Theme Park-Like Camp for Cub Scouts Built on Old Disney Site

[fgoodwin]

Theme Park-Like Camp for Cub Scouts Built on Old Disney Site

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/04/AR2006040401958.html

http://tinyurl.com/f9e6x

 

By Nikita Stewart

Washington Post Staff Writer

Wednesday, April 5, 2006; B01

 

The Boy Scouts of America is planning to open a $17 million camp catering to Cub Scouts next month on the site near Haymarket where the Walt Disney Co. tried to build a theme park 12 years ago.

 

The camp will be built and operated by the National Capital Council, which represents more than 85,000 Scouts and 23,000 volunteers in the District and 16 counties in Maryland and Virginia. It is one of the most expensive scouting construction projects in the nation, officials said, and unusual because of its focus on Cub Scouts as well as Boy Scouts.

 

"We've never had a facility that's been able to connect with the Cub Scouts," said Alan F. Lambert, the council's Scout executive.

 

Officials said the Scouts wanted a camp closer to Washington so that Cub Scouts, the organization's youngest members, could enjoy an overnight camping experience. The council's closest camp is in Goshen, Va., which is an inconvenient three-hour ride from Washington for 7- to 10-year-olds, who require more supervision and tend to get more homesick than older Scouts, Lambert said.

 

The scheduled opening of Camp William B. Snyder is May 6. Snyder, a former Geico chairman, is a longtime member of the area Scout council board and was instrumental in securing the land for the project.

 

The camp sprawls over 350 acres once designated for "Disney's America," a U.S. history theme park Disney scrapped in 1994 after protests from residents and preservationists about its proximity to the Manassas National Battlefield Park. Disney sold the site to the Boy Scouts for $1.5 million in 1997.

 

Camp Snyder will have touches of a theme park, from a 67-foot climbing wall to an aquatics center with water slides. Scout officials said, however, that they tried to preserve much of the site's natural state. The council created more than 100 acres of wetlands that are attracting birds and wildlife that the Scouts will explore.

 

"It's a positive part of the program to protect wildlife and eco-systems," Lambert said. "It's part of the camping experience."

 

The camp has themed areas such as the Big Dig, where Scouts can dig up replicas of dinosaur bones and assemble their own skeletons, and the Space Port, where they can explore a simulation of Mars, said Maj. Gen. Raymond Johns, chairman of program development at the camp.

 

"What a neat experience," he said.

 

From Memorial Day through Labor Day, the camp will serve about 1,000 Cub Scouts a week, said Johns. Boy Scouts can camp there on weekends throughout the year.

 

Johns and Lambert showed photos and drawings of the camp to the Prince William Board of County Supervisors yesterday. Other themed areas include a Native American village with tepees, a fort with a BB gun range and a ship surrounded by blue vulcanized rubber to suggest the ocean.

 

The adventures will not be the traditional rustic experience the public associates with scouting and camping, Lambert said. He showed a photo of the 600-seat dining hall, still under construction, that looked more like a McMansion. The modern facilities, including upgraded bathrooms and showers, were responses to parents, especially mothers, concerned about how younger children and adult volunteers would fare in the wild, Lambert said.

 

The Scouts will still sleep in tents, although they are much roomier, fitting six to eight Cub Scouts or four volunteers in each one, he said.

 

The camp's attractions and its $17 million price tag -- raised through private and corporate donations and general financing -- make it one of the biggest in the country compared with facilities used by the more than 300 councils, said Gregg Shields, national spokesman for the Boy Scouts of America in Irving, Tex. "I have not found another of a larger size in terms of investment," he said.

 

When Disney dropped its plans for a theme park, Snyder and Ron L. Carroll, who was Scout executive at the time, led the negotiations to buy the land, Lambert said. Carroll died last year.

 

Snyder, 76, who now lives in St. Petersburg, Fla., said he missed out on the Scout experience as a child because his local troop disbanded after its leader was drafted to serve in World War II. "My son was in the Scouts when he was growing up and I was a civilian leader," he said. "I think highly of the Scouts as a character-building organization."

[Newbie Den Leader]

It sounds great! The National Capital Council sounds like they're doing pretty well for themselves. I did not like the part that said some of the costs would obtained through "general financing." I hope financing has been kept to a minimum. Friends of Scouting generally like their donations to go to fund scouting programs rather than servicing debt.

 

I wonder if the property can be or will used for National Jamborees?

[Gags]

I sure hope not.

 

350 acres (of which almost 1/3 is 'wetlands') is barely enough room to hold a 500-1000 scout camporee. Aside from the fact that it's probably about 2 hours from Ft AP Hill.

 

I attended Wood Badge there. The property doesn't give off the most "rugged" appearance (being bordered by I-66 and a busy county road), and that was before the 600 seat dining and the pirate ship and castle and other "Cub World" sites went up.

 

Useless fact of the day for you - once completed, the dining hall will be the largest eating facility in Prince William County.

 

All in all - I'm looking forward to seeing the completed product. It has a good training facility, along with a COPE course (haven't used it yet, though), and I'd like to see how the Cub World aspects turn out, as there are (or at least were a few years ago) plans to do the same to my old Scout camp in NJ.

