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5 October 2008

Cubs: Outdoor Skills

Posted by admin under: Outings .

What a strange mix of the great and the annoying. The event worked, but there was a blustery drizzle that put a literal damper on everything. Wait. Back up.

I was in charge of our October Pack event: Outdoor Skills Workshop. This is a retread of an event Mrs. Admin and I did twice before for our Girl Scout troop. I decided to condense the time frame because the Cub Scouts are younger than our Girl Scouts and also we’re trying not to culture shock our Pack who probably hasn’t had an event this involved in a long time.

Even though this is the Pack my older son was in years ago and we know the couple who basically run everything we still feel like newcomers because it has been so long and the size of the pack has dwindled in the intervening years. So, I tapped a Boy Scout (older brother of one of my Tigers) and two Girl Scouts (my daughter and her best friend one of her best friends [I forgot about the politics of teen-age social dynamics and how I shouldn't presume on her view of her relationships] in my Girl Scout troop) to help teach the classes.

The girls came over on Friday so I could run them through their schedule and listen to their technique of teaching and give them some adjustments. The girls are Cadette level Girl Scouts (basically middle school age) and have a lot of experience. They went through a typical packing list stressing things most new-timers don’t think of like a hat with a wide brim all around, knit cap to keep warm and the importance of dressing in layers. Then they had their group put up a small tent. I’ve noticed that a lot of parents don’t really let their boys help out with that part very much so it would be neat if the boys had this class where their parents weren’t allowed to interfere and they could learn how to do it (keeping in mind that there are a variety of tent styles). Then the girls discussed sleeping pads and sleeping bags, stressing the difference from slumber bags. Finally they rounded their class up with showing different styles of building a campfire and the difference between tinder, kindling, and fuel (big pieces of wood) although the boys didn’t get a chance to light it (we’ll save that for an actual campout). They had examples of everything to show and pass around. I know the tent set-up was one boy’s favorite part of the day because he hadn’t been able to do it before and finally felt victorious when he was able to succeed at the training.

After I was satisfied the girls knew how to teach their lesson and keep it within the 40 minute time period allotted to them I let them go off and do their best friend girl thing while I packed up the equipment necessary for the following day.

Mrs. Admin created lesson plans and packets to hand out to each participant and then collated and stapled them together. It took me about 10 seconds to type that sentence, but it took about a week of work for her to do all that because she’s detail oriented and likes things to be as good as possible (and I got her so you can’t have her. ).

We assembled at the church on Saturday and handed out parking passes to the location we were doing our lessons at. Here is where the weather stabbed me in the back because I had checked the weather channel which had assured me that there would be morning clouds that would clear off and reveal sunny weather later. No dice. Actually, the wind rose and we started getting a drizzle that hit you from the side. Cancel the event? Naw. It’s just a little rain.

While Mrs. Admin did a basic outdoor spiel about leave no trace, hugging a tree if you get lost, and passed out whistles to all the kids the other instructors and I set up the stations. First was Mrs. Admin’s cooking station including getting the charcoal going so that she could walk the adults through dutch-oven cooking. The Girl Scouts went off to set up their station and I took my Boy Scout and we set up ours (put a bag of ropes and a bag of first aid kits on a table. Not too hard).

The day was round-robin style: 3 stations, 3 groups. One group was adults because many Cub parents don’t have a lot or any camping experience and they’re required to be on every campout with their sons so it behooved us to make sure they were taught the same things the boys were learning (from an adult perspective). We had an older group and a younger group. My philosophy is that Cub Scouts is all about family so the sisters of the boys were allowed to sign up and participate, too, but I will put focus on the boys if I have limited time. Permission slips take care of liability concerns. Plus these people are my friends for the most part.

I taught knots: square knots only for the Cubs; more advanced knots for adults (makes them look knowledgeable to their kids when they already know the knots the boys will learn in Boy Scouts). We then went into basic first aid and I gave them a $2 first aid kit and then practiced cleaning their pretend wound and applying antiseptic and a band-aid. We finally wrapped up with going over knife skills although the boys didn’t get a chance to use the knives because there wasn’t enough time.

The groups changed every forty minutes and we all ended up at the cooking station where we enjoyed the dutch-oven food started by the adults and the spaghetti-o’s and salad that the Cub Scouts had prepared. I miscalculated amounts and we ended up having purple water instead of grape drink. Oh well. By then we were all a bit tired of the wind and rain even though we’d had shelter under the California Live Oaks. So, lunch went quickly. The adults packed up while the kids hunted up trash and after washing their hands were rewarded with a couple of cookies.

By the time we made it home we were in high spirits because we were toasty and the event had been successful. Boys had learned skills they’d never learned before. Quite a few requirements were accomplished with only the boys’ lack of books preventing them from being signed off (live and learn).

Now we have a tidy stack of folders with instructions on how to do this event again should we decide to do so in the future (I’m almost certain we will). Next we get to think about November’s beach camp-out (gotta love that California weather). Mrs. Admin’s in charge of that one.

*sniff* I love the smell of boys learning outdoor skills in the morning.

Update: Although it does resemble the odor of mud and sticky candies.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Dutch Oven Temperature Regulation
• Cubs: Sand, Sand Everywhere And Not a Drop to Drink
• Knife Control Spreading in Massachusetts?
• Cubs: Tigers are Easily Amused
• Ding Dong Cobbler

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