Scoutmaster Podcast 323

I am Matt Wendling. I'm the Scoutmaster of Troop 333 in Avon, Ohio. This edition of the Scoutmaster podcast is sponsored by backers like me. Thank you, Clark.

And now to you, Scoutmaster. Here's an interesting question, Aponder, If a scouter is alone in the forest and there are no scouts around and he gives a direction, will he still be ignored?

Think about that one. I think it's probably true. Hey, this is podcast number 323.. Hey, Welcome back to the Scoutmaster podcast. This is Clarke Green.

It's summertime and everybody's off to scout camp, so there's not a lot to share in the mailbag. I wrote a post this past week- that's on Facebook and it's also at scoutmastercgcom- called Authentic Scouting is viral and there's been some very positive response to that, so make sure to check that out when you get a chance To do a little housekeeping for the podcast. This podcast number 323 is being published on July 11th.

I'll have podcast 324 next week, on July 18th, and then the podcast takes a break. That way I get to go to summer camp and then we have a canoeing trip up in Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario, Canada, and the podcast will return, hopefully with wonderful stories about all of those adventures, on August 22nd, And during that time. I'll post some favorite editions of the podcast from the archive. This past week was a holiday week with July 4th, but I did manage to have one live chat session. These normally happen Tuesday and Wednesday mornings. Keep an eye on our Facebook feed and our Twitter feed for an announcement that we'll be on with a live chat.

Lots of people check in And this week Ed Wilcock, who's in Colleen and Fort Hood, Texas, who's a Webelos 2 den leader for PAC 248, checked in, and so did Richard Willimus, who is with the Notwood 186 Cub PAC in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, And Richard's the section leader there. So Ed and Richard checked in for the first time on the live chat this week. Lots of frequent flyers show up. Sometimes we talk about real important stuff and sometimes we just talk.

So let me ask a favor of you this week. If you're a regular reader and listener and the resources we've created have helped you, I want to take a moment and ask you to return the favor. You can support the work that we do financially by making a one-time payment and becoming a ScoutmasterCGcom backer, or you can make a subscription payment via Patreon- PATREON- by pledging $5 or more a month. There are special premiums available to anyone who becomes a patron or a backer.

So go to ScoutmasterCGcom, look right up there at the right-hand side of the top of the page, and you'll see links about how to become a backer and how to become a patron, And those same links are in the podcast notes. And I want to take a moment to personally thank Matt Wendling and Larry Gonzalez, who've become backers since our last podcast, And I want to thank Robert Williams and Joshua Starr, who've become patrons since our last podcast.

So take a little time this week, figure out what works for you and I'll be sure to thank you personally on next week's podcast. I'm going to take up the remainder of the podcast, talking about an event I attended this past Saturday, some of the people I went with and talked with there, and just some things in general.

I think it's timely because it's all about scout camp And that's going to be the entirety of this week's podcast. It's July, We're going to take it easy, So let's get started, shall we?

If you're a regular listener to the podcast, you've heard me talk about our summer camp. I'm in Chester County Council, which is in the southeast corner of the state of Pennsylvania, and our scout reservation- the horseshoe scout reservation has two camps, camp horseshoe and camp where, and it straddles the Mason-Dixon line down in the very southeast corner of the state of Pennsylvania and the very northeast corner of the state of Maryland. Our property is in three counties, five townships in two states and it is on a piece of property where the Octoraro Creek kind of turns back on itself and thus it got its name: camp horseshoe. This past Saturday we had the horseshoe scout reservation alumni association gathering, which is an annual event where anybody who's spent at least one night in either camp horseshoe or camp where can join the alumni association. You can come and the alumni association does projects for the camp. But mostly the alumni association is a point of contact for people who consider that particular camp to be a very special place, and I'm going to play a couple of recordings of people that I talked to.

Let me begin by playing a recording of a couple of guys just kind of recalling the first time they came to camp back in the 1970s and I got to serve on staff with both of these guys, Bob Matchy and Mark Hammond, and- and you'll hear Bob speak first, It was 1978, and I was a brand new scout, I just joined in March of that year and it was the first time I was home away from home for about for two weeks. The extended time period and camp has changed a lot since then. 1980, I became a CIT. I actually worked in- I don't know, I'm sorry- 1979. I was a very young CIT in second year because I had such a good time the year before I worked.

Then I came two weeks to camp, did the CIT in the second half of the season and 1980, I became a counselor and worked in camp craft for a number of years and then I spent a stint in the kitchen when some help was needed there and I think, all told, I've been nine years on the staff. I was a first as a camper here in summer camp in 79.. 1982, I took Wilder Survival Merit Badge from Bob Matchy, came on staff in 83 as a CIT and I started as the program CIT working for John Kemmerer.

