How was your Summer Camp?

[JoeBob]

Facilities: Excellent.

Mess Hall, Showers, Campsite, Amphitheater, instructional Shelters, all in good shape or new.

SM lounge: AC, WIFI, tables, rocking chairs, quiet. Mediocre coffee.

Waterfront: good equipment and staff, but the lake is a muddy pond!

 

Food:

C the first two days, but it got better.

SM Shoe Leather Dinner - not a good sales pitch for the camp. Can't justify money for a decent piece of beef? Cook chicken!

 

Staff:

Lower level instructors: good enthusiasm, though not necessarily expert in their field. Followed the MB books very well.

Camp Director and Program Director - Good attitude and knowledgeable.

Mid-level Staffers: 90% were arrogant prima donnas with little or no justification for their snotty attitudes. Very poor examples of what is supposed to be the cream of the scouting program.

 

Program:

Instruction - A

Entertainment value of Campfire programs - C

Formations - F The adults made a game of compiling the time wasted. As SM, it was hard for me to justify to my boys why they needed to attend formations 3 times a day when so little happened that really justified the walk and the time. (We did have the second meal time; so we'd go to formation for announcements, etc, and then be dismissed in a time wasting manner to go back to camp for 45 minutes.)

 

How was your camp?

 

[King Ding Dong]

Facilities A Food F Coffee: FFF. It was undrinkable. Tasted more like green tea. Made my own. Scoutmaster Lounge: never went there, that's for wimps. MB Counselors: A+ to F- one turd continued to play cards when his area director told him to teach his class. Gotta love cell phone cameras. The next day there was a major attitude change. Gnats: F. I hate gnats Camp Director: Good except he just got his beads so he had to give the same old BP, Zulus, Boer War Speech. Please not again. Just sing the Announcements song a few times and call it a day. Troop Guides : A Scheduling: F. Sometimes you just have to say no. 20 kids cannot take the Swimming MB from one counselor at a time. If you don't send in your MB selections early, you might not get what you want. That's called Life. Soft serve: A Formation: this is part of the BSA I just don't get. Line 20 kids up in a row. Put on a skit in front of them so they can't see it. Expect them to behave when they can't see or hear anything. Such a waste.

[King Ding Dong]

Facilities A Food F Coffee: FFF. It was undrinkable. Tasted more like green tea. Made my own. Scoutmaster Lounge: never went there, that's for wimps. MB Counselors: A+ to F- one turd continued to play cards when his area director told him to teach his class. Gotta love cell phone cameras. The next day there was a major attitude change. Gnats: F. I hate gnats Camp Director: Good except he just got his beads so he had to give the same old BP, Zulus, Boer War Speech. Please not again. Just sing the Announcements song a few times and call it a day. Troop Guides : A Scheduling: F. Sometimes you just have to say no. 20 kids cannot take the Swimming MB from one counselor at a time. If you don't send in your MB selections early, you might not get what you want. That's called Life. Soft serve: A Formation: this is part of the BSA I just don't get. Line 20 kids up in a row. Put on a skit in front of them so they can't see it. Expect them to behave when they can't see or hear anything. Such a waste.

VBulletin: F

[JoeBob]

Facilities A Food F Coffee: FFF. It was undrinkable. Tasted more like green tea. Made my own. Scoutmaster Lounge: never went there, that's for wimps. MB Counselors: A+ to F- one turd continued to play cards when his area director told him to teach his class. Gotta love cell phone cameras. The next day there was a major attitude change. Gnats: F. I hate gnats Camp Director: Good except he just got his beads so he had to give the same old BP, Zulus, Boer War Speech. Please not again. Just sing the Announcements song a few times and call it a day. Troop Guides : A Scheduling: F. Sometimes you just have to say no. 20 kids cannot take the Swimming MB from one counselor at a time. If you don't send in your MB selections early, you might not get what you want. That's called Life. Soft serve: A Formation: this is part of the BSA I just don't get. Line 20 kids up in a row. Put on a skit in front of them so they can't see it. Expect them to behave when they can't see or hear anything. Such a waste.

"Scoutmaster Lounge: never went there, that's for wimps."

Disagree. SM lounge is for those who can't be away from work for a whole week, but can manage it if they have a few hours on the net taking care of business and eMail. Should I have not gone to camp at all?

 

"Formation: this is part of the BSA I just don't get. Line 20 kids up in a row. Put on a skit in front of them so they can't see it. Expect them to behave when they can't see or hear anything."

I'm with you on this one. Long silly routines that can't be seen. Intentionally time wasting "Random......... and senseless.......... quips!" We timed over five minutes of dead air in one 25 minute formation. Mostly microphone transfers to the the next speaker. Like they don't know who's next and wait for them to walk from the far end of the formation to speak their two lines? Respect our time.

