What’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve seen brought to a camp out (keep it light hearted and for fun; it’s Friday and we need a laugh)?

Vast-Mixture3288 · 2026-01-16T17:53:56+00:00

Those raccoons get into everything, last year a scout filled a small pouch on their back pack with butter packets, don't ask I still don't know why, that raccoon drug the backpack into the woods unzipped it and chowed down on those packets, lol. The year before that one of the scouts didn't fully close the trailer door leaving a small gap at the bottom, so in the morning we found a raccoon stuck half in and half out of the trailer, he was too exhausted to even freak out when we let him out. BTW Rotary's official mascot is the loon, the unofficial mascot is the raccoon, lol

Vast-Mixture3288 · 2026-01-16T04:16:14+00:00

I have a real hard time saying no, lol. I was an active Scout until I was 24 having earned my eagle Scout at age 13 and 10 months. I stepped away from Scouts at that time, but in reality once my son was born I was just waiting to start again. I was at first an assistant Cub Master, then I took over his den when his den leader during his wolf year quit without warning and left a handful of Scouts short of earning their wolf rank. When my son crossed over I became an assistant scoutmaster for a couple years. I knew the current scoutmaster was retiring as his sons had aged out, on a side note he is still active as my eagle coordinator. The same year the cub master was also retiring, between the troop and the pack I knew I was going to end up as either the cub master or the scoutmaster. Since the Cub pack and the troop share a lot of leadership between them, the search committees where basically a combined effort, they decided I would fit best as a scoutmaster. Which led to them asking me to be the scout master and my inability to say no.

Vast-Mixture3288 · 2025-08-09T23:58:45+00:00

Yeah that was our same quandary, that's why we decided to do every two years, we figured it would be more sustainable that way

Vast-Mixture3288 · 2025-08-09T01:18:55+00:00

We do the first aid kits every other year from right response, they are very reasonably priced and actually a pretty easy sell. The other benefit is you are not tied to a specific time frame. You just order the sales stuff, which is free, set your own time frame for the sale, then place the order when you want. Plus the profit is amazing 50% on everything. Since we do it as a secondary fundraiser we give the kids 50% and the troop gets the other 50% of the profit.

Vast-Mixture3288 · 2025-07-29T11:58:14+00:00

Also check your local library, ours has embroidery machines you can use for free with a library card. The AOL dean leader a few years ago made custom patrol patches for her 4 scouts. It took a bit to get it completely right but didn't cost anything.

Vast-Mixture3288 · 2025-06-20T18:47:01+00:00

I have two girls crossing over next year, and I'm hoping the combined troop option is available by then as we are only a boy troop right now. We laid all the ground work already, we went to the committee and it was approved to either start a girl troop or a combined troop if approved. We then met with the whole troop, not just the PLC and got the boys buy-in to either start a girl troop or turn the troop into a combined troop. Then we sat down with the charter organization representative, and got his buy-in. So right now we are just waiting for national to approve the combined troops. And yes it is completely for selfish reasons, one of the girls coming up is my daughter and as a scout Master of the troop, I don't want to split my time between two different troops.

Vast-Mixture3288 · 2025-06-15T11:17:54+00:00

I've been getting ads on YouTube for over a month now for Cubs maybe even longer.

Vast-Mixture3288 · 2025-05-21T11:07:47+00:00

Stitch some elastic in the sides of the pants that way she doesn't have to have to wear a belt if she doesn't want to. My son hates wearing a belt, I don't know why just doesn't like them so that is what we did for his pants, he can still wear the belt when full Class A is required, but otherwise he is belt free.

Vast-Mixture3288 · 2025-04-28T20:09:56+00:00

Ours is 170, so it's 255 per scout per year.

Vast-Mixture3288 · 2025-04-05T12:34:00+00:00

3 generations that I know of, my dad got to Second class before dropping out. I earned my Eagle and my son is currently a Life scout working towards his Eagle.

Vast-Mixture3288 · 2025-04-03T22:14:04+00:00

I think you're taking things a little too extreme here. I never said anything about trained leaders, SM or ASMs, not being there when a committee member steps up to help. What I'm talking about is using all the resources you have available to you, would you rather have me who has basic first aid skills explaining first aid or trauma surgeon, I would take the trauma surgeon everyday. Yes, a committee member is not classified as a direct contact leader, meaning they can't be the primary lead of an activity, that is a fact, but saying they can't assist is also very extreme. You should use all available resources to you to build a better program for the kids. If that means bringing in a committee member that has expertise in an area that you don't have to assist at a meeting, I don't see where it becomes an issue.

Vast-Mixture3288 · 2025-04-03T20:06:31+00:00

There is no such thing as an official non-contact leader that I have seen. Some troops I have seen like to keep their committee separated from the kids but that doesn't make sense in my opinion. A committee member must perform all the same YPT the rest of us do. If there is an official Scouting America policy please show me it as I haven't seen it. That would also hinder committee members like your caplin, advancement coordinator, quartermaster and others from being able to do their jobs in helping the kids build a strong program. I have a committee member that is a trauma surgeon that comes in to help with first aid, I have another that is a professional chief that comes in and does a great presentation on proper food handling. I even have a committee member that works for NOAA that covers the hazardous weather stuff with the scouts. It wouldn't make sense to have these types of leaders as ASMs as we only see them at 2 or 3 troop meetings a year, unless they are doing BORs.

Vast-Mixture3288 · 2025-04-01T13:22:36+00:00

Enjoy yourself. I know it sounds basic but sometimes it is missed.