I went to the rifle range and then to handicraft and then to headquarters and then to the kitchen for a couple years and then program director and then assistant camp director. I remember when I was 16 years old talking to my friends about: you know, you're going to go live in the woods for the summer and work for $275 for eight weeks.

You know what are you not? And I said what are you doing?

You know we're making ice cream cones at Dairy Queen. And I said I'm running a shotgun range and I'm teaching kids how to shoot guns and I'm not living with my parents. End of story.

You know you learn so much about what you're capable of doing and you know you really had opportunities working at camp staff that as a teenager you didn't have anywhere else in life. Yeah, certainly the leadership aspect of it, the personal responsibility and I think the scouting movement in general has helped me out in so many ways, you know. But certainly working down at Horseshoe and the enthusiasm, the can-do attitude is something that you just can't compare to anywhere else. The other person I wanted you to hear from is a name that is familiar to generations of campers at Camp Horseshoe and he's a pretty special guy in scouting- to our former camp director, Ernie Heegard, and Ernie shared of his history with the camp with me.

So 1946, first year, yeah, and you just grabbed some of your buddies and went to the council office on High Street opposite the Warner Theater and that's where you would register for camp and you picked a camping period, either first two weeks, second two weeks or third two weeks, or, if you were so inclined, you could come for the whole summer. And so how many years is a camp that you figured? Total years here is 71.. I joined the staff rather quickly.

I think the first year was a camper. The next year part of it was a camper and the rest of it was an assistant stockade leader. Then I washed dishes for a summer. That was the way you got a job. You know. If you couldn't last through that they didn't invite you back.

And then the next joined the aquatics department and I was the boating director. Just before my 26th birthday I was asked to go into the military in the County Intelligence Corps so that I could use leave time to spend time here the next couple of years, And it was soon after that I guess I was camp director 29 years.

I did have a short term over at what is now camp aware. It was the explorer base and I did that for a couple of years. Those are a few snapshots that I'm sure if you've hung around scouts long enough, you've been to summer camp, maybe you've been involved with your scout camp. Maybe you've been on a camp staff. These are snapshots that I'm sure evoke familiar connections and familiar feeling As I was down there this past weekend and talking with people.

We were talking about names and places and camp traditions and old stories that you know are meaningful to us because, well, we we've lived through them and we know all these people. But I was thinking about the broader implications of what a place like Camp Horseshoe means. Because if you've hung around scouting for long enough and you've gone to summer camp and everything like that, there's probably a place like Camp Horseshoe that bears that same kind of meaning for you.

And I just remember the first few times I went down to Camp Horseshoe as a Weevillows den leader in the early 1980s and then as a Scoutmaster and then as a staff member, And I think of the drive down that gravelly rutted camp road and pulling into central camp and just kind of knowing that all was going to be right with the world. You know that feeling. And one of my absolute favorite spots at our camp is an area that we call the athletic field. It's down along the creek, It's a big grassy flood plain and you can stand there right at the creek, right at the swinging bridge that we call the OA bridge because it leads over to another part of camp where the OA fire circle is, And look up the hill at camp and you might be able to spot one or two of the buildings. When camp is in session during the summer, you can certainly hear voices, and but if you imagine this with me, you're kind of at the lowest geographical point of the camp and it stretches up the hill in front of you. In that field and in the forest that surrounds you there is every possible shade of green And if you go down there just as the sun's going down late of a summer evening or early in the morning, just as the sun is coming up, you're very likely to spot some deer or some wild turkeys, And I could go on and on.

I could describe it to you. But there's a place like that for you too, right? I mean, there's some place where you can kind of sit back and you can take it all in And, like I said, all feels right with the world.

So my whole point in sharing with you wasn't to talk about the particular history of a certain camp or the particular names that are associated with a certain camp, because I'll tell you something, okay, While I'm sure we would all defend how wonderful our own scout camp is and how unique and how it's the best in the country, All of that really isn't as important as the connection that you have to scouting through that place, The kind of things that it gave you when you were a youngster, the kind of meaning that it held for you, And now that you're a little bit older, or maybe a lot older like me- the way that you can introduce that wonderful place, that state of mind and heart, to young people. Here's my point, if there is a point to all this. These places are a privilege, an opportunity and an obligation.

We're tremendously privileged to stand on the shoulders of many, many people who helped establish these places and all of the resources and traditions associated with them, And we have the wonderful opportunity to be able to enjoy them and to lend our effort to the creation and maintenance of those resources. And we have the obligation to make sure that we share them with as many young people as possible. There's this wonderful, mysterious alchemy that happens when we get to spend some time at Scout Camp. Maybe it's just short of a week, or a whole week or a couple of weeks that you get to do that of a summer and you get to bring your scouts there. But what important work, what great fun and what a great, good place to go. I hope you enjoy your time at Scout Camp this summer.

Get in touch and let me know how it went And I'll tell you how to do that in just a moment.