Preparing for Chafe and body fungus

[boomerscout]

Eamonn, why would you want them to do a tick check in a communal shower and not the privacy of their tent?

Guessing for Eamonn:

Maybe because we don't have eyes in the back of our head, and therefore could use a little help seeing where we've been.

It's darker in the tent, and I, for one, wouldn't want the tick to fall off where I'm going to sleep.

We have such a nudity hangup in this country.

[Eamonn]

nrp1488

I do see where you are coming from.

However the showers are not communal.

I don't know about others, but taking a shower with clothes on?? Just seems odd to me.

A Lad who is shy can of course wear his swimming gear and then remove it when he is in the shower.

boomerscout, makes some good and valid points.

 

OJ was at not the last NOAC, but the one before that. I forget where it was held. Not sure what he was up to?? (I wasn't there!) But in the early hours of the morning he found that he'd managed to pick up a tick.

He phoned his Mom, who was working the night shift at our local hospital, in the ER. The ER Doc got on the phone and talked him through removing it.

Of course the medical staff at the Jamboree are really first class and are never that far away.

Eamonn.

 

[boomerscout]

The direction this thread is taking has made me curious about something. Admittedly, it has been a long time since I've been in junior high. At the end of gym class we all piled into the big shower room to wash. What is done nowadays?

[SR540Beaver]

E,

 

We were in subcamp 17 and it was an issue for us reported to us by our boys. We then reported it to the subcamp. As I said, we sent our senior leadership and older scouts to look out for the younger scouts.

 

Boomer,

 

I believe most schools still have the large group showers. I was in junior high from 69 thru 71. I would assume the same 50% of boys that took showers back then are the same number that do today. Many were modest.....but half the time the coach didn't let us go in time for a shower or they had run out of towels and broke out the dirty hampers. No thanks!

[Eamonn]

"We were in subcamp 17 ..."

Out there in the boonies!!

Ea.

[SR540Beaver]

WAY, WAY, WAY OUT in the boonies. I remember wondering why they don't rotate the subcamps among the regions. We have to pay a huge amount of money to travel across the country and then once we get there, we have to hike into where all the action is. There is a subcamp 21 this time that is kind of an overflow subcamp with scouts from various regions and our council will be in that subcamp. Thank goodness it is closer to the action and we don't have to march nearly as far to get to the arena this time.

[Lisabob]

OK you all have me wondering! Is this really any worse a problem (the thread subject, not the hiking around camp) than it would be at any typical week of summer camp?

 

 

[SR540Beaver]

Lisa,

 

It depends. Summer camp is a week long. Jambo is 10 days combined with 4 or 5 days of touring. Virginia at the end of July and first of August is about 90% humidity and close to 100 degrees many days. I'm a sweater. Dress me in cotton and I'm pretty much wet 24/7. If I'm attending summer camp in New Mexico, I'm dry. Back in 2005, our council ordered contingent t-shirts in 99% cotton. While I didn't chafe, I was miserable wearing wet clothes the whole time......which makes me wonder why I'm going back this year?! Add to the whole equation that you are providing showers for 300 to 500 at camp instead of 40,000. It was like a line for a ride at Six Flags. We'd have guys swing by the showers multiple times during the day trying to find a slack line where they wouldn't have to wait an hour or more to get a shower.

[Eamonn]

Lisa,

Please don't worry.

We didn't have any problems in 2001 or in 2005.

I of course am not any of the Scouts mother!

I did preach before we went the importance of good daily hygiene. Including the need for clean underwear.

You have been fortunate not to have seen a photo of me in BSA shorts! My legs (other than the sexy knees.) look like a couple of tooth-picks hanging out. OJ has much fatter legs and big thighs, his shorts rub his legs and tend to be tight.

Not sure if he walks funny?? But he tends to wear holes in the lower part of the shorts under the crutch. This rubbing can be painful. He is a 38 inch waist but wears 42 inch BSA shorts.

 

It can be hot and very humid. There is no place to go to get out of the heat and the humidity. Even at night it's hot.

The lines for what water activities there are are long.

Kids who are not used to being on the go, at the Jamboree are like that Energizer Bunnie, they keep going and going and then go some more.

Having enough clean shorts before the start of the Jamboree is a great idea. We did use the bucket with a toilet plunger system and while it works there isn't any rinse cycle and it hard to add a dryer sheet. The clothes air dried on a line tend to be a little stiff.

When it's not humid, it's raining. It's still hot but the rain tends to come down in really heavy storms. Gear that isn't packed right gets wet. drying it wouldn't be a big problem if the Scouts weren't trying to be like that darn Bunnie!

