1st Class patrol cooking req.

[Twocubdad]

For those of you who use new Scout patrols, how do you handle the requirement to serve as patrol cook for a campout?

 

I now have a slug of boys wrapping up First Class who all need this requirement. Up until now, the boys have shared responsibility for cooking on campouts (two boys cook lunch, two more cook supper, etc.), so no one has completed the requirement. With one boy serving as patrol cook per campout, this is a real bottleneck. It doesn't help that our troop camps something less than once per month -- we have outings but not traditional campouts.

 

Any ideas for getting around the bottle neck? In the mean time, I'm suggesting the boys serve as patrol cook in the order in which they earned Second Class.

[SemperParatus]

Although the First Class Requirements says "serve as your patrol's cook", we allow them to serve as cooks for the other patrols (they are temporarily assigned to the other patrols for cooking only, and so it becomes "your" patrol for that purpose). The other patrols certainly don't mind having a cook for a change. That is for when bottlenecks occur and the scouts feel a strong sense of urgency about advancement. We make every attempt to plan out the cooking duties well in advance so that everyone has a chance before the end of their first year.

[EagleInKY]

Here's how we address it. First, let's read the requirement:

 

On one campout, serve as your patrol's cook. Supervise your assistant(s) in using a stove or building a cooking fire. Prepare the breakfast, lunch, and dinner planned in requirement 4a. Lead your patrol in saying grace at the meals and supervise cleanup.

 

We take this as meaning they are to be the "head cook" with assistants. Therefore, on a campout, a boy is designated as "head cook". Others are rotated around to help him (1-3 boys, depending upon the meal). Over a period of a year, everyone gets their chance to be head cook for 3 meals. Also, if a campout has 5 meals, we'll use one boy as headcook for 3 meals and anther one for 2. The second boy will only need to serve as head cook for one more meal on another campout. This seems to work for us and - I believe - meets both the letter and spirit of the requirement.

[Trevorum]

We do the same. This is a good example of flexibility in implementing the method (advancement), although OGE and others might argue that it is "tweaking"

[Oak Tree]

This requirement is clearly the bottleneck that would cause Scouts to back up in our troop as well, when you have a full patrol of new boys. We, like Twocubdad, also have various months where the outings are not organized in a way to allow for patrol cooking.

 

One can imagine a variety of methods to deal with this. A couple that we've done are 1) to have six-meal campouts, where two Scouts can fulfill the requirement, and 2) to throw in an extra patrol campout or two, just for the New Scout Patrol.

 

An obvious option is to:

3) Start assigning a head cook on campouts as early as possible. If not the first campout, then the second.

 

And then there are solutions that go along with creative interpretation of the requirements:

4) Allow them to cook for other patrols.

5) Break up the patrols into smaller groups (e.g. a patrol of 9 could become two patrols of 4 and 5)

6) Break up their meals over multiple campouts

 

I would not be surprised at all if there are troops that have multiple "patrol head cooks" that work together on a campout in order to allow more boys to check off this requirement, but that seems to clearly violate the spirit and letter of the rule.

 

Oak Tree

[anarchist]

Good post OAK TREE!

We don't sign off on 'multiple cook events' for the 1st Class, the boy can and should have a large number of assistannt to 'direct' it's good practice...and if they know that later they are gonna be in the 'kitchen patrol' for the same purpose they are usually kinder and more thoughtful to the "help" But each boy has to be the lead cook for three meals...no sharing of credit.

 

But for gosh sakes! why do we adult leaders get sucked into a 'troop campouts' mentality....We need to be doing lots of extra patrol camps...You can usually do more program work, have more adventures and do way more fun things as patrols than you can as a troop. Hikes, canoe trips, climbing activities, caving (for older guys)... almost any activity you can think of is better by the patrol...

 

Cooking- first class- start early have a couple of patrol camps in addition to the troop schedule camping and bang! ...three to six months later its done. We start doing these type of events as soon as they are well along towards being "tinderfeets"....if you limit it to troop camps you really need to get active and creative... nine boys equal nine monthly events.

OR... A new scout patrol of 9 boys makes two patrol camps and a troop camp, split as if they were two patrols...and you make it a contest SM and ASM's get to sample at adult kitchen without knowing who cooked...its great the boys really work and the SPL loves orchestrating these things and six boys get sign offs in one month...adult intensive? yes? but loads of fun!

 

NSP system with good ASM's can really be used by a creative (some say sick) mind to train a boat load of boys as well as finding lots of reasons to spend lots of time in the woods.

[Twocubdad]

Last night we worked out our duty roster for the upcoming campout. After discussing it with the boys, they made the boy who has been second class longest the head cook and rotated assistant cook for all the meals. They agreed to handle cooking responsibilities for all the upcoming events that way until everyone completes the requirement.

 

We have six in the NSP, three of them are hard against First Class. With four campouts between now and the time the new Webelos crossover, we can take care of the three and set up a friendly competition for the fourth spot -- of the other three, the first one to get Second Class gets the fourth campout.

 

All in all, accommodating six boys isn't that big of a deal. We should have about that many coming in again in February but now I know to do a little better job of managing the cooking schedule and will start a little earlier.

[EagleInKY]

2CD - We start our process early - with their second campout. Their first campout is focused around Tenderfoot requirements. So, we don't throw a lot of cooking & cleanup responsibilities on them. (They do their part, just with a lot of guidance). We start the "head cook" role on the 2nd campout.

[HopewellT8SM]

Our troop uses our week at summer camp to cover this. The patrol leaders make the newer scouts the head cooks toward the end of the week.

Our troop does not eat at dinning halls, we "outpost" for the whole week.

We have four patrols, and normally we get 5-6 new scouts each year, and they are divided up into exsisting patrols.

We also monthy camp, and have 6-7 other oportunities to cover this requirment through out the year. I'm sure there are many other troops like this.

At this time we have not used the new scout patrol, but are keeping our eye out, as we have an age gap, and currently getting a little heavy on older scouts (a good thing). But we tend to keep the scouts in regular patrols until age 16, as their needs and interest are differnt.

 

[mk9750]

In our Troop, the Troop Guide acts as the head cook at the new Scout campout for snack Friday night, and Breakfast Saturday morning. For lunch, each buy makes a foil pack. For dinner, they all act as assistants to the Troop Guide.

 

After their first campout, duty rosters are developed by the Patrol Leader for each campout with the input of his Patrol members. The Scout who wants to cook next is the next head cook, and someone is assigned (or volunteers) as his asistant. They cooks for the entire weekend.

 

For the next campout, the Patrol Leader develops a new duty roster. Usually, the asst. cook last month becomes the head cook this month. Within a year or 14 months, every boy will have had the chance to fulfill the requirement. The only ones who don't are the ones who don't volunteer. That doesn't happen too often, as most of the other duty roster chores: Fire, water, K.P., latrine, are far less attractive.

 

Mark