helping our church develop a communications plan and had an emergency disaster drill for Emergency Preparedness

 

They visited the Tandy store to collect leather samples and learn some basic leather techniques foe Leather Working

 

They went to a clinic offered by a sporting goods store to learn some survival skills, then went on a survival campout with nothing but what they put together in their possibles bag for Wilderness Survival.

 

This is only a part of the pre-camp done to prep for the badges they earned.

 

It was a very busy, exhausting 2 months for the scouts, their parents, and us leaders. It was not a case of show up to camp and get 13 merit badges during 6 days. Its not something every scout should attempt. For these 3, it was their goal. They were lucky to have supportive parents, and leaders who almost killed themselves helping these boys aceive their goal, by providing transportation, ideas on where to go to gather information and resources.

 

As busy as it was, I'd do it again if a boy or boys set a goal to do it. The surprising part was the 2 boys who went to both camps, and felt like the 2nd was a rip off, a waste of their time.

 

All things said, one week at camp is about equal to a years worth of weekly patrol meetings. While not every scout would have the get to it that those three did, I still expect the boys to work hard and earn merit badges, learn new skills, and advance towards ranks. They and their parents didn't pay (or shouldn't have paid) $170 to spend a week being lazy with only 1 merit badge to show for the time and effort at camp.