Do we need scout camps?

[shortridge]

Day camp is not "summer camp" in the context of this thread. Most day camps are held off-site, at private campgrounds, colleges, state parks, etc. - non-council properties. This thread is about council-owned camps. You can't compare day camp to a real summer camp.

 

I'm sorry about your experiences with your council, but not every place is like that.

[Basementdweller]

Fair enough Short........

 

That furthers the argument........Do we need permanent scout camps?????? The week long cub day camp netted $3000 and has zero maintenance cost......It was pure profit.

 

So what if a council rented an entire state park for a week?????? Zero maintenance cost. how much money could be made????

[desertrat77]

Basement, from a financial point of view that might work. But there will be no tradition, no sense of "this is my camp." In councils with crummy summer camps this sounds crazy I know. I move around alot, and get to see how various councils do things.

 

The summer camp that is old and still going strong, with people busting down the doors to get in, is one of the best aspects of the scouting experience, it seems to me. The spirit of scouting is strong, folks come back year after year, and on the business side, there seems to be no problem with donations of money or materiel.

 

A camp nearby in my current council is about 70 years old, and they have sessions just for the long-tenured troops that return for decades on end. As far as I can tell, there isn't anything particularly special about the facilities or amenities of this camp. The council puts alot of effort in the camper's experience, to make it memorable, so scouts and scouters can't wait to sign up to go again next year.

 

In camps like this, those young scouts grow up to be businessmen, civic leaders, and such. Very easy for them to donate or raise money for The Old Camp.

[shortridge]

Renting an entire state park sounds reasonable ... until you consider the rental and insurance fees the state will charge. Then look at the logistical challenges. A state park is not set up for large-scale camping by large groups. The swimming pool and waterfront may not going to be close to the camping areas (which are generally optimized for RVs). No digging holes for solar stills or pioneering tower posts. Restrictions on rifle, archery and shotgun use. State restrictions on lifeguarding, if applicable. It's probably not set up for cooking or food storage, so patrol cooking with ice trucked in daily would be a must. Just a few of the challenges facing these hypothetical camp planners ... A unit or two could do it, for sure, but nothing can replace a permanent camp to handle hundreds of boys at once.

[Eagle92]

Base,

 

Some type of "permanent" camp is needed. If council's didn't have camps, then indiviudal units would. I know in some countries, that's how it is done: The unit has their own camp, as long as the owner agrees to let the unit use it.

 

If memory serves, there is a summer camp in MS that is operated by three troops and was started prior to the council having their own. They own the land outright, and all three troops have their own buildings at the camp. The use it year round for meetings and camping, and allow other scout units and other groups to rent the place.

[RememberSchiff]

With membership numbers and bookings down, some councils have sold their scout camp and rented it back for 1-4 summer weeks. And while it probably saves on council expenditures, I believe a council looses far more on donations without a camp. Also a "rented camp" can create problems with camp personnel (use the existing camp staff vs. bringing in some of us during those weeks) and rules (ours vs theirs).

 

Most units need a scout camp for their scouts.

My $0.02,

 

 

[Eagle92]

Ok a few comments from teh peanut gallery

 

1) "OUTING is three-fourths of ScOUTING." Green Bar Bill himself penned those words along time ago. Yes historically Cubs didn't camp, but that has changed. CUBS WANT TO CAMP! (Caps for emphasis, unless you are one of the folks in my council who says "Cubs don't need to camp." Then I'm scraming at ya, or at least wanting to ) I have lost Cubs because "you don't camp enough." I have Cubs bothering me at every meeting now asking when we are going camping again. Heck my own Cub and his brothers pester me almost every day about it.

 

2) Scout camps are used year round, not just for summer camp.

 

3) In regards to day camps, they are a legitimate use of council camps in the summer. I know my old DE told us how his old council operated an entire summer of day camp and resident camps at one of the council camps. Blew my mind away with that one.

 

4) Having planned CSDC, I can tell you a lot of the headaches involved in planing are removed. You do not have to worry about multiple sets of rules ( BSA's and facilities). You do not have to restrict activites because the facility will not allow it. You have less security issues. You get the scouts use to the council camp (OK this may become a problem when your son thinks he owns the camp because he goes all over it not only with his den at day camp, but also with you when he helps with set up and take down )

and more importantly "SCOUTING IS OUTING!" as Green Bar Bill also penned.

 

I know when my den had to plan a day camp at NCS with a bunch of restrictions on the activities fro our project, it took a lot of the fun out of camp, and a lot of the Outing too.

 

So please do not discount CS use of council camp facilities.

 

5)RS brings up a very good point about renting. Again day camps face this all the problems all the time. I know that my old council camp had some waterfront issues, i.e. the dam busted and their was no waterfront. We had to rent the pool at a neighboring camp. While everything did work out, we did not have the access to swimming as normal, and of course no boating activities.

