Council-Wide Cub Family Camp

[AZOwl]

Ok, so I got a bad case of helium hand and volunteered myself to organize a Council-wide Cub Scout Family Camp...Here's some background...

 

I was the Camp Director for a District-wide Cub Family Camp in October that went over very well. We had 30 families attend, which was good to start. Had some great volunteers to help plan the thing, man stations, and so forth...This time, however, we are going to open it up Council-wide in order to increase attendance. This is also hand-in-hand with my Council's push to get Cubbies out camping and use it as a retention tool. Council is also promoting getting the various camps 'Nationally Certified', which is not a bad thing, and helps provide a roadmap to success. My goal is to increase from 30 to 60 families attending, and since I am going to promote heavily at PowWOw and Scout-a-Rama, there is a chance we could go well over that.

 

So, while I do have some experience in doing this based on October's event, I am interested in hearing about experiences you may have had in planning and/or attending something of this scale. Have you been to a Council-wide Family Camp event in your area and what did you like/dislike about it. How many families attended? Did you encounter any "gotcha's" along the way? Did you split boys up by rank or mix all ranks together? Did you use a 'tot lot' for those children under Cub age and how did it work? How did you manage siblings that came along with the family? Did you have them participate, or have separate activities for them? I am also planning on going to Camp School in March for Camp Administration, but the earlier I get things started, the better off we will be. I only have EIGHT months to plan

 

I have reserved our local Scout Camp to hold the event, so that takes off a lot of the 'find a good place to hold it' issues. We will be following a daycamp model of rotating through stations, with 5 stations during the morning/afternoon, and two hours of 'Family Time' in the late afternoon with some optional fun activities, or the kids can just go and play so kids can just go out and have fun. We will also hold a Boy Scout style campfire ceremony on Sat Evening with the boys providing the entertainment.

 

So, feedback is a gift...

 

Thanks!

[ScoutNut]

If you have siblings you must provide age appropriate activities for them.

 

How you split up the activities depends on how many staffers you have, and what your budget is. With a small staff you will not be able to a complete separate program for every level. The bigger the budget, and the more volunteers, the more you can do, and the more diverse the activities can be.

 

I recommend that you try to keep Pack families together (both in where they camp, and activities).

 

Get a trained Program Director on board as soon as possible.

[Eagle92]

Having staffed district and council ones, with one council having at one time 12K+ Cubs, family members, and staff, here are my ideas.

 

1) RECRUIT STAFF, RECRUIT STAFF, RECRUIT STAFF! Did I mention recurit staff? Sources can be OA, WBers working on a ticket, CSDC staff, summer camp staff, troops, ships, and crews. And think outside the box. Withone council, the 4th Marine Division provided some support in the form of Marines and equipment.

 

2) Use the Family Camp national standards.

 

3)Site visit to figure out where you going to place everything.

 

4)Recruit more staff as you can never have enough.

 

5)better to have too many activities than not enough.

 

6) recruit more staff ( do you see a pattern )

 

7) get information out there ASAP and PROMOTE PROMOTE PROMOTE.

 

8) Guide books are great. here is a link to one I stole, I mean used as a model for one event.

 

http://www.ohmer.org/pack401/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/FallEncampment2010GuideBook.pdf

 

http://www.ohmer.org/pack401/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/FallEncampment2010RegForm.pdf

 

 

9) camping as packs is good, but camping by districts also work.

 

Good luck and more later as I think abotu it.

 

[SctDad]

Eagle92 and myself have recent experience with these type of events.

 

He is right, Staff Staff and more staff

 

If you want, I have an excell file that will helpyou organize your staff and their assignemtns. There are also some great things that you can find out.

 

Things that we did at the one that I organized was at a council property. There were a lot of things already in place like the climbing tower, BB and Archery Ranges and the handy craft shelter. Some things that I added to the program that made for a good event.

 

Had the area Medical Evacuation Chopper come out, although they were only able to stay for a short while, it was a big hit

 

Fire Department, They were there for the chopper anyway, so they set up a display

 

Forestry Service (They had a bunch of give away stuff)

 

Get a binder and get the Family Camp Standards. This will help to keep everything organized. If you want more information or the files that I used, PM me and I will get your e-mail address from you.

[AZOwl]

Eagle92...I LOVE that Guidebook...You know the old joke about Cub Scout R&D, right? Its not Research and Development...Its Ripoff and Duplicate!

 

SctDad...Send you that PM...I'm really looking forward to doing this. I've always been a huge proponent of Cubs Camping as a way of preparing them for bigger and better things when they move up to Boy Scouts, and I can think of no better way to retain kids than to appeal to their sense of adventure.

 

Keep it coming folks!

