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… you know you’d like to go!
Getting a high adventure trip off the ground sounds difficult, but you can make it happen for your Scouts. This week I’ll discuss some of the things you need to do to set up high adventure, and answer email questions about attendance at outings, and advise a new committee chair
Links Mentioned in this Podcast
Ken Greenberg’s Troop Patrol Practices Survey
High Adventure Planning posts mentioned in Scoutmastership in Seven Minutes or Less
The Patrol leader’s Council and Planning Mentioned in the email answer to Kelley
Music in This Week’s Podcast
Hiking Song Medley- The Alexander Brothers
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Though late to the party, here is a crazy idea. When a Scout comes to me apologizing for not being able to make a camping trip or meeting because of another event, I encourage them to go to the event. But here is the real radical idea, I also say to them it is alright to come late to Scouts if they want. I cant begin to count the number of times these Scouts show up (for example) still in there sporting uniform complete with grass stains, cuts and scrapes. The point here is the Scout really wants to do both and giving them permission to show up late is far better than not at all.
The conundrum of falling participation in troop outings is not uncommon. I think every troop has run into the issue of multiple outside conflicts preventing our Scouts from all assembling for a weekend campout, and most run into it every month. This really hurts the troop program but also results in further decimation of the patrol method.
A troop conducting multiple campouts in a given month can be a way to try to get around our Scouts’ commitments with music, sports, studies and family events. But the idea of patrol-sized campouts during some months is an interesting one and actually hearkens back to the traditional method of Scouting in that it is patrol-based. A troop, after all, is really a collection of patrols.
I can see a couple considerations in this approach – not deal-breakers, certainly, but things that need to be kept in mind. For one, the cost will be a bit higher because the economies of scale may not apply in such things as transportation and camp usage fees.
But a bigger concern can be the availability of adult supervision. While patrols previously were allowed to camp on their own with Scoutmaster approval, any outing under the troop umbrella now needs to have at least two adults, with one being a registered leader. This could be satisfied by having an assistant Scoutmaster loosely assigned to each patrol, and the campout attended by that assistant Scoutmaster and another parent of one of the patrol members. In reality, adult involvement is going to be needed anyway, if for no other reason than to get the Scouts there and back.
If the Scouts are up for it, they can have a great time together, planning their own agenda and not having to fit within the framework of a larger troop outing.