[King Ding Dong]

Facilities A Food F Coffee: FFF. It was undrinkable. Tasted more like green tea. Made my own. Scoutmaster Lounge: never went there, that's for wimps. MB Counselors: A+ to F- one turd continued to play cards when his area director told him to teach his class. Gotta love cell phone cameras. The next day there was a major attitude change. Gnats: F. I hate gnats Camp Director: Good except he just got his beads so he had to give the same old BP, Zulus, Boer War Speech. Please not again. Just sing the Announcements song a few times and call it a day. Troop Guides : A Scheduling: F. Sometimes you just have to say no. 20 kids cannot take the Swimming MB from one counselor at a time. If you don't send in your MB selections early, you might not get what you want. That's called Life. Soft serve: A Formation: this is part of the BSA I just don't get. Line 20 kids up in a row. Put on a skit in front of them so they can't see it. Expect them to behave when they can't see or hear anything. Such a waste.

Just teasing you JoeBob. I went the admin building a couple of times for wifi and one of our leaders had to check in with an online course a few times.

 

Our formations were not as bad as yours. 15 minutes total but the first 5 was wasted with is standing around in the hot sun waiting for the Staff to march down the road. Annoying after a long day in the heat, being hungry and knowing all that was for dinner was sloppy joes and that same iceburg lettuce and canned tomato salad.

 

I think it would have been better if we had the troop line up by height with the youngest out front instead of the NSP in the back getting restless. That way the older scouts could have kept them in line instead of the adults. That SPL thinks he needs to be front and center.

 

We had a troop from Tennessee that prepared pulled pork for the whole camp one night. Very Scouting of them and a much appreciated break from the high simple carb crap the camp served. They must have had a trailered pit with them.

 

Camp next year will be patrol cooking, but the menu is not much better. I have a Bradley electric smoker that makes great smoked meats and they have a camping propane model for about $100 that allegedly works well in low winds. The problem is I couldn't feed the whole troop with it. Maybe I will just cook up a mess of ribs before camp next year and get some dry ice. Use the smoker to make a ton of atomic buffalo turds.

 

My dream is to have a pig roast LBJ style, but that is not likely LNT compliant. Would be a great experience for the boys.

[5yearscouter]

Boys got in a fight with the new SM when he told them to sit down and shut up. Lack of respect on both sides, but started when SM told the ASMs they couldn't talk to the boys unless it was health and safety issue and any non ASM adults the boys should ignore if they talk to them because this is a boy led troop. [we always have a couple extra adults drive scouts to camp, and when camp is out of state they stay for the week instead of going home and coming back ]

 

So then the Scout got caught up in the scouts ignoring all ASMs and other adults and they started ignoring the SM. yeah that didn't go over well but I think SM should have known better than to give teenage boys permission to ignore adults, they are usually pretty good at that already.

 

 

The report is the camp itself was a very very nice camp. usual things need improvement/repair but there is never enough $. Camp is huge and very spread out. Camp recommends bringing bikes for a reason, scouts who didn't bring bikes complained. some adults complained that they never saw any adult program/area directors, youth reported the adults just didn't recognize an adult 18-21 ish program/area director when they saw one.

 

 

The night horsemanship sucked because it was cleaning stalls and feeding horses, and then sleeping out by the barn. In comparison the Night shooting was great because it was night shooting and then sleeping out by the range. And night fishing was similar, fishing and sleeping out by the lake.

 

ATV and Pistol pilot programs were a huge hit. They should have advised the ATV scouts to bring long sleeved shirts and dust masks. My oldest is still blowing out brown boogers.

 

Food wasn't bad but the amount served wasn't enough, so the scouts AND adults were hitting up the PBJ bar at lunch and dinner.

That wasn't so nice for the scout allergic to peanut butter cause then he couldn't be around anyone who had peanut butter for a while.

 

 

 

[Baseballfan]

Leaving this coming Sunday! Been there once before, 2009. Everything about the camp was excellent, especially the campfire programs. Only shortfall was the way the mess hall was set up... the food was good and plentiful, but the logistics of it was a PITA. Excited about going back with son #2!

[King Ding Dong]

Leaving this coming Sunday! Been there once before, 2009. Everything about the camp was excellent, especially the campfire programs. Only shortfall was the way the mess hall was set up... the food was good and plentiful, but the logistics of it was a PITA. Excited about going back with son #2!

Clerk at the scout shop told me how great the food was at this out of council camp. I am now really scared of going to our council camp next year. Scout Spirit will be a challenge next time I have to buy awards.

[King Ding Dong]

Leaving this coming Sunday! Been there once before, 2009. Everything about the camp was excellent, especially the campfire programs. Only shortfall was the way the mess hall was set up... the food was good and plentiful, but the logistics of it was a PITA. Excited about going back with son #2!

Clerk at the scout shop told me how great the food was at this out of council camp. I am now really scared of going to our council camp next year. Scout Spirit will be a challenge next time I have to buy awards.

