What Camporee Events You've Seen Scouts Like

[Eagle94-A1]

Ok, my district's philosophy is that the camporee should be run by adults so that the Scouts can compete. That's why adults are heavily involved in the process.

 

My district also has the history of poor communications, and last minute planning. Hence when it came time to ask the camporee chief where the camporee book is so that Scouts can start preparing, the answer was "I told the committee last year I'm stepping down."

 

So guess who has 1.5 weeks to come up with a camporee plan and publish it.

 

Good news is that this is a joint district camporee, so the other district may have a lot of work already planned. Or they may not.

 

Theme is "Back to Basics" and I want to focus on Scout, Tenderfoot, Second Class, and First Class Scout skills.

 

Are there any events you have seen that the scouts liked?

 

I'll start. FIRE & KNOTS.  Patrol builds and lights a fire. They cook a noodle and then tie it into a square knot as a timed event. It is harder than it sounds.

[Tampa Turtle]

Lashing. Timed. Make a working Catapult with points for distance.

[DuctTape]

I rarely see scouts like the adult designed camporee beyond the first time.

[Eagle94-A1]

I rarely see scouts like the adult designed camporee beyond the first time.

 

I know.  I think that's one reason why the camporee chief stepped down, it was not fun. My troop looked at the events last year, and decided not to go. If I had some time to plan this, I'd go to the OA, and get  them to plan it instead. Or have some meetings with SPLs to get their ideas.

 

But I have 2 weeks to organize, come up with a guide, recruit, staff etc. Then I got about a month afterwards to get the camporee "fully armed and operational."  I got 7 weeks until "SHOWTIME!" Nothing like the last minute.

 

BTW, I am asking older two hoodlums for ideas. Plan on talking to some Scouts too, but don't have a lot of time, especially since I'm out of town for three days at some point.

 

 

Lashing. Timed. Make a working Catapult with points for distance.

 

You know the sign of a genius is how much a person thinks like you do.   Last year, they had a catapult competition involving built at meetings catapults. It was INTENSE.  Some of the catapults and trebuchets could have taken down the walls of Gondor.    I thought about making them build their own AT the camporee and firing for distance and/or accuracy (time permitting on accuracy). It was a fun thing to do at JLT back in the day.

 

 

Please keep ideas coming. Ask your Scouts, any help is greatly appreciated.

[Ankylus]

The big hits at our camporee are rifle shooting, shotgun shooting, archery, and rock wall climbing. Others that seem popular include fire building (timed effort to build a fire to "cut" a string above it) and a timed running event. However, the chess and checkers competitions seem well attended also.

 

Big favorite--chili cookoff and ice cream social. Every troop cooks up a bunch of chili, then takes there chili and ice cream to the social.  Each troop has a table, and everyone is free to make the rounds sampling all the chili and ice cream. I can see a Dutch over desert as a successful variant. One nice thing about this is that it is not so much a burden on the organizers, but it is competitive, scout skill oriented, and everybody loves food.

 

I like the trebuchet thing, assuming you can get the materials together so that it can be done 2 or 3 in parallel.

[Ankylus]

You might also take a look at this thread over in "Council Relations":

 

http://scouter.com/index.php/topic/27944-tag-youre-it-running-a-camporee-your-way/

[T2Eagle]

I'd like to be helpful, but my experience is that these things don't really work for the scouts.  The trebuchet, if you can provide them with all the tools necessary might be a winner.  But with most of the events I've seen like this it's not very hands on for the scouts.  Let's say you have a patrol of six scouts and you need to build a small quick fire, how much can each scout really do?

 

Shooting sports if you have ranges.  Otherwise knife throwing, tomahawk throwing, maybe a timed obstacle course.

 

The most popular non programmed activities at our summer camp are ga-ga ball and human foosball.  There are plans out there for temporary or portable versions of both, but it will take some effort given your time constraints.

[Eagledad]

My troops more memorable camporees are night camporees. They were under the themes of Star Wars and Star Trek, but the theme really isn't important. The change of scouting activities from day to night was the real fun. We started with a program kick off of the Saturday night campfire. After the Completion of the campfire, patrols were given their agenda and sent along their way to the activities. The activities took about three to four hours to complete. At one camporee, the adults of al lthe troops worked together to cook breakfast for all the scouts. The same was done at the other camporee except it was the dinner before before the campfire on Saturday. 

 

Other than the shift from day to night, there really wasn't a difference in camporees. But the scouts talked about it for years.

 

As for a favorite competition, starting fires using a bow and string.

 

Barry

[NJCubScouter]

Lashing. Timed. Make a working Catapult with points for distance.

We had a camporee where the kids built trebuchets and competed for distance. As someone else mentioned though, it is not something you can just throw together. (Well, you lash it together, but you know what I mean. It's the "it" you lash together that might require more than a couple of weeks.)

[Tampa Turtle]

We had a camporee where the kids built trebuchets and competed for distance. As someone else mentioned though, it is not something you can just throw together. (Well, you lash it together, but you know what I mean. It's the "it" you lash together that might require more than a couple of weeks.)

 

Might want a minimum number of throws...some fell apart after once.

[Tampa Turtle]

Orienteering class went OK (there are always boys that need to knock that out anyway). Tug of wars were popular and can be surprisingly hazardous (discourage jokers from wrapping rope around neck). Hits were Hatchet throwing (boys broke most of them eventually). Slingshots, chick peas, and tinplate targets kept boys lined up all day...and how old school is that!

 

Blind tent making (no doubt out of a training manual) was fun. Just have a non-blindfolded helper with the stake mallet. 

 

First aid carry competition

 

Dutch oven competition was popular with about half the Troops.

 

They did an outside movie night away from the main area. The younger guys seemed excited by that. The older boys just went to sleep earlier.

 

Not popular:

Campfire skits and contests-while a few Troops still do this most boys seemed bored.

 

Any part where the adults spoke for more than two minutes. When an older boy or venturer talked they might listen for up to five.

 

----

I have been to some bad ones. The one the boys enjoyed enough to say they want to do again was organized and staffed mostly by OA members and the leadership was almost all boy led. 

[Eagle94-A1]

Apparently I jumped the gun. There was a meeting in June where things were planned. However the two people involved backed out of the camporee, one for medical reasons ( for which I hope they get better),  and one for other reasons. 

 

Good news is that when I chatted with some older scouts in the troop about the events, with the exception of one, orienteering, they were happy with them. They suggested replacing orienteering with geocaching.

[JasonG172]

2 skills in one

 

Build a tripod (obviously using lashings)

Start a fire (times and deducted depending on method)  -50 seconds (lighter) -35 seconds (1 match) preferable method is Flint Steel with Charcloth

have a soup can hanging with water in it and bring to a boil.

[AK-Eagle]

One we tried last year that was wildly popular. A cast iron cooking contest last year's ingredient? Bacon, entree or dessert. Unlike the TV show version the troops were informed well ahead of time to allow for research and development of their entries.

 

The main judge was a Coast Guard cook with no connection to scouting, yet.

 

From the reaction we will be doing that one again and the list of possible ingredients is both interesting and growing.

 

btw the Camporee is planned and run by the local OA chapter.

[Stosh]

Old school? How about mess kit cooking competition?

 

Multiple categories, baking, frying, desserts, open and originally.

Edited August 24, 2016 by Stosh