Tell Me How You would Plan Meals and Supplies For a Webelos Campout

[Its Me]

Tell me how you would set up meals and food procurement for a Webelos den campout. Assume all scouts will have at least one parent. Also take into account that although the campout is Friday to Sunday some will arrive Saturday.

 

 

[SemperParatus]

I would suggest modeling the boy scout method as much as possible, because it works and it will give them some sense of what the future holds.

 

Have a meeting where the scouts establish a food budget, plan the menu and put together the shopping list. Have them elect two scouts to go shopping with their parents to secure the items on the list. During the shopping, the scouts should use a calculator to make sure that the budget is not being blown. The paying parent can be reimbursed before shopping by all participants (based on budget) or after shopping once actual costs are known. It is not clear how many meals you are having (Friday night dinner?) or whether the Saturday arrivals are eating breakfast - typically, a weekend of food will be $8-$12 per attendee so I would probably just charge one price for all, rather than different amounts depending on who comes and when.

 

To keep things simple, I would suggest scouts and parents eat together (same meals). The scouts should also put together a duty roster showing who will cook each meal, cleanup, etc. The parents should be involved in the cooking (assuming the scouts have little or no experience) but have the scouts actively involved in the meal preparation, set up and clean up.

[ScoutNut]

First of all you should send out permission slips which include, along with medical info & permission to treat, when/how (car info) they will be arriving at the campout. Once you get those back you will know who is arriving when.

 

If you are arriving on Friday evening I wouldn't do dinner. Have the families eat at home & just do a crackerbarrel after everything is unpacked & set up.

 

For the rest - Take 1 or 2 meetings & talk to the boys about it. They can easily help plan the menus. After all, they know what they will & won't eat and it will get them involved in the planning end of things!

 

Once you know who is arriving when, you can split up the buying/bringing among the families. For cooking and cleaning I would split the boys & adults into patrols and do kaper charts for responsibilities.

[Joni4TA]

I would have the boys in the Webelos Den/Patrol think about what they like to eat when they're out camping (I am assuming they've done some camping by now either Family Camping or as a Pack). I don't know if you have more than one Patrol or not but begin having the boys plan the menus. Put on a big board, the three meals per day. Let them agree or disagree on what they want to eat. Ask them questions, lead them into making the proper decisions about food choices; i.e., "What's really needed to make omelettes, boys?" "What else?"

Let them decide (within a timely manner and plenty of Adult Leader help) which 2 boys will assist an adult in cooking or cook alone, each meal or meals for the day. Let them pick a couple boys for cleaning up after meals, and another 2 boys for washing dishes. Let them pick a "grubmaster" for the campout. Perhaps they can guesstimate how much each person should contribute to the food shopper for meals.

 

Bottom line, let the boys have as much input as you can, but ensure there is plenty of adult backing both in the decision process and in the campout. Let them "forget" a thing or two... make a mental note in your head, and ask them later if they forgot anything? Boys will learn from their mistakes.

 

Good luck!

[anarchist]

I have PMed you for more details...

alot depends on numbers the kitchen equipment you have and the skill set you Webs have...I's or II's...lots of outdoor work or little???

but here goes....

 

Friday night is bring a bag! or eat at home and bring a snack or instant soup (cup of soup is great!)....allows set up and prep for Saturday morning...

 

The best camp I think my Webelos II's had was the last camp of their last year...we had been camping since Web I (wolf year really )...three or four per year and they could cook...

so we had them plan two patrol menus just like Boy Scouts and broke the den into two patrols ( eight boys plus eight dads/moms= 16... too big for one patrol...)This was important, each boy got to cook a lot! Why important?

 

Because the theme was "Thank You" for the parents hauling them around for the last several years in Cubs...AND MY BOYS WAITED HAND AND FOOT ON THEIR PARENTS FOR THE ENTIRE WEEKEND! We set up the tents (after setting up parents chairs so they could watch) and got ready for Saturday morning...

Parents were encouraged to "sleep-in" and the boys made (with some help from our boy scout-my older son and the DL) breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert Saturday and another big breakfast Sunday, after a sunrise service (non denominational of course),...set up cooking cleaning and break down all by the Web II's it was AWESOME!

and aside from having to drag a couple of parents out of the prep-area in the kitchens it went off real well!

 

ASK Parents for food 'problems', accomodate if needed, help the boys plan the meals, do the shopping (figure $12-15 -in advance) per person for the weekend...bags friday help keep this part 'fair' also. remember to pack a loaf of bread and PB&J for someone who decides not to trust to 'luck' and go for it.

 

If you watch (direct)what is planned, (meals) even non-cooks can pull this (cooking) off, with your constant 'hovering'...

but, my guys loved doing for the adults!

YIS

anarchist