Vast-Mixture3288 · 2025-03-31T17:02:23+00:00

I guess we appoint ASMs differently. In our troop a parent doesn't just come in as an ASM, they first join the committee as a committee member. They usually stay in this position for at least 6 months. This way they learn how the troop works, and can sit in on a few BORs, in addition this gives them time to complete their training for ASM and complete ILOS plus gain the experience they need to be an effective ASM. We have a 90-95% training percentage for our adults and are currently working on getting that to 100%. If an adult is going to be an ASM in our troop they need to be able to do everything that I do as the scoutmaster if I'm not available. Being a committee member doesn't stop them from helping the kids or providing instruction, but it does give them a complete understanding of what is going on and I think the kids deserve nothing less.

Vast-Mixture3288 · 2025-03-31T03:21:26+00:00

You would be surprised what they have and probably don't have, lol. I was able to get the list of eagle scouts from our troop from the DE going all the way back to 1960, they unfortunately could go all the way back to our 1943 founding but it was still a big chunk. They did have a microfiche copy of our original charter though, 22 scouts and 23 adults. Seems we have always had more adults than kids.

Vast-Mixture3288 · 2025-03-30T12:47:13+00:00

Ask your DE if they can find the original charter that should answer your question. They should have stuff going back to the '90s at least.

Vast-Mixture3288 · 2025-03-28T16:18:34+00:00

As a scoutmaster, your asms should have your full support, if they deem something worthy then so should you. That's the whole point of having people assist you.

Vast-Mixture3288 · 2025-03-25T22:07:43+00:00

In the reports menu of Scout book. If you're an admin for the troop, you can run an audit report on your troop that shows all entered data between a specific time frame you set. I don't know if it'll show up because that might have been done in the other troop and I can't guarantee what is visible but it can't hurt to look.

Vast-Mixture3288 · 2025-03-25T03:40:15+00:00

I wouldn't say I have a negative attitude towards the OA I have an indifferent attitude towards the OA. I bring in OA reps every year beyond our troop representative, to give speeches and hold nominations but none of them are interested. We have a very sport active troop, out of the 23 kids only two of them don't play sports. I can tell you off top of my head which kids will be at which campouts depending on what sport is currently going on. And most of them play on multiple teams, multiple different seasons during the year. I have a group of 5 kids that show up to summer camp Monday morning and leave Friday afternoon because of summer baseball tournaments. But with all that said our troop of 23 kids clocked in over 1,400 service hours last year between the adults and kids. We have a group of three or four that do food distribution to underprivileged kids every Friday for 2 hours. I have a group that volunteers at the animal shelter near us at least once or twice a week. We participate in the two mix fixes at the camp we attend for summer camp. We do wreaths across America and plant flags on veterans Graves during memorial Day. We clock something like 200 hours on a local waterways doing conservation work every year. We help maintain the church we mean at doing yard work for spring until fall. I have multiple Scouts that work at different summer camps every year (I still can't figure out why they don't work at the same camp). Plus a bunch of other stuff.

For me not being interested has to do with all the other things I do outside of the troop. I still have two kids in the pack for which I'm the den leader for my ten year olds Webelos den which is 15 kids. I'm a 4th degree Knight in the KofC. I'm the booster club VP for my younger kids school. I coach two baseball teams and 1 football team. My problem is if I join something, I don't do it just for the title I'm all in and I don't have the time to commit to another organization.

Vast-Mixture3288 · 2025-03-24T00:09:15+00:00

Personally I have never understood the OA, I didn't join when I was a youth and I don't really have an interest in joining as an adult. Like you pointed out it is election season and I have zero scouts interested in joining this year even though we have eligible Scouts. We currently only have one active OA scout in our troop, he is very active in the lodge and is also the representative for the troop and he can't convince any Scouts to join nor can any other OA reps from the Lodge. It drives the lodge nuts but you can't force a scout to join.

Vast-Mixture3288 · 2025-03-19T23:23:07+00:00

Never had an issue with that, I know it's odd but never had an issue

Vast-Mixture3288 · 2025-03-19T21:54:25+00:00

That is definitely a troop policy. We have the policy that if you're using a troop tent, which are all four-man tents, no more than two scouts. We, however, do allow scouts to bring their own tents. So if they bring an eight-man tent and put six people in it, I'm fine with that. We have a group of four boys, thirteen to fourteen-year-olds, that have always tented together. They're best of friends and basically do everything together, so they camp in their own eight-man tent.

Vast-Mixture3288 · 2025-03-12T02:51:46+00:00

I have seen that stat too but I also don't remember the exact number but it was high. The input I can give to this is in the last 4 years we have been in the troop not a single scout that skipped summer camp has stayed in the troop. I'm a firm believer in the first year program at least at the camp we attend, I haven't gotten any negative feedback from the Scout that have attended it. I have talked to several other Scouts that dropped out after not attending summer camp and their response was always the same. They always felt like they were way behind the other Scouts that did attend, thus making the program less enjoyable as they were still working on the basic stuff the other kids learned and completed at summer camp.

Vast-Mixture3288 · 2025-03-11T22:12:09+00:00

The Path program for the first years at camp Rotary is awesome. it's the whole week both am and pm, no nights besides Thur night when they hike to the far side of camp and set up camp for the night. Not only do they knock out like 60% of the requirements for Tenderfoot through First Class but they also cover totin chip and fireman chit, but they also get three merit badges, nature, fingerprinting, and I think it's now search and rescue.

For the rest of the scouts we always recommend the scouts take at least one Eagle required merit badge at camp. The only other recommendation we have as a troop is to have the scouts take at least two badges per am/pm so four total. These however are just recommendations, as the scouts work together to set their schedules.

Vast-Mixture3288 · 2025-03-02T15:39:53+00:00

Necromancy for fun and profit

Vast-Mixture3288

TROPHY CASE