Something that we are beginning to do this month to facilitate “Scout Skill” competencies among the Regular Scout Patrols that have already had skills “signed off” in their books is a monthly Scoutmaster Challenge (Inter- Patrol Competition) at the campout. The purpose of this is to Explain, Demonstrate and Guide the planning process for the Youth Leaders so that in the future they will look to challenge the other scouts at campouts instead of reverting to the “I don’t know, what do you want to do…” mentality at PLC or in Patrol Meetings.
The idea of the Scoutmaster Challenge is to take the idea of the monthly theme, as presented in the Program Features, and give them something to work towards as Patrols during the month in the spirit of competition. This month’s theme is Orienteering and the Challenge will be an Orienteering Race at park we are camping at.
While looking up ideas for the next few months, I came across this company on Facebook that I guess is creating curriculum for Scout Campouts – they were on Kickstarter a little while ago trying to raise some capital for their first product Emergency Preparedness – Zombie Edition and according to their page, they are beginning to work on Wilderness Survival – Special Ops Edition.
I think this is a great idea. While I have no issues with traditional campouts and certainly not traditional skills, capturing the imagination of today’s youth, with today’s pop culture seems like a viable method of delivering the traditional program to youth. I spoke to one of my ASMs about this and together we’ll be searching the web for more of these types of ideas. I’d love to have a “Troop Program Resources” booklet that has ideas and plans that can be adopted by PLC to bring this kind of creativity and excitement into the planning process.
Oh by the way, if you are looking for more Zombie stuff:
Your tax dollars at work: Center for Disease Control – Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse (I kid you not!) and the University of Florida’s Zombie Plan – And here’s a comic book on the subject put out by the CDC
Also, check out this book for this kind of creative campout planning: “I Thought Scout Uniforms Were Fireproof: Putting the Fun in Scouting” Unfortunately, it’s not available digitally, but it is an easy read and while light on specifics, gives some good ideas for program.
An Hour a Week.... left over after Scouting 