Cub Scout camp was AWESOME!

[Tami the Mom]

My first official season as Camp Director at Wakpominee Cub Camp, and it was super! Over our two-week season we had 225 kids, plus all of their parents and a handfull of siblings. Here are a few of the highlights, I'll expand on them if anyone is interested.

 

 

Physical assault by 10yo

 

Police visit

 

Ambulance visit

 

Rabid Raccoon

 

Projectile Vomiter

 

Car Accident

 

Thunder and Lightning Sing-along

 

The Cherub

 

Latrine Laundry

 

Five Hours of Agony with the DOH (might have told this already)

 

Why it was all worth it

 

[Lady_Leigh67]

Um, I'm game! lol! I would love to hear about it!

[SSScout]

OO...OO...OO...

 

By All Means... Love to compare...

Did you do "Land of the Pharaoh-ohs"?

 

The police and F & R folks came to our CSDC because they wanted to, not because they HAD to!

 

Where do we send the coffee?(This message has been edited by SSScout)

[Tami the Mom]

It was two crazy weeks! No, we were Fiesta this year. Next year we're going with the National theme, so we'll be "Knights of the Roundtable" and in 2009 we are back to Space Camp.

 

Well, where to start. The ambulance - ok, we started a new program for Webelos, which meant they were out a little further in the woods. So twice we had twisted ankles. Once, the boy said his pain, on a 1-10 scale was "15", until we made him lay down and raised his leg. Then his pain went to zero and he hopped up and back to the activity. The second boy walked himself up to the office, but after sitting for a few minutes, decided his ankle was too sore to bear weight, even telling us he couldn't feel his toes. So our next step is to call across the street to the Boy Scout health office, which we do, and their medic comes over and we decide we have to call the ambulance. So of course, all of this is happening as we are heading to closing ceremonies, which now means we have to decide - scoot them NOW or hold them back until after the ambulance comes, as we are located 4 miles in on a very rural road, and with 135 kids, we will flood it when we let them out. So we held them back with a sing-along and letting the kids show off their chants and such. The ambulance finally showed up, and after going to the ER and a trip to an ortho for more x-rays, they tell him it's a sprain and he can wear the stabilizer if he wants, but he is ok to bear weight on it. Much panic about nothing. That was Tuesday.

 

The next day was the Family Night Picnic for the Boy Scout camp. They fill their available parking pretty quickly, and then they start putting people in our lot. No sweat for us, as they start loading in right around the time we are clearing out. But that means 135 kids leaving at the same time 200 families are arriving. So we posted traffic guards out in the road, trying to keep people from hitting each other and making sure they park in the lot and not on the road. This road is just barely wide enough for 2 cars to pass each other, and the speed limit is 40. SO my own husband is down at the street in an orange vest, and a car comes at him speeding like he's at the Brickyard. Husband tries waving him to slow down, he stays at speed. Husband tries to flag him to stop, as people are trying to cross the street carrying coolers and lawn chairs, and cars are waiting in line to park, and pulling out slowly into a congested road. Nope, the guy flies past my husband, hitting his hand (outstretched to try to get the guy to slow), and NOW he screeches to a stop. He got out of his car and started screaming obsceneties at husband, stomping around and waving his arms, we were afraid he was going to start swinging right there in front of the kids. By the time I got to the office and found all this out, he was gone and two minutes later the CD from the Boy Scout camp calls me to tell me someone just called him and said our crossing guard was kicking his car and threatening him. So, we had to call the police to make sure we were on record with what happened. Good thing it wasn't an emergency, it took almost 2 hours for the sheriff to arrive. The outcome, there is nothing they can do. He doesn't have to stop for anyone in an orange vest, unless they are a police officer.

[eagle-pete]

Tami

 

Where's the AWESOME! part? Did I miss it?

 

"...two crazy weeks!"? Sounds more like two weeks of ... well, you know where I'm going.

 

Remind me not to volunteer for Camp Director.

 

Eagle Pete

[SSScout]

Ah no... Ya gotta be a Camp Director...

 

As the First Assistant Cub Scout Day Camp Director for Program Design, Procurement and Implementation, (guess what my significant other is...)I must say that if you build it, they will come and throw up on it.

But you don't concentrate on the problems except to plan for the possibilities and solve them when and if they happen. You concentrate on the OTHER 200 Cubs smiling and saying 'OOO" and "AAAH". Even the Cub with the sprained ankle will remember the ambulance ride, if nothing else. The rest will learn alittle about map and compass use, what poison ivy looks like (maybe), the cool State Police Helicopter that landed, the big plastic sheet slip['n slide that no one else will have that summer, and the fish their buddy caught..

The parents will learn alittle about time with their boy, despite themselves. Maybe you can have a short conversation with the woman who sits behind her den, writing on her knee that proposal she HAS to have in the office TONITE. Or the Dad who is ASLEEP while the den pounds symbols into leather totems. Is he dedicated or trying to 'sleep it off' because...

Lots of possibilities.

Yeah, you want to be a CD or a FACSDCDPDPI.

You know you do...

 

Next years theme herebouts is "Wonderful World of Wheels". Finally, something we can get our Cub hands around... Gonna contact that Model T Club that disassembles a Model T and then Re-assembles it in less than 15 minutes...

[Tami the Mom]

Where's the AWESOME part.....

 

We had 225 kids over two weeks, and only a few with discipline issues. Even the kid who kicked bruises on my leg and ripped a significant amount of hair out of my head came in and sat with me and talked afterwards, apologizing for his meltdown and gave me a note thanking me for helping him out. He's bipolar, goes to a special ed school for kids with severe emotional disturbances, and yet he managed 5 days of camp with only 1 outburst. His father told me he has to be physically restrained in school every day. I call that a huge success story.

 

Everywhere I went at any time, I saw kids laughing and playing and learning by surprise. Our Nature staff slid in subjects like life cycles of plants and animals and weather experiments. Scout Skills had them all learning square knots under the promise they could take turns tying up the teacher - nobody could tie one faster than him, so he got lucky. They could tie those knots fast, though! We had a brand new program area - Webelos Wilderness - where the older boys learned about safety in the woods, respecting nature, fire safety, and rope-bridge building. On their tour of the Bou Scout camp, they swept their path clean of even the tiniest piece of litter - leaving no trace.

 

Mostly, I just saw kids having fun. Playing flag football, shooting arrows and scoring bulls-eyes or missing the target completely, they still had fun. Painting t-shirts and making gecko's and paper lanterns, singing songs and dancing the Mexican Hat Dance and the chicken dance, and singing my all-time favorite, Moose Song. A year of bringing together two complete staffs, one each week, of finalizing program plans and buying everything we needed. Prepwork and paperwork, meetings with the council staff and my local staff. Goofing in the office with the nurse and program director, crawling under my desk to hide, or singing into my walkie-talkie Happy Birthday to one of the archery teachers. Handing out chili-pepper bead necklaces to kids who did something extra cool and initiating them into the Royal Order of the Chilis. Then watching everyone else's eyes light up at the prospect of getting a chili necklace. And then handing out 2 or 3 more.

 

I love Cub Scouts, and camp most of all. All those smily kids, all the chaos and energy of it all. I will see these kids around different places for the rest of the year - at the mall, at a playground here or there, and another Scout function, and they will run up to me and tell me how much fun they had a camp, and what was the best part. How can you not count that as awesome?

[Lady_Leigh67]

Tami, kuddos to you for being a CD. I am not sure that I could do it. And it sounds like you you go above and beyond to try and make a difference in even one boy's life!