Cooking in Camp...expectations

[sitrep]

SeattlePioneer:

 

Sorry but I'm a bit stunned at that kind of an action. If they don't want to eat let them be hungry. Just the same as the kids getting wet if they don't set up a rain fly. Experience will teach them. I don't think the BSA is some kind of youth boot camp.(This message has been edited by sitrep)

[scoutldr]

OK, Johnny, if you're hungry, go ahead and cook your share of the beef stew. The others can cook theirs whenever they want.

 

So, which "Patrol method" is this???

[evmori]

That's the "I'm hungry so I'm gonna eat" patrol method!

[Bob White]

First let's remember what "methods" are. They are not what the scouts do. They are what we as leaders do to achieve the aims and mission of scouting.

 

We use the patrol method.

 

In this case the patrol method could have come into play when the SM oberved and evaluated what wass going on, realized there is no danger to the scouts and so allowed the patrol to make their own decisions.

 

But that didn't happen!

 

What happened here was that it was time to eat but only one person in the patrol was hungry and the rest were tired, more tired than they were hungry.

 

So the one person took food for one person, prepared it himself, as was going to eat.

 

No harm, no foul, good judgement.

 

That was interrupted by an adult who destroyed personal property, over-ruled the decision of the patrol leader without any reason other than the position of the hands on a clock, and made the the patrol do what HE wanted rather than what the patrol decided .It was time to eat and HE was hungry so HE wanted everyone to be hungry.

 

The fact is it is not the Scoutmaster's patrol. Unless there is danger to life or limb, it is not his job to step in. It is not his troop. It is the SPL's troop. If the SPL thought the patrol's decision might interfere with the troops schedule then the SPL should have taked with the PL to see how and when the patrol would eat once they woke up.

 

The PL and SPL would agree on actions that would not interfer with the troop activities and the PL would enjoy his hot dog.

 

Thus the SM would have used the "patrol method".

 

Remember this was not "If they don't want to eat let them be hungry" this was "their not hungry, so you have no reason to force them to eat."

 

There was absolutely no scouting or leadership skills employed by the scout leader in this real-life situation.(This message has been edited by Bob White)

[evmori]

There was absolutely no scouting or leadership skills employed by the scout leader in this real-life situation.

 

Leadership was used! Results were achieved! You might not like the leadership that was used but from the post, satisfactory results were achieved!

 

And yep Bob, this a big disagreement between you & I. And that's OK. We don't have to agree on everything.

 

Ed Mori

Troop 1

1 Peter 4:10

 

 

[DugNevius]

Work needs to get done, tired or not tired. If, at a job we adults decided we werent going to do it, wouldnt we lose our jobs?

[sitrep]

Evmori:

 

If you really think that is leadership then that is quite sad. I guess you've never seen real leadership then.

 

Dug:

 

Yes work neeeds to get done tired or not and if I don't do my work on the job I may get fired. However this is "Boy" Scouts, that is what the "B" in BSA stands for and they are not adults and they are not at work and they can not be fired. Scouting is supposed to be I am told a game with a purpose not a job or a youth boot camp.

[DugNevius]

the purpose is to best prepare young men for the world, including teaching them responsability. What lessons would be taught if scouts were allowed to skip out of responsabilities because they dont feel like doing them?

[Bob White]

Their job was to be able to feed themselves when they were hungry and to know to rest when they are tired. They were doing their job until the scoutmaster took over.

 

The results achieved had nothing to do with the purpose of scouting. The methods employed had nothing to do with the methods of scouting.

 

Ed, I could not care a fig if you never agreed with me, but it would be nice for the sake "your" troop if your methods and philosophy agreed with the scouting program a little more often.

[John D]

Agree with the above posters on banned stuff like ramen and hot dogs. Problem is to find alternative recepies that don't involve lugging a dutch oven around. The DO is great but most DO cooking is fat-laden, not healthy, and the boys are not prepared for backpacking. Very nice healthy meals can be prepared quickly without a DO or resorting to instant junk.

As an example, anybody out there ever use a small pressure cooker? Easy to backpack, works at all altitudes and conserves fuel. I have a 1 liter model that has been from Mt Kilmanjaro to Indian Kashmir to a sailboat in the South Atlantic. Makes rice in 10 minutes, beef stew in 20, it's a jewel. Another example is a thick aluminum 10 liter pot from an old pressure cooker, about the size of a 12 inch DO, with a plastic handle. Cooks a mean stew or soup, ideal patrol cookware, and it's portable.

[Bob White]

hmmmmm every actually look inside a Boy Scout Handbook. Check out the sample patrol menu on page 260, and the serving chart on page 261. Look under meats and poultry, and then under rice and pasta. Want to guess what you will see?

 

How's this for a menu?

