monday flashback from friday 02.12.10

So, I totally spaced on doing a flashback photo on friday. Spent a lot of the day getting ready to go to Pasadena and Studio City.

Dropped the kids off in Pasadena at Grandma and Grandpa's house, so Anna and I could go to a wedding reception in Studio City. We ended up staying the night in Pasadena. On Saturday we spent the day going to the zoo, eating lunch in Ernie Jr.'s Taco House, and visiting the compound in El Monte. Then we went home and to bed.

Aaaaanyhow, what about a picture?...

I spent the day preparing a presentation on the life of Baden-Powell, the founder of the scouting movement, to give to my scouts this weekend. Here's a picture of B-P blowing a Kudu horn. It's a horn made from the horn of a Kudu. It was the way the Matabele tribe would warn each other of danger in Africa in the late 1800s. B-P used it to open Scout Jamborees and Wood Badge Training courses.

I know, pretty boring stuff. But it's what's on my mind.

Went fishin'

As I mentioned Friday, I went on a fishing trip with the scouts from our ward. I'm the scoutmaster. We went to Silverwood Lake.

We stayed at a campsite there at the lake. We got up at 5am to eat breakfast (instant oatmeal), so we could be ready to be at the lake by 6am.

Got to the dock we would be fishing from at about 6:25. Their were probably two groups on the dock before us. I'm sure things were pretty calm before we got there.

Lines were hitting the water about 5 minutes later, and the anticipation was high that we would be catching fish soon!

It didn't take long before we knew it was going to be a long morning.

Lots of casting and reeling, but no catching. The one group to our left caught a single fish. looked to be about 8 inches or so long. The group to our right said they caught about 4, but they were little, and not worth keeping.

After a few hours, one of our scouts caught about a foot long trout on catfish bait. Yep, you read that right. It renewed our spirits that there would be some catching along with our fishing. But nope, that wasn't the case.

Of our group of 15, the one trout was the only fish caught.

We packed up our stuff at 11am, and headed back to our campsite to break down camp and head out.


Oh yeah, the scout that caught the trout didn't even get to take it home. It was put on a stinger and the stringer was tied to the dock. The kids that were with us, and the scouts, kept pulling the fish up to look at it from the stringer. And each time they did, the knot became a little looser until someone pulled the fish up, then put it back, and the fish and the stringer both went in the water, never to be seen again.

I did get a picture though.

It was a good trip. We didn't do much catching, but the boys had a good experience using the rods, and I think the next fishing trip will be more productive.

Gone Fishing!

In a few hours I'll be leaving on a Scout overnighter. We're fishing at Silverwood Lake tomorrow. We're hoping to get the boys to pass off a bunch of requirements for the fishing merit badge. Primarily, they'll each need to catch 2 different types of fish. Of the fish they catch (if they catch any), they need to successfully release one, and they need to clean and cook another. The rest of the requirements don't need them to be at the lake to complete.

This will be my first overnighter as the scoutmaster (other than scout camp). So we'll see how that goes. I think we'll have 6 or 7 boys going, and there's about 4 adults going.

I don't think I'll be much of a help with the fishing part. I haven't fished since I was a kid. And even then, my dad took care of most everything, so I'm not even sure how to set up a good working "rig"?

Anyhow, if I get a chance to put a line in the water, I'll let you know how that goes. I have a feeling I'll be spending a lot of time helping boys with the little bit of knowledge I've pulled from the fishing merit badge pamphlet.

On the brain!

As you may know, I went to Boy Scout camp for a whole week recently, and since then, I've had scouting on the brain. It's pretty hard to escape. Even if I'm not thinking about scouting, I'll realize it, and then there it is again.

Yesterday, I got a call from a mom of one of my scouts. She needed some names of merit badge counselors for her son so he could work on them during our stake high adventure trip to Mt. Whitney. I had to dig a little to find a partial list. I still can't find my complete list.

I also started the paperwork to turn into the scout office, for the merit badges the scouts earned at scout camp. I need a couple of other signatures, so that won't be done till Sunday. (I'm not into driving all over town for signatures.) I also had to fill out a new adult volunteer application as a scoutmaster. Wish someone would have told me that when I got this new calling. Luckily, Anna (our ward's primary president, so she's over cubs) just worked with our district scout executive to finish the cub scout recharter (that was suppose to be done back in March, but the person in charge of doing it moved and didn't tell anyone they didn't do it.) and she new I needed to fill out a new application for my new position. Oh yeah, because of the cub scout recharter stuff, and because Anna's the primary president for our ward, she got put as both the cub scout and boy scout committee chairperson. That's a lot of responsibility, but I think she can handle it. She'll have to get really good at delegation.

