Fun

[Eamonn]

At times looking at what goes on here in the forum, I wonder if we dwell a little to much on the "Purpose" and forget that this is also a game?

Kids join to have fun, kids leave when they don't.

Are we guilty of taking ourselves a little to seriously?

Could the program (What we do.) Be designed so that the young people who join have more fun?

Eamonn.

[FireKat]

Fun....

How do you define it?

How do kids now define it.

I grew up playing in an untouched forest. Fun was seeing what we could find. We found vines strong enough for multiple kids to swing at once. A fallen log turned into a horse. Sniched pieces of wood became a treehouse. We made fun out of what nature provided.

Kids now must have electronics. If it is not preset up or the batteries die they get board and don't know what to do besides bug parents. We need to remind parents as well as kids how to have fun without purchased items.

The littlest ones still have it... the cardboard box the fancy new toy came in on Christmas. Lets try to bring that imagination back to the kids.

Time now for us to teach learning for fun sake not just to advance in rank.

Stop and smell the roses    FK

 

[insanescouter]

 

F - *F*antastic

 

U - *U*rning for

 

N - adve*N*ture

 

 

Ok that was kind of silly, as I made it up as I wrote this post ...

 

 

Just my wacky 2 cents....

 

Scott Robertson

http://insanescouter.org

Helping leaders one resource at a time....

 

[Its Me]

 

Why do we dwell so much on the purpose of scouting and not on the fun? Because the purpose and program of scouting is far more complex and difficult than manufacturing Fun.

 

On any given Saturday when we have finished the scheduled program or skill that we were working on, the boys simply go off and make their own fun. Some play, some yak away the hours. There is no problem. I don't have to draw up a fun procedure chart. There is no "official" chief merry maker reporting to the ASPL. Fun happens so much that at about five when dinner needs to be prepared the boys typically have to be rounded up. At troop meetings I leave it up to the Senior Patrol leader to hold patrol games. Most of the time this is a round of basketball or manhunt.

 

Fun should just happen.

 

[msnowman]

And sometimes fun is in the eye of the beholder. Last Sunday, for something different, Nephew's troop was going to go sledding. This required a 1 mile hike down an unplowed dirt road to the sledding site. But when they got there sledding was forgotten for a good, ole snowball fight. When they came back two hours later they were cold, wet, red-faced, breathing hard and grinning from ear to ear.

 

Yea, I know - it probably violated the G2SS for aiming projectiles at human beings....but it was done w/ the SM, ASM & CC in attendance.

 

YiS

Michelle

[AvidSM]

It's easy to make things fun ... just don't take yourself or scouting too seriously!

[ElyriaLeader]

Oh my, what if there was a rock in a snowball, or it broke Johnny's glasses.....Oh My...I hear the beat of the the legal vultures wings now...Just kidding, I'm glad that there are still some other leaders here that think that letting the boys (and venturing girls) have some fun "after" taking care of whatever business is at hand. Hats off to all of you that keep scouting "fun"

[scoutldr]

My mom always said, "Don't do that, you'll put someone's eye out." Seems to me if that were true, there'd be a lot of 50-something one-eyed Boomers walking around today.

[GernBlansten]

We are not one-eyed, we prefer monocular Americans.

[Eagledad]

Hi All

 

A good friend of mine who had been a SM for about year once called me and asked for advice. He asked me how I made campouts fun. He then told me how their troop works on scouts skills all weekend long and the scouts and the other adults were really starting to hate it. I asked him where he got the idea that scouts were supposed to work on scout skills the whole campout. He said at Scout Leader Training. I can kind of see that with his troop. Neither he nor any of his adults were ever scouts. The Scout Master Training (before the now present syllabus) was a full weekend of skills and lectures for the adults. He just didnt know. But come on.

 

I agree that the purpose part of the program is indeed the challenge for adults. Still we need to remind each other that if it is not fun, the scouts arent going to come. I think we adults need to find indicators that tell us we are going the right direction. When we started our new troop, Fun was our first priority. That is easy to say, but what does that mean? Maybe it means just reminding ourselves of it. Still, our troop is one of the few around here that doesnt plan meetings or campouts specific to entertain or impress Webelos. Our motto is What you see is what you get. That can be a lot of pressure for a troop, but we averaged 25 new scouts a year the first five years.

 

My son (now 24) reminded me the other day that our troop was so busy having fun that usually all the scouts were asleep by 10:00 because they were wiped out. I remember that because as a Scoutmasters treat, I would provide a Cracker Barrow for the Scouts after our Campfire and only a few scouts would come. When I asked why, they were tired and in their tents.

 

I remember one campout where the guys planned a kind of Triathlon that required the scouts to hiked, biked and canoe about ten miles with 15 skills competition stops along the way. At the last minute about 15 Webelos and half that many parents asked to come on the campout. It was a challenge for our ASPLs because they had to plan menus and rent another trailer for the bikes. But, those guys played so hard Saturday that they were exhausted Sunday (the Webelos parents could barely walk). In fact the whole troop was so tired the PLC canceled our usual capture the flag and we left early. I was worried we may not get any of those Webelos, but on the contrary, they had never had so much fun and we got them plus their friends.