[shortridge]

I've staffed these types of events before. Always a lot of fun. Staff were mostly recruited from summer camp staff. In the most recent one I did, in the fall, folks were paid $50 for working the weekend. (I didn't take it because it was more like a vacation than anything!)

 

In my neck of the woods, they're usually an open program weekend - the staff is at the program areas from 9 a.m. to noon, and 1 to 5ish, and groups and individuals are free to float and do whatever they wanted. Activity areas included BB, archery, inflatables (several set up on the activity field), a nature hike, knot-tying, fire-building, handicrafts and showmanship (a talented staffer coached the Cubs on campfire skits and performing).

 

The open program schedule has some pluses and minuses. Pluses: There's no pressure on families to dash halfway across camp to be "there" on time; folks could repeat activities if time allowed; they could take a breather in their campsite or go ona hike in the middle of stuff if they needed a break; families new to camp could get lost on the way between program areas without running late for anything. Minuses: Forty people showing up to do firebuilding at one time can be a bit chaotic; ditto for one group arriving five minutes into your already-running program and having to wait.

 

Siblings could generally do the activities along with the Cubs. It was a blast watching the big sisters kick their brothers' butts at firebuilding!

 

Webelos could choose to arrive Friday night and spend the night, cooking breakfast in the morning under the guidance of an experienced staffer. Everyone else arrived Saturday morning and spent the night - going to a campfire after dinner at which they performed their skits & songs - and heading home Sunday. Folks ate in the dining hall - there were two people on kitchen crew, and program staff helped serve and clean up.

 

Two guys - myself included - showed up Friday morning to do the prep work - set up the archery range, gather wood and build the campfire, put out other program equipment, open up the comfort stations, etc. Most everyone else showed up later that evening, so college students could come on down after finishing up classes.

 

Packs camped together, with families responsible for their own tentage.

 

We attracted a lot of brand-new families who had just joined in August or September - it was a great way to introduce them to Cub Scouting and get both kids and parents excited and energized! It also was a way to get people to camp who hadn't attended summer camp before. Really opened a lot of eyes all around. And it was fun!

 

The one challenge that the camp director faced was that Council didn't enforce the registration deadline - meaning people were still signing up on Friday night to arrive Saturday morning. Needless to say, that threw off the food calculations and campsite assignments a wee bit. It was still manageable, but just be sure your registrar sticks to their guns.

[Eagle92]

One thing that helps with the "free flow method of activities" when you have a specific activity, say bowling, that has a limited number of spots for an hour, but you have a line a mile along; TICKETS!

 

At Sctdad and my council's regional jamboree and Cub Scout family camp out, Bowling and Swimming has very long lines. After letting the first X amount of folks in, they handed out tickets that said be at the bowling alley at Y time. Whoever thought of that was a GENIIUS!

[Eagle92]

one thing that helped with late registration, a large lATE fee to cover the 2AM run to walmart to buy extra food and making folks cram into campsotes based upontheir preregistration numbers

 

[saschuster]

You have a big job ahead of you, good luck!!

 

Our pack hosted the Spring Cub Family Camping for our district last year. We used the 100 years of scouting as our theme to promote it and it was a HUGE success! It took us 4 months of planning so it was definitely a ton of work. We had 8 packs in our district there and had over 200 people attend. Each pack was responsible for picking a decade and them planning and running a popular scouting game from that decade and that was tons of fun and by doing that, it took some of the planning off of us as each pack had something for the boys to do. The boys started at their own game and then rotated through the rest throughout the day.

 

We had a big campfire that night where we did a flag retirement ceremony that many of the boys had never seen and then each pack did a skit and we awarded a trophy to the pack with the best game from the day.

 

All the pack provided their own breakfast Saturday and Sunday morning and their dinner Saturday night and we provided lunch. which we were lucky enough to have a parent whose mom was a Subway Manager so we got the food for next to nothing so don't be afraid to ask restaurants and grocery stores for donations. They usually never say no to scouts especially if you bring them with you in uniform! We also had a patch for everyone that attended that our Treasurer designed.

 

Take all the help you can get, keep the boys busy and have fun! Don't let the little things stress you out, don't expect every station to be a hit with the boys and if it's not, improvise and let them take charge and make it fun.

 

I did it once and I don't know that I will ever do it again even though it was such a great trip, the other packs had a great time and it made us look very good! Our pack just doesn't like to help much so it made three or four of us work our tails off!

[SctDad]

Another things that you will need is to kow your budget. The work book that I am working on to send you has the budget work sheets in it. Know your budget and try your best to stay in it. That will be your life saver.

 

Also know your deadlines. Some councils have deadlines that have to be met in Order to run a successful program. If you are able to do those things it will help a lot.