Inspiration and help for Scout camp.

[scrogger]

Hi guys I am a fairly new scout leader and we are doing our (my first) camp in 2 weeks time. I will be getting the lads to go back to basics for the weekend and just wondered if any of you good folk might fancy throwing a few ideas my way ( I know there are a few leaders on here too).

This is my plan upto now.

A basic Knife, Axe , Saw workshop . promoting safe effective use of said implements.

Each team will be provided a fire steel and striker they must collect their own tinder, kindling and wood and build and light their own cooking fire.

They will then be provided with basic ingredients and utensils (pans etc) and they will have to prepare their own meals. I am hoping to see them fashion pot hangers etc form wood so will be good to see how creative they can be.

We are also going to do a basic shelter building session (natural materials) but they wont be sleeping in them this time round.

Its the first time they have done anything like this so I want to make it fun and interesting
to keep them occupied. I also thought about seeing if they could make fire by using friction methods but not sure they wiull have the patience to do this yet.

Any help, advice or ideas will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Andy

 

[drewdunnrespect]

looking good so far andy another thing i would suggest is tinder or food plant id session its up to you tho cos there your scouts and i dont know how capable they are even tho i am a leader myself

 

[JohnC]

We had a scout camp last weekend and covered a few of these items.
(For a variety of reasons, we collected the knives in one box and distributed them for the activities, this worked out ok. Some of the kids knifes were very blunt and we discovered this hen they were getting handed out for the activity, so take a couple of sharpening stones...)

We set up a axe and saw area that we could demo in and the scouts could use when working. Scoutbase.org.uk has some good worksheets on teaching these skills.

The fire lighting was done with firesteels and the demo was done with: cotton wool, then cotton wool with vaseline, then fluffed up birch bark, then micro-shavings/curls from dry wood.

I found that some of the kids had little or no idea of fire work or knife skills, and some were very skilled. striking the balance for a group can be challenging, but the general idea was to have an "easy" option for a youngster to try, ie almost prepared food to cook in tinfoil so only a couple of steps needed doing, and a fish needing gutted and cleaned, leaves identified and gathered fro wrapping for the more confident kid. Both got fed and hopefully felt they'd achieved a goal.

I've tried friction firelighting, but found younger scouts strength and stamina to be an issue, although some managed it as a team. A demo always goes down well.

 

[Shewie]

Sounds good Andy, can I come ? I think I've still got my shorts in the loft somewhere, might look like Jimmy Crankie though

Will you be able to do all the sharps and firelighting stuff ? I thought it was "discouraged" these days on H&S reasons ?

 

[troy ap De skog]

if it is the first time either your toop have done anything like this;

your fisrt day will be walk so tinders and what wood are good burnig..and show the what a good WOOD PILE is.
then spend most of the remander of day one, sharps work and how to cook..

day two:
start to slowly branch out to other consepts..
or just let them get on with what they lernt the day before...

this is the general program i use when teaching scouts with limmeted tradional scout skills, and then you use the next camp as the platform to go into the other stuff.

 

[Prodigal Son]

Sounds good Andy, can I come ? I think I've still got my shorts in the loft somewhere, might look like Jimmy Crankie though

Will you be able to do all the sharps and firelighting stuff ? I thought it was "discouraged" these days on H&S reasons ?

Haha! That old chestnut!! H&S!

Believe it or not there are only 3 main things that are 'banned' activities in scouts: Banana Boating, Paintballing and Bungie jumping!!

After that, you are pretty much able to do whatever you want on a couple of conditions - you are qualified enough to do them and you have risk assessed them.

Ours were down the woods on Monday with axes, knives and firesteels - some of the sausages were a bit cremated but edible, the twists were good though!! My dog had more than his fair share of scouts sausages that were too burned for them to eat!!!

 

[scrogger]

Thanks for the input guys. Not thought to ask if the lads wanted to bring there own sharps bit late now but like the box idea and then handing them out for the tasks in question.

I recently prepared a load of cotton wool with vaseline for the younger lads I dont want them getting disillusioned need to let them see it will work.

Good idea to get them to prepare a wood pile as we are having a big old traditional camp fire on the last night with all the usuals, cant wait for that.

Also like the idea reference basic wild foods maybe wild garlic, cleavers, ransoms etc easy to identify stuff though.

And yes partly prepared foods for the younger lads dont want food poisoning...

To be honest Rich most things are ok as long as its all monitored and watched over carefully.

I dont have a friction fire set I have some local woods what are my best chances with hearth and drill woods so that I could maybe have something ready for Friday week?

We have lots of Elder, Ash, Oak. and actually a lot of felled Sycamore thanks to YEDL which has just been left to rot! I am also going to have to practise getting an ember.

Thanks again guys.

Andy

 

[Le Loup]

Sorry Andy, I am late answering this one. If you still need any ideas or info let me know. As a private primitive skills instructor I used to be hired to train the scouts.
Regards, Le loup.

 

[cappi]

Yep scrogger nice one all good stuff,FIRE is a megger intreasting subject WEas a whole are very intreasted in it,after all we need it.Maybe research different ways of starting fire,with none natural materials as well as natural, for example. A piece of crumpled up newspaper open it place in sugar followed by some anti-freeze,close the parcel and whoosh you have fire,many different ways,but do not explain the ingredients to the scouts,after all it`s serious,but also a bit of fun.To pass the time and test things like obsevation,by placing
EX:15 objects out within eye distance and a standing line,get them to draw a quick map ,then spot the objects the winner dos`nt do the dishes ect ect,or even the same whilst walking through a desired section of woods.I hope this helps,happy scouting

............................................................................................
REMEMBER WE SEE EVERYTHING, YET REMEMBER NOTHING?

