Just watched Scout Camp The Movie this evening. Great great movie for scouts.
The movie really hit home in many ways. I could say I have at least two scouts that can relate to each one of the boys in Troop 909.
I think it would have been awesome if they could have shown off the new uniforms in the movie, but it's all good
Go pick it up when you get the chance. $20.00 on Amazon! It is worth every penny!
My wife found this product and we picked up a package for summer camp. I'm not a fan of their marketing campaign, but I'm not a fan of most product commercials nowadays. The Colgate Wisp is a mini tooth brush with a small amount of paste in it and a pick on the end. No water is needed. You brush then toss it out.
I picked up a box of 16 for about 8 bucks at my local supermarket. It's not a bad price for the convenience. Brushes are packaged by the pair and individually sealed. You can cut the package in half so that you can take only what you need.
There is no need to make a run to the bath house or use water in camp. Brush and throw or pack away. Real simple. I like simple. Only downside is you feel like your are brushing with a tooth brush a 1/4 of normal size with half the bristles and getting your back teeth can be a challenge.
The Colgate Wisp is now a standard part of my camping equipment. It may not leave your mouth 100% fresh, but it certainly does a good enough job to satisfy me. Just remember to put it and all your smelly things in your bear bag during the night and pack it out if you are in the back country.
Summer Camp has to be one of the worst time of the year to go camping because of bugs. Being stuck out in the heat and being eaten up my mosquitoes, ticks, chiggers, and horse flies is never fun. This past summer camp experience my troop tried several new methods of bug control. I’ll go over the traditional methods that work well and then the experimental.
Bug Spray – I bet you didn’t expect to see this one. I’m not a terribly big fan of standard bug spray. Ruins watches, leave you sticky, and is a hassle to keep up with. I carry it and put it on my boots only. I use the squirt bottle kind. The aerosol version can be used upside down, but the squirt is more environmentally safe in the disposal of the bottle.
Skin So Soft - When I was in scouts, this was one of those rumor repellants. Now it’s a little more main stream. It’s deet free and relatively affordable. I had one adult who had really good results this at camp.
Sulfur Water – Camp Orr has some awesome tasting water. I drank about 4 Nalgene bottles of sulfur water and a little bug spray on the boots and my bug bites were minimal.
I had one tick bite the first day, but after that I had three chiggers and no mosquitoes, horse flies or other bugs. Taste is bad, but it won’t kill you.
Here are the two big experimental methods that leaders and boys had tried.
Cow Ear Tags – I wasn’t entirely comfortable with this one. You have to wash your hands a good long time due to the chemicals in the tags. Had one leader and one boy try these by putting them on their boots and they seemed to have really good luck with them. I’m probably not going to mess them, but if you’re brave and resistant to chemicals go for it.
Flea Collars – I had two boys try this and they didn’t have issues at all. They put them around their ankles and around a belt loop or two. These seem a lot safer than the cow tags. I’m definitely going to try this one out at my next campout.
So there you go! I’m going to try to post more often. I have a new design in the works that is looking kinda good.
I was fortunate enough to participate in the buy one get one free sale that scoutstuff.org posted up during the month of May. I purchased a set of the old color Switchback pants and they are worth every penny. Here is a quick overview for those of you who just think uniform pants are just pants.
The Switchback Uniform Pants – These are constructed from quick-drying light weight Dupont Supplex nylon. Big fan of these because it these bad boys dry a lot quicker than your standard cotton pants. They are also a lot lighter. They have a built in belt so you don’t have to worry about keeping up with an additional belt during camp.
The Canvas Convertible Pants – Made of 67% cotton - 33% polyester. These are extremely durable, but pretty hot. They are pretty standard for pants. I own a pair and normally wear them to meetings. The Switchbacks however, are my choice for summer camping now.
During my week of summer camp, I found myself wearing the light weight Switchbacks more often than my canvas. Even with the legs zipped off, the canvas seemed three times warmer than the other. The Switchbacks doubled as swim trunks for the unexpected need to take a swim.
I think it’s great that both now have to be hemmed. This is an awesome feature because it allows your scout to grow into them if they haven’t hit that growth spurt. Using Badge Magic works great for this. On the Convertibles, I took it upon myself to sew the hems. It took three tries to get them right. The few small rips I put into the pants have not grown or frayed much in the 8 months I have had them.
My biggest problem is that the belt looks are just a tad too small on the Convertibles. The new scout belt doesn’t fit through them very well.
I know times are tough and money is tight, but both of these cargo pants are far superior to any other pair of olive pants I’ve come across in just about every way. If you only plan on getting one pair, I recommend the Convirtible because of the durability. If you have the money, get both. They are worth every penny.
My troop is leaving for summer camp on Sunday. We’ll be heading to Camp Orr High Adventure Base. This is a really big deal for most of the boys because the majority of them have never been to a scout summer camp before.
Here is a little background info on my troop to get a grasp on the situation. There are twenty-six boys total. The troop itself is very young. It re-charted in May 2008. Most of the boys started last year or just crossed over this year. Three boys are over thirteen. A few of our older boys who have transferred into the troop have been to Orr before.
Of the twenty-six, nineteen are going and are very excited about it. I’m also very excited about taking this group to summer camp. I went to this summer camp my second year in scouts about 13 years ago (man, that makes me feel old). I personally had a terrible time. Got home sick, cried two days straight (yeah, I said it), and my troop was really accident-prone.
