Spring Camporee

[troop474]

Hello, Just wondering how much time is usually needed to plan a Camporee? My SM tells me that we were asked to host the fall camporee which will be held in October sometime(no exact date set yet) I feel 2 months is not enough time for planning.Thanks

[Bob White]

I agree with you.

8 weeks is not enough time to do the task properly.

 

[nldscout]

2 months can be plenty of time depending on what your doing, activities, or where your having it.

[theysawyoucomin']

We just hosted the Spring Campo and it took about 4 months.

The theme was Scout Olympics with various events from shooting, to archery, relay race. tug of war, jousting and about a dozen other major and minor sporting events. 350 kids attended. they had a blast.

 

 

 

Good luck with yours, delegate, superivise tasks before hand and insure the prep is done and rest up. It will be a sleepless weekend, enjoyable but sleepless.

[NJCubScouter]

It is a difficult question to answer with certainty because (from what I have read on this forum and elsewhere) different districts seem to have different traditions and expectations regarding what a "camporee" is. I can tell you that it probably would be impossible to put together a camporee that would meet the expectations of people in my district in two months. Even apart from the "program" that you would have to plan and staff, it concerns me that you do not have an "exact date" (or in other words, you do not have a date) for the event. In my district, most troops have already planned their calendar for the year (starting in September) and the rest (including my son's troop) will do so over the next couple of weeks. If this is also true in your district, it is possible that many troops have already planned outings for the same dates that will eventually be reserved for your camporee.

 

And that leads to another question; if you don't have a date, that means you also don't have a location reserved, right? (I suppose if you do the camporees at a council camp, the council can assign different dates to different districts, so maybe you do have a location; our camporees are generally held in county or state parks, so if we don't have a reservation two months in advance, we probably aren't getting one. We did have one on private land, but I'd have to assume they set that up many months in advance. That one was actually done as a "hike-o-ree" which may take less time to set up, but that assumes you have a suitable trail adjacent to a suitable campsite, and quite frankly that one was a little rough for the 11-year-olds. And even that one was not simply a hike but was done in conjunction with the creation of a new historic trail, which had to take at least 6 months of preparation.)

 

And we haven't even gotten to the program or staffing issues yet.

[insanescouter]

As a general rule I won't chair a camp-o-ree without at least 6 months notice. It really does take time to build a staff, find and secure a location, many locations require proof of at least a 1 million dollar bond, fight council to get the info the location wants on the bond, fight council for funding, provide council with a budget, revise the budget, fight with council so more, get the patch designed and ordered, figure out the events, get the supplies needed for the events, figure out who is running the event, coordinate with the order of the arrow to get there help, we often arrange to have one of the local fire departments to provide a medic ....

 

anyway you get the idea ... maybe it is worse where I am as far as getting council help and support as well as some of the other hoops we may have to go through ... also could be a difference in the size and complexity of the events we do who knows ...

 

anyway just my wacky 2 cents --- and hoping they help ...

 

 

 

Scott Robertson

http://insanescouter.org

 

Helping leaders one resource at a time....

[Bob White]

by 8 weeks out units should already have received event details and be registering to attend.

[insanescouter]

Bob white good point that I didn't mention in my list ... there should be information and maybe even a packet going out to units 3-4 months in advance.

 

Scott Robertson

http://insanescouter.org

 

Helping leaders one resource at a time....

[moxieman]

Two months to plan a camporee and you don't have a date or location set? It'll be difficult, but you could still pull it off. I've done it before on such short notice, but it's not easy.

 

I've planned/participated on staff at more camporees than I'd like to count over the past 20 years in three different parts of the country (and New Brunswick, Canada). You need a minimum of six months, preferable 8 to 12 to plan a camporee, depending on how ambitious a theme you have and what the expectations are of those who would attend.

 

 

With only two months to go, here are some quick suggestions:

 

Contact your District Activities Chairperson for help. Do it now! He/she may have some great helpful suggestions. Maybe the weekend date/location has already been set, but the word was not passed onto your unit by accident.

 

If it hasn't, contact your council and see if you can use your council's scout camp (or if you have more than one, the one closest to your district) for the camporee. Do this now and firm up the date for your camporee. This will cut down on the costs of the camporee as most scout camp properties have bathroom facilities. If it's early enough in the fall, maybe the water will still be on and that will eliminate another logistics issue. Another place to look at (but it'll increase the cost) is any local agricultural fairgrounds, which will also have bathroom facilities (if it's before they shut the water off for the winter--provided you are in a northern part of the country like me). However, on such short notice, they may not have a weekend available for you.

 

With your dates in hand, turn to your troop's Youth Leadership Council/Patrol Leader Council/whatever you wish to call it. Let them know your troop has been asked to host the fall camporee on (dates here). The adult leadership has secured use of Camp X for the event. What do you think we can pull together for events for the camporee? What would make a fun camporee for you? Keep in mind, we only have 2 months (less then that by the time you meet with them) to pull this together.

 

Give them some suggestions of stuff that won't take a ton of planning such as:

 

Patrol/Troop Cooking competition--"Iron Chef-Scout" Competition?

Pioneering--The district next to ours requested that each attending unit do a pioneering project that could be joined to the project of the units to either side of them in a large field. I saw the picture of the resulting project--real cool.

Patrol Games--Have them open the troop's copy of Troop Program Resources and pick a bunch of patrol games that can be done on site, making it a fun camporee instead of a competition camporee.

 

 

Once they've decided, you'll have your camporee theme and can plan a patch. However, with so short notice, you'll need to let units know that the patch will probably not be available until after the event.

 

Get a budget together! If you can hold it at a council camp, council (hopefully) won't charge you for use of the property. So the only things you'll need to budget for are supplies and patches. What you'll need for supplies will depend on what you're doing for camporee. For example, if you're doing "Iron Chef-Scout", you'll need enough "Secret Ingredient" for all attending patrols. We did this one year and kept the cost down by making the secret ingredient saltine crackers--all Iron Chef-Scout entries had to use saltines in the entry. Patch cost will depend on the number of attendees, fanciness of the patch, etc. You can estimate this by estimating the number of attendees at past camporees. In our district, we usually spend no more then $2.50 per patch.

 

Submit your budget to council.

 

Get the WORD OUT to other units in your district. If your district has an email list or website, contact the list maintainer/webmaster and give them all the info as soon as you can. Contact your roundtable commissioner and get the word out at roundtable.

 

Do you have a scout who's good at graphics/brochures/flyers? Make one up with info on the camporee for distribution through the above sources.

 

I suppose I could go on, but rather than do that, I'll let others add to this and/or await to see if you have further Q's.

 

Good luck and may the event turn out successful. Please let us know how things go afterwards!