by Bob Geier
Some of you may recall a few years back when our troop opted to run their own
summer camp in-house. We've spent the
intervening few years doing "hybrid" camps, where we use BSA camp
facilities as a base of operations, but also run our own patrol activities as
out-trips. I think there's a report on one of those in the archives as well.
This year, the boys once again opted to "roll their own" summer
camp. I present it here for your amusement, and in the hope that others may
glean an idea or inspiration or two, in much the way our program has benefitted
from the many ideas shared on Scouts-L.
LOCATION AND SETUP This year, we went to an outdoor-activity type town (a
known whitewater/hiking/biking location in western PA called Ohiopyle) and set
up shop at a private campground run by the Scarletts, a dedicated scouting
family we've come to know and really enjoy. You can find some of Will Scarlett's
hand-carved necker slides featured in Boys Life from time to time. The location
allowed us to set up patrols in a large field separated from each other, and put
adults off in the woods a good ways out of the way. One of the challenges at
summer camp is always how to keep patrol method intact. Simple separation is
often the best solution. Each patrol had their own tent circle, rain fly(s),
cook gear etc., and all PLs were allowed to put ice for coolers on a tab we set
up with the camp. The boys' camp had a beautiful view, while ours had shade <
g > .
A DAY'S ACTIVITIES
Patrols got to set their own calendar of activities for
the week, with the SPL and adult camp director coordinating logistics. So while
one patrol might be out mountain biking, another would be doing kayak
instruction and yet another would be hiking a local river valley. The next day
one patrol might be rock climbing, another doing ropes course/challenge elements
as a patrol, and another whitewater rafting. We supported many of the activities
"in house" and contracted with Wilderness Voyageurs, our favorite
local outfitter (owner Eric Martin is a long-time friend and scouting
supporter).
Two of the goals for the boys were to develop strong patrol dynamic (patrol
method) and to really push "core skills." That led to some creative
routines each day.
First, all food was patrol cooking, but with a twist. We had some capital
money to spend this year so we bought some new cook gear while keeping some
near-retirement gear in place. This allowed each patrol to have three two-person
cook teams with full gear. PLs and APLs were not allowed to touch cooking
implements; instead they had to coach and supervise younger boys in their patrol
through cooking every meal. Meals were selected to require a range of cooking
techniques, from baking to deep-frying and everything in between. The result was
that every boy got more hands-on cooking time during the week than they
typically get during a year, and the improvement was palpable. By the last day
patrol contests, adults were acknowledging that even in a cooking race the boys'
cooking was "restaurant quality."
The PLC group pre-packaged all dry ingredients for cooking in advance, then
we adults delivered those each day along with whatever fresh ingredients the
meal called for. We "delivered" them by plopping the patrol's cooler
at the end of a compass/orienteering course each afternoon, which they had to
negotiate in order to find their dinner. Each day, we made it a little bit
longer/harder.
For First Aid core skills, two of our young ASMs made up "scenario
cards" which made a deck of cards that was given to adults accompanying
patrols on activities. Randomly during the day, often with full moulage, the
adults would play a scenario card and confront the patrol with a first aid
challenge in the middle of their climbing trip, etc. The "rules" were
that the Patrol Leader had to delegate the first aid response to the
lowest-level person who knew what they were doing, assisted by someone who was
learning. PLs who just led all first aid responses themselves therefore lost
points for their patrol, but not as bad as if they "delegated down to
oblivion" by assigning someone who didn't do first aid properly.
As we have done in the past, summer camp featured "Patrol Points,"
an ongoing competition between patrols similar to House Points in the Harry
Potter novels. Each day, patrols were evaluated on meals, camp LNT/"bombproofness"
and camp skills, communication/preparedness, how they did as a group at their
activities, first aid, etc. Individuals could gain or lose points for their
patrol by personal actions.
A final feature of camp was an ongoing "assassins" competition,
which folks who've been to college in the last few decades will recognize. Each
boy was armed with a suction cup dart gun and assigned a target to eliminate, in
a big-circle type layout that gradually tightens until only one person is left.
The PLs came up with this as a form of "name game" to help make guys
learn the names of other people in the troop (by hunting them down and shooting
them < g > ). Each evening at the boys' flag ceremony, assassins victims
for each patrol were "buried" with full military honors and
flag-draped coffins, giving all the boys lots of practice with flag ceremonies,
flag folding, etc. While filled with a touch of humor (including a hysterical
"My fellow Americans..." speech by one GWB impersonator), the boys
took the ceremonies quite seriously and were really much sharper than in a
typical camp flag ceremony. One patrol leader played taps on his trumpet each
evening, just as he had done for his grandfather's burial (a WW2 B-17 pilot) two
months ago.