I have a very positive outlook with this group because many of them have gone to a local summer camp, Camp War Eagle, in previous years. So hopefully homesickness won’t have to be dealt with (much). I’m rather concerned about Wacky Wednesday.
For those of you who don’t know, this is the day when anything and everything tends to go wrong and it’s always on Wednesday. This is the third night of the camp and most new boys haven’t camped more than two nights.
My WW at this camp involved me pouting the whole day from being homesick and getting a scoutmaster conference on why we don’t need to cry, my buddy gashed his finger open while carving a neckerchief slide, and another buddy fell out the back of his tent and broke his footlocker at the same time. I’m still debating on heading to my local Wal-Mart to pick up an arsenal of water guns to keep spirits high. Worse come to worse I’ll distract them by bugging them about the new Transformers movie that comes out the week after camp.
So, I consider myself fully packed right now. All of my junk is piled up by our kitchen table and I REALLY hope I don’t have to get into it before camp. I’m not exactly sure how my time at camp will be spent. They have this “Scoutmaster Merit Badge” that I’m going to work on, but they don’t have any details on its schedule. Just in case it’s one of those single day events, I’ve packed tons of books to read including: The Shack, The Scoutmaster’s Other Handbook, Get Off My Honor, the 1911 edition of the Scout Handbook and several other good books.
Planning on doing some experiments with some new gear and new ideas during the week. Hopefully when I get back I’ll have some cool stuff to post about and some cool pictures to share.
I started in second grade as a Wolf in Cub Scout Pack 452 at Tyson Elementary. My parents were in Hawaii on a business trip. My brother and I bugged our grandparents to take us and register at the pack open house. Parents got home and we had already earned our Bobcat badges.
My brother continued on to earn the Arrow of Light while I earned Wolf and Bear. My brother didn’t immediately continue on to Boy Scouts. We both participated in a pinewood derby. I was never told a heavy car was a successful car. The orange not-so-blur didn’t make it past the first round, while its red twin (my brothers) made it several rounds with additional weight.
I got to participate in a Space Derby my second year in Weblos. I carved a bit on the block provided, painted it grey, and slapped the plastic wings on it the wrong way. I made an X-Wing from Star Wars. Like the pinewood derby, I didn’t make it past the first round. I wound the propeller the wrong direction, but my ship turned more heads than any other.
After earning the Arrow of Light, I moved into my church’s troop, Troop 107, with 4 or 5 of my fellow Weblos. I had a slow start into scouting. I earned the rank of Tenderfoot in two months. Earning Second Class happened a year later after my first scout camp. I then would spend the next two years as Second Class before earning First Class and moving on to the more fun part of scouting.
Advancement forward occurred much quicker becauseI had already earned most merit badges required for the rank of Eagle and the requirements were much more interesting for me. I would join the Order of the Arrow in the summer of 1998 as I was moving into the 9th grade and became Bortherhood two summers later.
Of the 5 that crossed over, there were only two of us left by the time I had earned Star. The reasons for leaving the troop were various, parents too involved, didn’t like knot tying, didn’t go camping much, etc. We were a troop of at least 5 boys, but never more than 12. I then thought we were more of a group of friends than a Boy Scout Troop. We never went back to summer camp after my one and only year of going. Instead we did our own thing. A Week at Devil’s Den or a few days on the USS Alabama was the normal summer for us. Our scoutmaster didn’t interact with us much. We managed ourselves and went the direction we wanted to go. Truly boy led.
I earned the rank of Life in December of 1999. Until this point in my scouting career, I had never given much thought into earning Eagle. I was along for the ride, had made it farther in rank faster than I had expected, and I really just enjoyed being with my friends.
I eventually completed my Eagle Project in 2000. I sat on paper work for half a school year. I was sixteen about to turn seventeen. I had plenty of time to complete it. I had a job and a car. It wasn’t until December 2000, my junior year in high school, that I had the most motivation to complete everything. The high school band was going to Washington DC and needed 4 Eagle Scouts to assist with laying a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. There were 3 Eagles in band. I expedited my paper work after my Board of Review and officially became an Eagle Scout June 2001, just in time to participate in the wreath ceremony.
As I moved into college, the number of scouts in the troop dropped. I had two jobs and was going to college. When I graduated, our youngest scout was a sophomore. In 2003, the church disbanded the troop.
I served in Alpha Phi Omega in college for a short time. The fraternity was founded on the scouting principles and ran a yearly Merit Badge University. I taught the computer’s badge three years.
After graduating, getting married, and settling down in a good career, I got the itch to get back into scouting. My church had re-chartered Troop 107 and posted it in the bulletin a week after I started looking for a troop. Coincidence or a sign from God?
After one meeting, I was an Assistant Scoutmaster. That was exactly a year ago. Now, I am a THE scoutmaster. Pretty crazy huh? I became the troop scoutmaster several months ago after completing Scoutmaster Training and OLT. I think I was the youngest in both classes by at least 5 years and I think there was only 1 other out of the 50 who didn’t have/had a son in the program.
Over the past year I’ve had many successes and failures as a scout leader. I’m very thankful to be apart of scouting again. Scouting has played a major role in my life. Not only has it taught me how to do a whole bunch of cool stuff in the woods, but it has taught me to always do my best, to be a good leader, to set a good example for others, and to make good choices. I owe just about all my success in college and my adult life to the values and lessons I have learned in scouting.
I’m a rookie scoutmaster and this is my blog.