 

[brancho]

You should teach them to cook and light fires before you go with the intent of letting them get on with it on thier own at camp.

You will have to explain how to get the fire right for different types of cooking and most will collect next to no wood at all before trying to light a fire no matter how often you explain that they need fuel before they sart.
you will need to supervise them to get thier own tea done based on what you are saying (I may be wrong)

My advice is always practice (other leaders included) anything you wish to show or expect them to do before hand so you know how it works or doesnt.

 

[scrogger]

Well back from first Scout camp........................ and im kn@ckered!!! lol

The whole thing went fantastic (brancho if only you had posted a few days before I went)

I had 12 scouts split into 3 teams. I prepared an area in the woods and graded the kindling into 4 bundles got fire buckets on hand and shovels this gave them the basics of what I wanted from them.I had instructed them to peel of some Birch bark and leave it in their pockets on the Friday as we arrived. I also had cotton wool with vaseline as a back up. Each group were given a fire steel and where told to go of and prep the same as i had done. (brancho has done this before I can see now) 1 group the 4 younger boys did as I had asked and prepared a fantastic area with 5 good size and excellently graded bundles of kindling I was very impressed, They had also dug out a small square of earth and and lined this with dry wood . The two other groups collected a meager amount of kindling and did a not so thorough job of prepping up and duly started to try and light the fire, they did in fact get it lit quite quickly which I was impressed with as I had only shown them a few times. But they quickly ran out of wood and then ran around like headless chickeds trying to keep it going and ended up with smoky watery eyes!!.

The younger boys went onto to show how it should be done and it was their fire that cooked everyones lunch. I think it was quite a good learning curve for the older lads as they felt a bit silly that the younger lads had shown them up a bit.

The next morning for breakfast we had a re run and, hey presto they approached it much better and we had 3 great fires we had Sausages cooked on greenwood forks and bannock bread pre mixed in plastic bags.

All in all it was great fun and they did really well too with the Knife, Axe and Saw skills too.
It was a great first camp for me I felt as though what I had taught them had gone really well.

Cant wait till the next one now!!

Just need some sleep now!!

 

[slammer187]

Hey scrogger heres a few tips for you that I use when planning scout camps....

1. For activities like fire lighting or knife sharpening split each patrol into teams of about 3 or 4 and number them off...make each activity a base and number the base's so team 1 will go to base 1 team 2 to base 2...ect and then team 1 goes to base 2 and team 2 goes to base 3 and if there was 6 teams,team 6 would go back to base 1 when each base is finished and it keeps going until all the teams have visited each base...Are you with me?

2. BE FLEXIBLE things never go according to plan...all it takes is for one kid to cut themselves or for it to start raining and then you'll have to leave your base so have a basic back-up plan!

3. Keep all the scouts occupied if you don't they will get board and then get home sick!

4. Introduce camp chores to show how to run the camp more efficiently!

5. Have a patrol leader for each patrol who can take charge and organize the patrol!

6. Always be helping out and showing the scouts how to do things..don't step back and let them sort it out it's their first time doing anything like this so they need to be thought

7. Play games in their free time it will keep them stimulated and make their time more enjoyable. A good game is the 5 minute fire game in which you only have five minutes to start a fire so the scouts will be alert to good tinders and kindling and they will start to collect it as they walk around so they can be ready when you shout FIVE MINUTE FIRE!

8. The most important thing of all is to have fun no matter what happens just make sure that you have fun!

 

[The Lord Poncho]

Over the years i've decided the following tends to work best on the camps i am involved in:
-Traditional heavyweight patrol tents (preferably with a fly) for standing camps- generally anything longer than a weekend. Increasingly i am becoming dismayed at more and more groups moving over to cheap large nylon dome affairs- erroneously perceiving them as quicker and easier to put up- invariably they aren't, they last about 10% of the life of a decent canvas tent, they often leak, put a large number of bodies in there and everything is wringing wet in the morning from condensation, the place turns to a pig style because you can't tow out the groundsheet for kit inspections, they heat up to the temperature of the centre of the sun 10 minutes after sunrise, and after a couple of days the contents stink! [pet hate-you may have gathered!!]

-Always get the patrols to cook for themselves on open fires altar fires are quite user friendly and often required at most sites. It takes an age first few days, but they generally half the time by the end of the week, and get an awful lot from the experience.

-go out and get the required authorisations to run adventurous activities in house- its vastly cheaper, more flexible, and you can mix and match what your authorisations cover to arrive at fiendish activities. For instance, our Explorer Unit is going on a weeks camp in a fortnights time to Snowdonia. Over the week they will be doing climbing, abseiling, rafting, coasteering, canyoning, shooting, archery and a two day expedition remotely overnighting in hammocks and finishing up with an ascent of Snowdon. All of this is being run 'in house' and therefore the 9 days all in costs £140 per head. Authorisations are pretty easy to gain frankly if you are at the required standard, and you shouldn't 't need to part with personal cash to gain them, nor too much of your free time.

- Involve the activities that you are enthusiastic about in the programme- i guarantee it that your enthusiasm will be passed onto the scouts, and they will have a good time no matter what the weather!

-Don't expect too much thanks or even being told they enjoyed themselves from teenagers- it won't be forthcoming and you will only get demoralised! Take the fact that they keep turning up every week and start to bring their mates along as a pat on the back!

All the above are obviously my own thoughts and feelings- everyone does things their own way, and they are all equally valid.....