There are a couple of Laundromats at the Fort, but finding them is hard and when you do find one there is a very long line. (We had parents who were staying in near-by motels who took the Scouts laundry. So marking everything and I mean everything is a good idea. I get some strange looks at work when I take a shower and the guys see that I have my name on my underwear.

While I'm sure the stuff that others have said works great. Both OJ and myself did fine with good old Johnson's Baby Powder. Gold Bond foot powder.

The Scouts will walk far more than they do at most summer camps. Good footwear is a must. Boots if they are not used to wearing them? Might be a little to heavy. But no matter what (I like Timberland walking shoes with the goretex inners) the shoes need to be well broken in.

I ran out of clean socks and nearly died when I had to spend $13.95 on a pair from the trading post! But these are the best socks I ever wore (for $13.95 they ought to be!)

 

Our guys really liked the boating areas (I wonder why??)

Much at times to the displeasure of the people staffing the area they enjoyed splashing and trying to get each other soaking wet. (Hey it was hot!) Walking back to our camp site in wet swimming gear was maybe not the best of ideas. But there really isn't a lot of choice. This can lead to some chafing.

 

As a leader at the Jamboree, I was a lot more ... Shall we say "Relaxed" than I would normally be.

I didn't make as big deal about the site being picture perfect as I might normally do. If there was nothing happening after supper, I seen no big rush to have the meal ready by a set time. In fact a lot of times the cooks who came back early in order to cook the meal, enjoyed the peace and fell asleep while there was hardly anyone around. I let them nap!

While I pretended to be upset with the Lads who took off for a late night shower. The truth is that very often when everyone was in bed, I'd sneak off myself.

While I was not the mother of any of the Scouts, I suppose I was a bit of an old Mother Hen! The safety and well being of the Scouts in my charge was and I hope always will be my main concern.

Please don't worry. I'm willing to bet the guy who SM for your son's Troop is as big a Mother Hen as I am.

Eamonn.

[Lisabob]

Yes, Eamonn, I think he is just about that much of a mother hen. Good guy, whom I trust. And my son is 15, old enough to know how to take care of himself and to have gotten over the allergy to washing that a lot of younger boys seem to have. I think he'd be mortified if I attempted to advise him about chafing though!

 

Thanks to you and SR540Beaver for enlightening me on this matter.

[ASM59]

Chafing...

We traditionally keep Gold Bond Medicated Powder in camp, but last summer found that one of our boys had chafing just below his arm pits where his arms were rubbing against his side. He was in so much pain. Tried the Gold Bond, didn't work, tried several other kinds of powder over the next day and a half, but that did not seem to work either. This 12 year old wanted to stick it out but finally asked if he could go home. We mentioned the problem at an adult leader's meeting and one of the Scoutmasters donated some Johnson's Cooling Cucumber Melon Powder. It gave him immediate relief and the young man finished out the week. It can be found at Walmart: http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=10293867

No, I do not work for Johnson or Walmart... :-)

 

Showers...

I find in our area that newer Junior High Schools are either retrofitted with individual shower stalls (curtains) or are newly constructed with shower stalls (walls). In Junior High Schools that are older without retrofitted stalls, they tend not to make the kids shower. In a couple of schools, they use the shower area as storeage; they don't even turn on the showers. That just sounds gross, but that's the way it is around here.

Older High Schools still have the open showers, but newer High Schools tend to have shower stalls (but not all).

 

ASM59

[NC Scouter]

In another thread I asked about where to find wicking underwear in youth sizes but have so far struck out. Has anyone found a source, please? Thanks.

[Tokala]

Two things that I never leave home without: Gold Bond and Imodium. Those two can salvage the worst trip.

[sailingpj]

Boomer,

 

I don't know of anybody who ever uses the showers after gym class. I have seen the showers, there is a big column in the middle of the room with shower heads and partial curtains sticking off of it. Somebody mentioned towel hampers, I have not seen any sign of those anywhere.

 

Somebody else mentioned that there isn't enough time to take a shower, that is true too. We have a 50 minute period, they let us go change with 5-10 minutes left in class. Take into account 5 minutes or so for attendance and you only have a 35 minute PE class.

 

As to what is done in place of showers, well there is a lot of axe being sprayed all over the locker room.

[Nike]

Thank goodness Daddy is going to be TDY at NAB Norfolk. I'll send him up to the Jambo to visit our Life Scout and bring clean clothes. (Life Scout just yelled MONEY MONEY MONEY!)