At the end of week one of camp, we did debriefs with the patrol leaders on
various aspects of camp and running our own vs. BSA camp. Here are some of their
reflections, followed by some of my own:
"This was the coolest summer camp I've been to in 5 years. It puts scout
camp to shame." "It was great because it's tailored to what we really
do and what our goals are. Regular summer camp feels like a week wasted."
"Do it yourself is always more fun, and it's worth the planning. But it's a
LOT of planning."
"The point system was great because as a PL I could look at the day's
report and see the things I didn't catch. Then I could follow up with the guys
in my patrol without having to get adults involved." "The guys in my
patrol paid attention to the points, and worked harder as a result."
"Should hype the points a bit more - announce, post more prominently,
etc." "Be careful, though, that we don't start doing things for points
instead of because its the right thing to do."
"It was GREAT to have separation from the adult campsite. We didn't have
adults hanging over us to tell us what we were doing wrong each time, and could
learn on our own." "The younger scouts couldn't go hang out in the
awesome super cool adult tent site with all its amenities, and had to work to be
good patrol members."
"The way we did food was great, and really succeeded in teaching younger
guys. We saw real progress in their cooking skills." "First Aid 3x
daily scenarios were good. Moulage helped a lot, too. We saw real progress
during the week." "Especially helped when similar scenarios repeated
if we didn't do that well."
One interesting comment from all the PLs is that running our own camp did
_not_ create the usual sleep deprivation experiment that regular camp seems to.
All the PLs reported their guys getting a good 8-9 hours of sleep each night. I
think this is largely because we didn't have a lot of external fixed-time
events, so individual patrols were able to keep control of their own schedule.
Rather than have to show up for dinner at a set time, they could do dinner
early, or late. They could set their own departure time in the morning, and even
when they had a fixed departure to meet with an outfitter they could set their
own schedule for wakeup, cooking breakfast, etc. It's hard to really lead when
someone else is setting your schedule.
Generally, I agree with the boys' observations. Rolling our own camp really
does a far better job of growing a strong patrol method troop than regular camp
does, because we really can allow them to function as full, independent patrols
for an entire week - choosing their own activities as a group, setting their own
schedule, dealing with their own personality issues, etc. Not to mention some
healthy competition with other patrols for points and bragging rights at various
activities! We tried to do PL debriefs every other night, just so those boys
could share their trials and tribulations and get suggestions from fellow PLs on
how to handle a problem, and that worked pretty well.
In addition to patrol method, one of the boys' goals was developing core
skills, and I was really pleased with how those pieces played out. The setup
really allowed for a lot of hands-on activity and a lot of repetition, whether
it was the small two-person cook teams or the evening flag ceremony
"burials" or compass quest for dinner. It was lively, energetic,
active... and they cared about doing it well.
The "we got enough sleep comment" was a surprise to me, because the
days felt more full and active than a regular scout camp. Our couple of guys who
were homesickness candidates were pretty much kept busy full-time, and they
weren't able to "drop off" out of classes and such to hang out at the
camp site during the day the way that can be common at regular camp. So even
where there was a lot of potential for homesickness, it was less pronounced.
One of the things that I think really helped this year was that we tied JLT
in to camp pretty tightly. So JLT focused on things like building cooking skills
in PLs, then they in turn felt comfortable and confident coaching their patrol
members in those same skills. JLT also introduced the boys to the area and
activities, so they were "in the know" when it came to Q's from their
patrol. Where we had weaknesses, it was in areas where the PLs had some personal
weakness.
Another thing that really helped was being in an area where the campsite
owner and a major local outfitter were well known and strong scouting
supporters. Both Scarlett Knob and WV went well out of their way to support our
program as the boys had designed it.
I think one of the biggest challenges of this kind of approach is the level
of adult resource required. We brought 14 adults and two JASMs to camp to
support the activities, and there was enough to keep us hopping. We had the
benefit this year of a lot of young alumni college students to draw on. Still,
that's a lot of logistics. It also raised a few issues, if an adult wasn't as
familiar with the local area or activity possibilities. I wish we had the time
to do a local "adult only" familiarization/training beforehand. Though
the adult load was high, we did have room to contract out more activities,
though, rather than running them in-house.
I think for us the camp was truly excellent, best I've seen in years. It
seems to work better than the "hybrid" approach because it's so hard
to break out of the one-size-fits-all setup of BSA camps with their fixed
schedules and stock activities. Even where we used outfitters we could tailor
the request to meet the specific needs of the patrol and our program, and they
were happy to oblige. There was much less of a sense that we were imposing on
their fixed schedule than at a regular camp.
That leads us to a "week 2 of camp" report coming soon...
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