Feeling Out Weaknesses With Camporee

[SeattlePioneer]

This past weekend was our district camporee, and it as an excellent example of this kind of event, well planned and packed with activities.

 

I was really impressed by how it felt out the weaknesses in our troop, both among the Scouts and Scouters.

 

Heh, heh! First of all, it proved to me that I'm getting old! Saturday night I was fatigued, and I spent a couple of days shaking off that fatigue and stiffness. I don't recall that even from last year's camporee.

 

We found weaknesses in our adult leaders, particularly our Scoutmaster, who signed up to prepare dinner for our three adult leaders and then failed to allow himself time to do the job.

 

Our Scouts had good points and weak points. They chose to take part in a Dutch Oven cooking contest in the afternoon, but didn't really plan adequately to bring the equipment they needed. Then they too didn't look at the schedule to plan how they were going to make dinner and still get to the awards ceremony and campfire.

 

The result was that neither the Scouts nor the Scouters had dinner ready when it was time to eat. A Scouter wound up missing the awards and campfire in order to make dinner for both Scouters and Scouts.

 

My own most satisfying contributions were in the competetive event for the Camporee organized by the Troop Scouters and a special event we organized to enrich the "free time" the Scouts had Saturday afternoon.

 

After a good deal of discussion among the Scouters, we decided to offer lashing up and erecting a flagpole as our event for the Scouts to perform during the intra patrol competitions. This worked out very well.

 

The Scouts lashed two eight foot poles and a six foot pole together with round lashings, tied a flag on and used clove hitches to tie three guy ropes on and then raise the flagpole and stake it out. A flag ceremony or opening ceremony was then performed, followed by a patrol cheer. Most Scouts seemed to think they had accomplished something by that time, and seemed to cheer with some heartfelt enthusiasm (Finally! We're Done!).

 

I dote on cooking as a Scout activity, and Dutch Oven cooking in particular. During the Saturday afternoon free time, another Scouter and I set up a sign saying "Free Cinnamon rolls" and gave Scouts the opportunity to use bisquick or hotcake mix we supplied to mix, roll out and bake cinnamon rolls for their patrol. We must have had at least fifty boys cycle through that training, and it worked great! I worked with the boys on preparing the dough, and my Scouter partner trained the boys in doing the baking.

 

It rained fairly hard Friday and Saturday night and Sunday morning, which tended to feel out the abundant weaknesses in raingear, too.

 

Furthermore, inadequacies in meals tended to repeatedly result in boys who were run down because they hadn't eaten enough and often enough. We saw this among other Troops as well during the competitions ---boys who were crabby or unmotivated often due to a lack of sufficient food, I'm convinced.

 

 

Anyway, it was an education.

 

 

 

Seattle Pioneer