 

An aside: the #1 favorite activity at my day camp is something that we could not do int he past due to facilties: Fishing. We do a special 1/2 day Webelos program, and the other half the do BB guns and Archery. We didn't not schedule fishing for them except as an option to take the place of water games. There was a revolt by the Webelos! Many said the only reason they want to come to CSDC is for fishing, archery, and bb guns, in that order. I would hate to see what attendace would be if we moved to a different location that did not have fishing. HMM need to ask CS son about that.

 

EDITED: I just reread the original post and it did not state summer camps, just scout camps in general. So CSDC and resident camps that use council facilties and the challenges they face when they are not on council properties ARE valid discussion points IMHO.

 

Cheers!(This message has been edited by eagle92)

[Eamonn]

Sometimes it's hard to really know what the FOS guy means when he talks about camp.

Our Council summer camp is in a State Park. The Council leases the land.

But owns the buildings.

Without visiting the Council web site, I'm not sure exactly how long we have been there. It's a fairly long time. -1949 seems to ring a bell!

I really don't think that anyone has a good idea of how much money has been spent on buildings and improvements.

Much if not most of the improvements have been done with volunteers doing the labor.

I don't think it would be that hard to go out to the community and ask for a large donation for a specific thing. Which might have a big price tag.

A donation of $250,000 or even $500,000 isn't that hard to come by.

What is hard is paying for the smaller everyday things that either wear out or just break.

When I was doing FOS presentations, I'd talk about toilet roll holders! The camp has a lot of toilets and these things cost about $10.00 -$15.00 each.

Lots of people will want to have their name on a nice building, but when it comes to toilet roll holders? Not so much.

Camps cost a lot of money to run and maintain.

As for need?

I'm not sure.

Back home in England, at least when I lived there. Scout Camps tended to be a piece of land where you could set up tents, had a small store where Scouts could buy snacks and bread and milk with some having an activity that might be available.

No big staff, no catered meals. Maybe just a paid ranger as staff?

Nearly all the Troops in the Council I'm in, do tend to summer camp at the Council Summer camp. Without the Council Camp, I'm unsure how many Troops would get away to camp every summer?

The camp is close for most parents to get to and visit. In fact most parents do visit.

With the average age of the campers falling this seems to be important.

Most Troops don't have enough transportation to take away a large group of Scouts and the needed equipment for a week, without enlisting a large group of parents.

Much as I hate to say it, I'm not sure if the leaders have enough imagination to keep a group of Scouts busy doing interesting activities for a week.

The Council also owns a fairly large piece of land which was donated back in the early 1960's. Other than a few wells and out-houses it has never been improved. A few years back when the Council was having some financial problems they talked about selling it.

I was 100% against the sale.

My argument being that we didn't own the land where summer camp is and there is nothing to say that for what ever reason someday we might lose it.

The argument on the other side was that we'd never have the money to make it attractive to to-days campers.

I was in a strange situation, I was arguing against the sale, but had it been placed on the market, I would have bought it and developed it.

Ea.

[HICO_Eagle]

My response is an unequivocal yes. Whether or not your council FOS uses the camp to further their propaganda, most Scouts benefit from having access to a real Scout camp. There are things you can do with a long term camp that the council knows it can make long range plans for. There are things you can't plan on doing at a state park and in fact in today's age you can't even count on getting taxpayer-funded facilities with the ACLU attacking BSA every chance they get.

[Twocubdad]

Now that the thread has returned to BD's opening post, I'll add I believe we absolutely need scout camps. Summer camp is obviously a need. There may be a different ownership arrangements, but the facilities needed for most summer camp are fairly specific -- not necessarily to Boy Scouts, but specific to being a summer camp. My point being if your council makes an arrangement to share a facility with the YMCA, Heritage Girls, or a church camp, it's still a summer camp.

 

Year-round, council camps provide a safe environment for weekend camping. Last spring we were at at state park and had the whole campground reserved. We got back from out activities Saturday afternoon to discover that a group of ladies had squatted (okay, that's a poor choice of words) in the middle of our site. Seems the ranger told them it we wouldn't mind. of course there was no problem -- actually I was more concerned that we were bothering them -- but in a public park, you never know who you're camped with. At a scout camp, your are relatively sure the other folks in the camp are also Scouters and running by the same standards.

 

That said, I do think some adjustments are needed. Nationally, we probably have too many camps and spend too much money on them. There have been threads in the past about guidelines out of the NE Region which seem to be aimed at thinning the number of camps by requiring standards for long-term planning and financing. I think our camp gets a lot of use, but summer camp operates four weeks per summer. While there are plenty of units using the camp year-round, the capital-intensive facilities -- dining hall, waterfront, shooting sports, climbing towers -- are pretty lightly used.

 

On the other hand, I'd like to see more wide-open reservations, like the one Ea.'s coucil wanted to sell. Just open, primitive camping with potable water. We have a piece of property nearby like that. We camp there as often as we do the council camps.