[Basementdweller]

Never been to a camp that had a scout master lounge.....AC?????? I conducted business at our campsite picnic table...brought a hotspot with me. Car battery and solar panels all was good.

 

The camp continues to improve.....No troops had Gators or golf carts this year...Food took a step backward.....CD and PD were both excellent.....

 

SPL was being a knucklehead.

[IM_Kathy]

We had a great summer camp except for the dining hall.

 

I'm beginning to think the best bet is to do patrol meals, or since we don't have enough time for the boys to cook since it's scheduled for dining hall I'd be willing to cook 3 meals a day for the group rather than put up with the dining hall mess. Our camp went to cafeteria style last year and continued it this year. I'm sorry but an 11 year old little boy and a 17 year old boy do not need the same amount of food. The 2 17 year olds kept going over to the younger boys and cleaning up their plates! And this year they went to individual packets of peanut butter and kept running out so we started taking our own jar. And I know eggs are cheap, but every single breakfast is a little much.

 

Programs and merit badges were great. The boys said the skits this year they'd never ever seen many before which is incredible since 1 of the 17 year olds has been going since he was in cub scouts... I don't attend the stage shows and can barely do the dining hall due to anxiety in large crowds, but our troop works it out really well.

 

Probably the only down side was that they got new rifles (normally a good thing) but they had no scopes just iron sites. Had 2 of the scouts that are hunters not qualify because they kept getting just 1 shot out of the required size. But working with local shooting range to sign up as councilors as they are willing to do the qualifying make-ups at any time a scout comes in with parent

 

Boys got along great and even got my "I don't want to go without mom or dad" scout to come up for the last 2 nights and he had no issues so looking forward to getting him there for a full week next year plus a bunch more campouts before then!

[qwazse]

Mostly A or B. Mainly because we do patrol cooking and skip morning formation. No apologies to anyone. The boys know the facilities, they choose how the troop takes advantage of them. One MB problem was that a few eagle-required classes got flooded with first years who weren't prepared to work on requirements, that really annoyed our boys on days 1 & 2. Nearest WIFI is a 20 minute drive off reservation. Not sure if that counts as a plus or minus. Most of our boys have 3G plans so it didn't phase them.

[King Ding Dong]

Mostly A or B. Mainly because we do patrol cooking and skip morning formation. No apologies to anyone. The boys know the facilities, they choose how the troop takes advantage of them. One MB problem was that a few eagle-required classes got flooded with first years who weren't prepared to work on requirements, that really annoyed our boys on days 1 & 2. Nearest WIFI is a 20 minute drive off reservation. Not sure if that counts as a plus or minus. Most of our boys have 3G plans so it didn't phase them.

I think the MB classes should have size limits. First come first serve pre registration. 20 scouts in swimming or cooking is nuts.

 

The problem is parents expect 4 or 5 or more MBs for their money. I would rather my son get 2 and done right. The rest of the time just have fun.

[JoeBob]

Mostly A or B. Mainly because we do patrol cooking and skip morning formation. No apologies to anyone. The boys know the facilities, they choose how the troop takes advantage of them. One MB problem was that a few eagle-required classes got flooded with first years who weren't prepared to work on requirements, that really annoyed our boys on days 1 & 2. Nearest WIFI is a 20 minute drive off reservation. Not sure if that counts as a plus or minus. Most of our boys have 3G plans so it didn't phase them.

KDD, I believe most Summer Camp MB classes do have size limits. I know that our camps have early registration that we all rush to sign up for classes that our boys want before the classes fill up.

Some subjects have physical limitations, target positions, rifles, bows, canoes; whereas some subjects can always add a few more in the back of the classroom (Environmental Science, Cit in the Whatever) Having 20 in 'swimming' doesn't seem exorbitant. Maybe some of the Aquatics Staffers on the board can tell you what the minimum ratio is for the waterfront.

 

I do feel for a camp wanting to get as many paying clients as possible into a class. And I know that some troops/boys routinely skip classes anyway to hang out, so overbooking a class is understandable.

[King Ding Dong]

Mostly A or B. Mainly because we do patrol cooking and skip morning formation. No apologies to anyone. The boys know the facilities, they choose how the troop takes advantage of them. One MB problem was that a few eagle-required classes got flooded with first years who weren't prepared to work on requirements, that really annoyed our boys on days 1 & 2. Nearest WIFI is a 20 minute drive off reservation. Not sure if that counts as a plus or minus. Most of our boys have 3G plans so it didn't phase them.

They had the guards but only one instructor and the pen was not big enough to accommodate them all. It was only 4 sessions of 50 minutes and had several late starts. There is just to much there to get it all done, and it didn't get all done. But BCs were signed. One session was spent timing the boys on removing their clothes on dry land, they never got wet. How fast they can do it is not even a requirement.

 

This was an out of council camp.

 

I already have a rant on that one in the new to forum section.