Another reason I can't get scouting out of my head is because we are having a Court of Honor at the end of the month, and I'll need to put that together. Normally that falls on the committee chairperson, but I volunteered to do it. It's always good, as a scoutmaster, to stay on your committee chairperson's good side, especially when it's your wife! This Court of Honor is traditionally our biggest of the year because the boys just completed scout camp and have a lot of merit badges and hopefully rank advancements that need to be given out, as well as sharing what they did at camp. Plus, being the new scoutmaster, and recently going through leader training, I'm trying to build a better scouting program in our ward, and I'll need to do a good job at the Court of Honor to set the tone for the coming year.

It might sound weird, "the coming year", because I'm not referring to 2009 so much as I'm referring to the 2008-2009 school year. I've decided to run the scout year as the same as the school year. As the new school year approaches, the school schedule is finalized, and now I know when their days off are, etc. To run the scout year at the beginning of the new calendar year means I don't know about the second half of the year as far as school schedule goes. Plus, running the scout year along with the school year makes scout camp our big end of the year activity. At the very least, I'm giving it a try for this year. We'll see how it goes. If it's too confusing to the boys and parents, I might have to revert back to going with the calendar year. So we'll see.

And finally, I probably can't get scouting out of my head because all I thought about for a week was scouting. It still hasn't even been a week since I got home. But maybe if I get some of it out, that will help. So here's my week at scout camp report (abbreviated)...

We went to scout camp a day early. That means Saturday. Check-in is on Sunday afternoon, and because we don't want to travel on the Sabbath, we go a day earlier than go a day late. That means we need to bring our our meals for Sat. dinner, and Sunday breakfast and lunch. That's not a big problem, it's almost like any other overnighter we do.

The boys ended up bringing a lot of snacks and junk food. Next year I might have to put a limit on how much they can bring. Even one of the adult leaders brought an ice chest full of sodas.

Saturday night the boys were out of control (not literally). They were loud and obnoxious. There's a time and a place to have that kind of fun, but during quiet time, before lights out, isn't one of them. I had to walk over to their tents 3 or 4 times. At this point I'm thinking, "what have I gotten myself into?" I had to pull the "I'll move your tent to the other side of camp.", to quiet them down, and that seemed to work.

Then Sunday, we went to "the bowl" to have a church service. We met with some LDS staffers and another LDS troop that was up there a day earlier too. It was about 40 minutes long, and helped it feel like Sunday. Somewhere between that and registering for camp and finalizing our weeks schedule, a couple of the boys have a falling out. Unfortunately, they're tentmates. One boy wants to be in another tent with some other boys. I say no, because we can't have someone in a tent alone. He tries to make another boy switch tents with him, that boy says no. They come to me and complain. "He won't switch with me. Will you tell him to switch with me?" and "He's trying to make me change tent's, I don't want to change tents." I can't tell you how happy I was that they had this problem! It gave me a chance to use some of my leader training... "You guys work this out. Let me know what you come up with." and I was done. By the end of the day, when it was time to turn in for the night, I asked what sleeping arrangements had been made? The two boys that were at odds had made up, and everyone was staying in their original tents. A small victory for a new leader.

Finally it's monday! That means the boys go to their merit badge classes! And I get to finally enjoy some quiet in camp. Every one in out troop had archery and rifle. After that they all had their own things; canoeing, horsemanship, first aid, Indian lore, climbing, camping, bird study, reptile and amphibian study, nature, environmental science, and woodworking. Those were the merit badges they signed up for. They could have spent their free time working on other merit badges too, but all of my guys usually chose to go to the rifle or archery range to do more shooting. I told them that was fine, as long as they were going to finish their merit badges.

Most days of the week were the same. A few of the days, I signed us up for some troop activities. As a troop we went to the rifle range, the wrangler or horse area to ride some horses. I think for all but one of our guys, this was their first time ever riding a horse. We also did "low cope" which is a set of team building activities, and another day we did "high cope" which is a set of high wires and obstacles that they maneuver through, ending with a zip-line slide. The boys did very well with those activities.

Once we were in the camp routine, the days went my much quicker. Some other items of note: We chose to do "Jamboree" feed over "central" feed. That means that the camp provides us with our food for the day, and it's up to us to store it and cook it ourselves. We do that for a couple reasons. First, that's how our troop has done it for so long, it's a tradition. And second, it gives the guys a more full camping experience. Also it's about $35 cheaper per boy that way.