 

I'm most impressed that the article made the front page (below the fold, but still the front page) of the Washington Post - and it wasn't negative to the Scouts!

 

Cheers,

 

Gags

[anarchist]

RE:NCAC Camp Snyder

 

this camp is going to be very nice for Cubs, and of limited value to "camping boys scouts". In less than two years the camp will be totally circled by development (houses) so the camping experience even in the "primitive camping area will be akin to camping in your back yard.

 

It will be absolutely fantastic as a training center and cub scout camp however...which is what it is meant to be.

It will have many interesting features...and if it is successful it will be a great asset to cub scout training and retention...I hope we get it right!

 

It will not be used for JAMBO...

 

Hope you all notices a factoid about NCAC as a council...

85,000 scouts and 23,000 volunteers...better than one volunteer per four scouts...that helps the council succeed more than anything...('course being in an affluent reigion does help)

 

Anarchist

[fgoodwin]

I used to live in Maryland and recall going to Camp Snyder for "Program Launch" in the spring. Even then (2001, 2002) it was very impressive.

 

I've been in Texas since 2003, but if I ever get back to the DC-area, I plan to stop by and check out the "new" Camp Snyder.

 

Sounds like a great place.

[scoutldr]

I have visited the NCAC Council center in Bethesda MD.. It was donated by some guy named "Marriott" if memory serves me right.

[SSScout]

Camp Snyder does hold great promise. The "wetlands" are a created swamp, wetland credits, I understand. Attracts many bird specie. Nice nature trail for the short legged Cub...

The article I saw was on thursday, page B3, not on the front page, (a later edition?) and howcum it didn't register in the "headlines section" of our forum? For the DC area, it is a 'close in' facility, almost a drop-in camp ground for Scouts.

Unfortunately, I can forsee the need for fences around the whole property to control the suburban nonScout explorer.

There are some historic properties on the perifery, an historic church comes to mind.

Yes, the Marriott family ( Hot Shoppes, Hotels, Roy Rogers Hamburgers (gone)) has given mightily to the local Council, for which we are appreciative.

Bugles must compete with the semi's on I66, but occassionally one can hear the lonesome wail of a diesel coal drag on the old W and OD tracks...

 

Y'all come down an' see us some time, y'hear?

 

YiS...

[John-in-KC]

Fred,

 

If you want to see the archetype of this facility, come up to Kansas City and see the Theodore Naish Scout Reservation. Our former SE, Jim Terry (now the Deputy, Chief Scout Executive), ran a capital campaign and built our bear camp operation over the last three years. We dedicated last June and had it in full operation all last year.

 

Our capacity in Bear Camp may be a little smaller (about 250, 125 Cubs and 125 parents), but the rebuilt dining hall in Central Camp (for Webelos and Boy sessions) can cook for over 1000 at once and seats up to 800.

[fgoodwin]

John, thanx for the invite. I haven't been to KC since 1980, but next time I'm there, I'll look it up!

[ManassasEagle]

Yep, we live less than 15 miles from Camp Snyder and have been out there many times. Have to agree with those that say it'll be a great camp for Cubs (both Day Camp and the 3-night Resident Camp) and not so much for older Scouts. It does butt right up to I-66 (wouldn't it be nice if someone donated one of those "sound walls" that line most of the closer in interstates around here) and to Antioch Rd on another side. Across Antioch Rd is one of those mega-McMansion subdevelopments which doesn't help (maybe another sound wall is in order here). Oh, and finally, it's not the old W&OD (Washington & Old Dominion) RR that you can hear, it's the old Southern Railway (now Norfolk Southern) "B-Line" out to the Shenandoah Valley and up towards Hagerstown MD.

[SSScout]

Norfolk and Southern it is, thank you Manassaseagle. Couldn't think of that, for some old reason.

CWBS has great promise and I am glad to see the property as a Scout facility rather than a mini Disneyland. I have heard that the reservations for Cub World are not quite what NCAC would like them to be, yet. We may see a saturation process here. After trying hard (with some small success) to promote the Cub Day Camp opportunity, ("Wings of Wonder" this year), which is /are run by 99% parent volunteers, now NCAC wants Cub Packs to pay bigger bucks for the 3day overnight Camp. There is some discussion in the hinterland that CWBS Cub World will draw from the Day Camps, and vice versa and neither will be as successful as desired. We now have four Cub Camping opportunities, all of which have some success but none are overflowing with Cubs (Webelos weeks, parent-son weekends, Baloo trained Pack camping,and now CWBS).

There is certainly alot of disposable income in the DC area, but are the disposees Scout families? Perhaps CWBS has a future as a Cub World, but I think NCAC must leave its options open to use it as a multi-use facility. 600 seat dining hall, and who has the concession here? Wedding receptions? School Proms? "Outdoor Experience" for urban and suburban Schools? Nature study around the lake? Don't forget the pool and COPE course and the rest of the lovely place. Scout Troops can find a good, short notice camp ground here. Wood Badge? Merit Badge College? Bird Study? Lots of possibility, not all are Cub World. And it IS nice, and close in. NCAC will be looking to USE CWBS.