 

E96, I'm going to disagree with you about CSDC. Scout camps are seldom good choices for day camps. The first two lines of the first session of CSDC camp school is "Cub Scout Day Camp is the camp that comes to the Scouts. If your Scout are driving an hour to get to your camp, you're not running a day camp." Few councils have camps located to accommodate a day camp within a reasonable drive of every camper. That's why so many of the camp school case studies involved non-BSA-owned properties. While a Scout camp does offer the conveniences you describe, most folks don't have the luxury of operating at a council property. The camp I ran never did.

[boomerscout]

One problem with Scout camps is that the city soon grows up around them. Council can look for a new site further afield, but then it takes even longer to get there -- much too far for a weekend.

After its recent merger, the old Detroit Arera Council has decided not to bother reopening its famous (well, to me - I went there as a kid) D-Bar-A camp. It's hard to get that wilderness experience when you're surrounded by suburbs & developments.

Of course, Great Lakes Council blames units camping out of council turf. This bit of circular reasoning will probably result in selling the camp to real estate developers. Pay raises, anyone?

[Twocubdad]

Been to Gilwell? It's 10-12 miles from central London.

 

Suburban camps have their place. Day camps, training, etc. Having a camp available closer to home sure makes the one-night campouts easier on the drivers and accessible to the Scouts. Being able to leave early Saturday and not take half the day in the car means we can Not everyweek is a high adventure trip. There are plenty of functions which can occur in a park-like setting. Who cares if the dining hall-and-swimming pool camps are adjacent to other folks swimming pools.

 

Concentrate all the wiz-bang stuff closer in where it will get the use and leave the large out-lying camps undeveloped.

 

Anyone been to Gilwell?

 

 

[shortridge]

Eagle92,

 

Sorry if any of my comments seemed anti-day camp. That was not what I intended - I loved day camp as a Cub (didn't go away to a "sleepover" camp until I became a Boy Scout). But running a day camp is not the same as owning a site or operating a permanent camp. That was the point I was trying to make. The thread began by focusing on owning camps, and in my experience, most day camp sites are not owned by the council.

 

In my days as a Cub, each district ran its own day camp, usually at a county or state park, for a single week during the summer. My council has begun combining those operations so that now only a handful of districts run traditional one-week camps (at private campgrounds or other sites). There are now three multi-week day camps at three central sites - a state park, the fledgling new Scout reservation (largely under construction) and a Girl Scout camp. Cubs can go to any or all.

 

I believe this is a reaction to years of parents complaining that they're not comfortable sending their kid off to a sleepover camp, but that they have a family vacation planned during the single week when their district scheduled its day camp for. It also may be an attempt to offer a camp program for the whole summer to compete with YMCA, Boys & Girls Club and state park programs that serve more of a "summer day care"-style purpose.

[eisely]

I have to agree that offering long term summer camps, hopefully with a lot of activity options, is an important part of scouting. Whether any particular camp, or group of camps, is run efficiently or effectively is a different but related question.

 

Councils that own their own camps are fortunate. I know that our council's principal summer camp is on a long term ground lease from the Forest Service in the Sierras. Unfortunately the Forest Service for many years has allowed no new construction, which greatly complicates attempting to offer new and different camp programs.

 

Our council also owns the remnant of what was once a summer camp in the hills overlooking the San Francisco Bay. It is a very fine remnant and is very heavily used for all kinds of things, including CSDC and major training events. However, the council many decades ago decided to stop using it as a regular summer camp for the same kinds of reasons one hears today.

[Eagle92]

Short,

 

No problem, I was hoping the "peanut gallery" comment and smiley would be clues that I was not upset with anyone. I then just edited why I posted what I did.

 

Funny thing happened tonite. I got a message earlier that one of the council exec board members was coming to RT to discuss the cutting at out local camp. Now I knew this was going to be a long meeting, you mention camp and passions are aroused,and had an important agenda for the Cub Scouts that needed to be done. We got 3 major events in the next3 weeks, and another next month. So I planned on this guy to come to the CS side towards the end. He never made it out of the BSRT. We went ahead and ended early, and everyone interested in the camp issue went to the BSRT.

 

Well this camp is not the main camp. In fact up until 2 years ago and the current SE taking over, the camp was neglected. Trying to make repairs, even if you were the one paying for it, was like pulling teeth. It got to the point that some folks just did the needed repairs without telling anyone.

 

But again that has changed and the camp is vibrant again. it is the #2 camp in attendance in the council, only behind the summer camp, and surpassing our HA base. AND that was with the camp being closed for over 2 months and reservations having to be cancelled, and activities moved elsewhere.

 

But here is the deal, even with al the attendance, FOS dollars are needed to keep the camp going. AND that doesn't include funding that has been set aside specifcally for the camp

 

Boomer is dead on with the city comments. I was told that the reason why my old council sodl their camp and got the new reservation, was because the city came up to it's doorstep eventually, and the neighbors complained about the traffic, noise, etc. Reminded me of folks moving into a city that has grown up around a military air base, and then complain about the jet noise.