Tossed garden salad, ham, green beans, mashed potatos, dinner rolls, pudding

 

Hot, nutricious, it takes some effort. But wait....

The ingredients in the salad come ready to eat there is no cooking. Ham is no different in cooking that a hotdog. In fact a cured ham cold tastes much better to many people than an uncooked hotdog yet both can be eaten in their uncooked state.

Green beans and mashed potatoes just take boiling them in a liquid and stirring just like ..OH NO... ramen noodles. No differnce in cooking ability needed.

 

Dinner rolls are just heated up or they could be eaten raw as well. And the pudding is stir and cool instead of stir and heat.

 

Yet I'll bet most of you would have approved that menu.

 

Now I have never had a patrol fix hotdogs but I wouldn't be having a fit if they did. Read some serious hiking books folks, pre-prepared food is considered a good strategy not a curse. The key to avoiding things like hot dogs for cooking reqirements is the key word 'nutricious'. You would have to stretch reality quite a ways to prove to me that hotdogs are nutricious.

 

The key to avoid hotdogs, ramen, and other things of that type is:

1) teach better meals.

2) Understand that a lot of clean up is going to make any meal something to avoid for a scout, not something they are drawn to.

3) Everything in moderation. So what if they make ramen on a cold winters day now and then.

4) Remember your job is to teach them how to make decisions NOT to make decisions for them.

 

Our job is not to make them good cooks it is to make them self-reliant, good people. Let's leave the commander stripes at home and remember we are there to help them not boss them.

 

 

[SR540Beaver]

Dug: What lessons would be taught if scouts were allowed to skip out of responsabilities because they dont feel like doing them?

 

Ever here of letting them fail in a controlled environment? Trial and error. I assume you were like most kids and thought you knew a lot more than the adults and just had to try something yourself to prove how smart you were. We discussed with the boys last year what they needed to bring to summer camp. Boots, preferably water proof. Rain gear. We arrived in camp on Sunday and shortly after getting camp set up, it started raining. It rained more on than off until Thursday afternoon. We had one patrol that was too lazy to set up their dining fly until around Tuesday when they were tired of huddling in their tents and the latrine. We had one kid who brought one pair of slip on canvas shoes and no socks. We had one kid who had the best rain gear in camp and decided to walk around soaked all the time. Since then, they've never failed to set their dining fly up immediately after setting up a lantern to see by. The kid with canvas shoes wears his boots and the kid with the great rain gear wears it....sometimes. Why? Because they tried it their way and got tired of being miserable and decided that maybe all of those lessons about camping that the silverbacks gave were worthwhile. We could have made them do what we wanted and they would still be resisting to this day. Instead, we let them find out on their own why there was value in our suggestions.

[evmori]

The real key is to not allow hot dogs & ramen to be part of the menu!

 

Cooking can be a lot of fun & also a lot of work. But if done properly can yield some great meals!

 

Excuses are bad reasons for not doing something.

 

Ed Mori

Troop 1

1 Peter 4:10

[Bob White]

Feigning leadership by saying "because I said so!" very challenging, very skillful.

[OldGreyEagle]

Ed, you are 100% right, Leadership was shown. The Directing style of leadership which as you point out is very effective at times and at other times the best way to go. Now, take a look a the members of the troop you serve. Think of their daily routine, parents, school, sports (maybe) jobs, etc. What style of leadership do you think they are most frequently exposed to? You have to get up at 7 to get to school, you have to pass this test, do this assignemt, to get a good grade, you have to do 100 laps a day to be a champion, etc. All are factors in producing a responsible adult and there is nothing, and I mean nothing wrong with the directive style of leadership. It is most efficent and does get results.

 

There are also other styles of Leadership, Coaching, Delegating and Supporting ( Hope I got this right). They take more time, arent near as efficient, but kids just dont get much of an opportunity to see these and more importantly, practice them. So, the kids didnt want to cook breakfast, one kid decides to make a single size portion. If I was the leader I may have asked what was going on. May have asked for a weinie my self and stood back to see how long it would take the kids to get moving. All BSA related campouts I have been on have had some sort of progam. Watch to see if the program unfolds. We may ask when somehting needs to happen But then we watch it happen.

 

A few years back we had a campout planned. Orienteering weekend. There was so much emphasis by the PLC to be sure sompass and map skills were worked on and everyone had a compass, they forgot to plan for food. So, the adults, noted it and told each other, not a word about the food. We got to camp, topo's were distributed, the next days activites were schduled abd somebody asked for bug juice, then the lights came on. They had everything but food. Stoves, pans, no food. Well, the PLC sent a crew to the local store for a midnight food run. When they asked the adults why we didnt say anything, the response was, we wanted to see how long it would take for you to notice. The next response was, we knew we would be going here (the supermarket) and knew it was 10 minutes from camp. Adults nevr mentioned it, but food was not forgotten again