Wednesday
International Flag Ceremony - This week at camp, we have been fortunate to have a troop from
Paul Bunyan Lives! The scouts cooked a Dutch oven corn bread with M&M’s and marshmallows (interesting…), used a 2 man cross cut saw, moved a humungous log with a block and pulley, split wood, and made steaks and pounded them in the ground. Whew! Try to get to them to do that at home.
The Omache Triathlon—our own
Sharpshooters all! The troop tried their hand at rifle and archery during troop time. Half doing rifle and half doing archery. We had a few Dime Club and archery sharpshooters added to the camp list.
Dutch oven Dessert-o-rama! On Wednesday, the troop cooked our lunch and dinner in the campsite. After our wonderful meal of hamburgers, chips, watermelon and a vegetable Dutch oven concoction, the Scoutmasters along with their assistant scout took on rustling up some dessert. 9 amazing Dutch oven desserts were enjoyed by the troop and most of the camp staff who appeared magically once they were ready to eat.
Thursday
Canoe Swamp II – the boys liked it so much the first time they signed up for it again! We had about 10 boats out there vying to be the last one standing. Nobody went unscathed or dry! The two Geezer boats are licking their many bruised wounds but everyone had a great time in the water.
Fireman Chit - as a troop we worked on fire safety and fire-building techniques, earning a card to prove their knowledge.
There are lots of budding pyromaniacs in the group. Some of the older boys who already had this went to the shotgun range to take out some clay pigeons. Nearly all of them were able to hit at least one!
As a troop we went to the rifle range (most of us) and the archery range (some who did not want to shoot rifles). We have some amazingly accurate shooters in our troop!
But the real highlight of that troop time was the fact that the Japanese troop was also at the archery range with some of us and it ended up being an amazing time of international scouting diplomacy! Pictures a-plenty, exchanging of scarves, and whatever else they could find. It was a very special time and it was truly a privilege to watch the interaction. More on this later…
Scout-led campfire Thursday night. Troop 570 was well-represented in the lineup with a few skits and songs that received great reviews. The Japanese troop also performed a festival dance with color kimonos on, to the delight of us all!
Friday
This morning right before flags, Japanese Troop 3 presented Troop 570 with a ceremonial scouting kimono, signed by their entire troop and presented by their scout leader. A very special moment for us all. We have made some new friends this week and they wished to show their appreciation for that.
Wrapping up the merit badges classes in the morning heading into the last afternoon of “challenges”, Charlie’s Challenge to be specific. About 90 minutes of patrols going around the assembly area taking on small challenges laid out by the staff. Patrol flag, patrol yell, patrol spirit and patrol unity on display!
Tonight we will have the closing campfire and start turning our thoughts and preparations for heading home on Saturday morning. It has been an honor and privilege to be with your sons this week. Troop 570 represented themselves with distinction this week and made and impression upon the staff.
Your Troop 570 Geezer Blogging Crew
(More pictures up on the troop web site!)
Men at Work! For our camp service project, the Scouts and Scoutmasters of Troop 570 man handled tree rounds, moved chips, covered the trail, and sawed some downed trees on the trail. Big kudos to the younger scouts of the troop, who carried tree rounds either half or all of their weight!
Predator versus Prey—The troop played a round of predator versus prey with one predator and everyone else prey. Sounds lopsided, but that predator had a lot of power. In the end, the prey won out by attacking all at once.
Canoe Swamp—troop time also brought the infamous Canoe Swamp where the boys get in canoes without paddles and try to sink each other in boats. The Geezers made a good showing, but had trouble getting off the dock area. The canoes, it seems only hold 650 pounds. They sank immediately. But, never fear, they recovered in time to go on the attack. Many great strategies were used, however, in the end, all were sunk.
Capture the Flag—the most participants in the smallest field ever played a rousing game of Capture the Flag. Our troop of 50 played against a troop of 33. Much posturing, little advantage. They played to a stalemate after an hour. But as one young scout said, “That was so much fun!”
More pictures at:
https://app.doubleknot.com/openrosters/ViewPhotoAlbum.asp?PhotoAlbumKey=8075&orgkey=213
Your Troop 570 Geezer Blogging Crew
Greetings All! Your Troop 570 scouts and adults are adjusting to camp life up at
Camp food represents and eclectic variety of food groups (:^) but everyone seems to be getting enough to eat. Especially when the Troop 570 bank open up for withdrawals and they head off to the Trading Post to help supplement their food(?) intake.
One of our troop time activities on Monday had half of the boys working on the low COPE course for some group challenges and the other half completed either the Art or Fingerprinting merit badge! Even some of the Geezers had the opportunity to take on the challenges of the High Cope, and came away completely intact with very little therapy needed. At the end of all that a camp-wide drill took place as part of the Emergency Preparedness merit badge, which several of our boys are taking. SPL Kevin Schindler had our troop all lined up but was missing one scout – until he found himself (:^).
We started three in-camp merit badges last night for those that wanted take on some more! At 8:45pm until around 10:00pm, three scoutmasters counseled three separate sessions on Camping, Pioneering and Music merit badges to about 20 of our young go-getters!
More tomorrow…some pictures at:
https://app.doubleknot.com/openrosters/ViewPhotoAlbum.asp?PhotoAlbumKey=8075&orgkey=213
Your Pigott Geezer reporting crew
Greetings Troop 570 family and friends! The first day was a whirlwind of activity as we got much of our logistics for the week sorted out and got our camp site setup. Seeing AJ Calder, Elliott Heaton and Clayton Dietz on staff was fun and the boys got a big kick out of it. The weather cleared up nicely and was quite warm and sunny but late afternoon. Swim checks went fine and the water was actually “warm”, relative to the cloudy day that it was to start. The evening campfire was put on by the staff and brought out some old favorites (with some new twists and creativity) and some other new material. We will see if the creative juices will flow from that exposure on some of our future outings that require skits and songs (:^)
Half of the camp arrived this morning (LDS units) so we were actually HALF of the total camp for Sunday! It looks like all of our boys got signed up for the classes they wanted and were off to the races this morning working on Scout Skills requirements, merit badges and such. Acting SPL Kevin Schindler is doing a great job!
We will report more tomorrow, along with some pictures too!
Your Troop 570 Geezer crew.