 

Sometimes we talk about how the scouts dont seem to come up with new ideas for activities. That is when the adults have to fill in the blanks with there FUN ideas. Realaly they dont have to be complicated. You just have to dare to be different. Move the Troop Meeting at a different location like the local park. Call the fire department and ask they could just happen to bring their fire truck by at one meeting. Some of our guys were working on the Automobile Maintenance (I think that is what it is called) and they came up with the idea of doing a hot rod car show at one of the meetings. I would have never thought of that and neither did our PLC. But they like the idea so much that they took the suggestion and change that months schedule.

 

Great discussion, but Eamonn always seems to know what to talk about.

 

I love this scouting stuff.

 

Barry

 

[baden]

I like to think all of our campouts are fun. I like to teach "skills" by OJT. (On the Job Training) The best instructors are usually another Scout that knows the skill. It works best when I don't have a "class".

 

Probably our best attended campout every year is the one after Christmas. It isn't really a campout, more of a lock-in. We try to hold it the weekend right after Christmas. We go to a cabin that belongs to a friend. It has heat and running water. I tell the boys it is just for fun. I let them bring their gameboy deals, xboxes, playstation gizmos, whatever they want. There is a TV with a VCR and we watch movies all night. The big hit this year was "The Outlaw Josey Wales" I even got in a little chat about the border war between Kansas and Missouri and how that continues to this day on the gridiron. I tell them to bring whatever awful snacks they want and I make a pot of stew or chili for whoever wants it. No schedule, just fun. I guess the highlight this year was when the boys went outside to "explore" They came roaring back to ask if they could play on the ice. There is a small pond that is about 2-3 ft. deep. I told them to go ahead. I watched out the window as the boys "invented" a game I remember playing back in the day that we call shinny. This is a loose form of hockey using a can as a puck and tree branches as hockey sticks. No one seriously injured, but would have caused a couple of the Moms to faint. It is great to see boys just be themselves with no prefab activity.

 

I jokingly (somewhat) call this outing My Christmas Gift to the Troop's Moms.

[Eamonn]

While I do agree that fun is in the eye of the beholder; that is what might be fun for me, might not be fun for you.

I also agree that fun or fun time doesn't always have to planned.

I spend a lot of time trying to make or at least some sort of fun into most things that I do or have others do.

If I remember right in the old Train The Trainer course there was a lot of time spent on "Pizazz". Trying to make Trainers aware that dull, boring, monotonous training sessions are dull, boring and monotonous. Which are not going to be that good.

Troop meetings in the UK seem to include a lot more games than here in the USA. On the surface they might just seem like "Silly Games" but they do have a purpose and in fact are the very backbone of English Scouting.

I in fact still have the log book in which I recorded what we did at every Troop Meeting (For 11 years!!) It shows what we did, who did it and how it went; using a rating system -Ten being great and one being "No we are never going to do that again!"

While maybe I'm of an age where I'm too old to be a "Wild and Crazy Guy". I still enjoy times of complete and utter silliness.

At the last Jamboree the Troop had a goal of trying to get the entire Sub camp staff to join us in the Polynesian Duck Dance.

As the Scouts paddled their way through the waters around Savannah, they made up their own "Video Game" a wild and wonderful tale that twisted and turned and was really hilarious. At times paddling against the tide was tough, but they somehow managed to sing silly songs. The Boy Scout Troop from Atlanta that we were with thought we were nuts!!

A big part of it is that they feel safe being silly and having fun.

While it has never been said or asked they know that they have "Permission" to have fun.

Like everything there is a time and a place.

One of the best things about Wood Badge is the fun!!

The Camp fire is entertainment, but still hidden away in them there embers are some great messages.

So while of course there is no " There is no "official" chief merry maker reporting to the ASPL." Scouting without fun would be like a cup-cake with no icing.

I like to think that BP understood that Lads needed fun and was a bit of an overgrown kid himself.

Looking at what the other youth organizations that were around in his day (The Church Lad's Brigade and the Boy's Brigade) He seen that Boy's needed fun and adventure.

While he was in the army he was involved with a lot of theatrical shows and entertainment type activities.

I kinda like to think that even when he getting up there in years he was still able to stop and see the world through the eyes of a young Lad and who knows maybe he was as mischievous as they were and the Scouts of today are?

Sure we have all the high tech toys, but still a good water fight or snow ball fight is fun.

A late night Patrol Hike with a brand new flash light is an adventure.

The Lad who returns home from a Troop meeting tired, sweaty with a big smile on his face and tells his Mom that he had a great time is far more lightly to attend next weeks Troop

meeting.

 

Ea.

[ozemu]

Fun can also be in retrospect. How many have laughed many times over and retold the tale about how they forgot something and improvised, got lost or even had an accident? At the time it may not have been fun at all. It's all in the rememberies.

 

So I prefer to think about successful programming in terms of memorable moments. Every meeting must have something that is memorable - something that will (might) be remembered in a years time.

 

At the end of every year we sit eating pizza etc and every Scout tells what they are proudest of and what they will remember the most from the things that happened that year. Some have refered to the night they were invested. We try to make the ceremony significant but it is hardly structured to be fun. But it is remembered fondly.

 

In all other aspects I agree with (as usual) Eamonn et al.