I brought an air mattress to sleep on during camp. The first night, I roll it out, grab one of the two air pumps I brought, and turn it on to blow up the mattress... no juice! I thought for sure both pumps were fully charged! I grab the second pump thinking if this one is pooped out too, this is going to be a really long week. Luckily it's got a full charge and the mattress inflates just fine. I go to bed. At about 6am, I realize my hips are on the ground. The mattress has a pin-hole leak somewhere. Just great. Luckily for me, the air mattress pump kept it's charge all week, and I was at least able to fall asleep each night on a full mattress. Plus, by about 6am each day, I had a reason to get up.

The boys got really dirty during the week. You could tell which boys still only wash up because their moms make them. As well as who has chores that they have to do at home. I had to really get on a few of the boys into helping out their chore-mates. I definitely had a few whiners.

I think that's a pretty good over view of my experience. There are a ton of details I left out, so if you want to hear those stories, you'll have to ask about camp next time you see me.

Sorry for the lengthy entry.

My new calling (sort of)...

I'm still the first counselor in the young men's presidency, but instead of being the Varsity Coach, I'm now the Scoutmaster. It was made official a couple sundays ago. (now that I think about it, I need to make sure it gets changed at the scout office too.)

I never thought I'd be a scoutmaster. I only made it to second class as a youth (that's basically nothing). But working with the young men, and helping the previous scoutmaster so closely, it seems a little more do-able.

I was able to go to some "Leader Specific" training last saturday. Training was from 8am to 5pm. There was some really good stuff I learned during the training, and will hopefully be able to put it to some good use in my unit. This Friday night and Saturday, there is some more training. It's called "Outdoor Leader Skills". I'm not sure what we'll be doing, but I'm sure we'll be in the blazing hot sun for a lot of it. (Not really looking forward to that part.)

After that, all I'll need is some training called "New Leader Essentials" and I will be considered "trained" and will get to add a "trained" patch to my uniform. The next "NLE" will hopefully be in August.

Why my sudden interest in going through BSA training? (I was planning to do the training already as a Varsity Coach, but now I'm doing it as a Scoutmaster instead.) I'm doing the training because our YM program isn't going anywhere. The boys aren't really progressing too well, and we've lost a couple of them to inactivity. So as much as I think I know how to run a program, it's not working. Therefore, if the BSA has nearly 100 years of experience of working with boys, and if the church has such a strong tie with the BSA, there must be something there that I'm missing as an adult leader. And let me just say, that even with just my one day of BSA training, I feel like I have a whole new set of "tools" to work with and use. It was quite motivational.

Scout camp is coming up in less than two weeks. I kind of feel like things are mostly in order for that. There are still some things to figure out as a whole, but for the most part, I think we're on the right track. We're going to Camp Tahquitz for scout camp. I'll be incorporating some of my new training before and during camp, and then trying to incorporate as much of it as I can afterward. Then by the first of the next year, hopefully be a fully functioning boy-run program.

Anyway, just thought I'd give a little update on how that was all going.

Not making it to the Rendezvous...

Last year in April, I went to my first scout Mountain Man Rendezvous (MMR). Our BSA council, the California Inland Empire Council, hosts an MMR each year. It's for the Varsity and Venturing Scouts. I didn't know much about it, but I did know about some of the activities:

(the links are from the BSA Imperial Council in San Diego)
Black powder rifle shooting
bow and arrow shooting
tomahawk throw
knife throw
flint and steel
caber toss
rock throw (cannon ball throw)
and others.

That was enough to get the boys interested. Those who attend are encouraged to dress in period clothing (1810-1840), though it's not mandatory.

Also there would be a "trading blanket". The original MMRs were all about trading, their "currency" was what they brought to the rendezvous. Mountain Men (trappers) brought their pelts to trade for their other essentials. At the scout MMR, the boys are encouraged to bring hand made (or not) items to trade for what ever is on the blanket. There were beads and feathers for necklaces, Indian chokers, knives, etc. There were also cans of soda, candy bars, and other snacks. That was the only place to get those items if you didn't bring your own. If you didn't bring items to trade, money was acceptable too.

I helped the young men put together some leather pouches to trade as one of our mutual activities preceding the MMR. Neither young man remembered to bring his pouch.

The 2 boys (out of the 4 that said they were going), had a great time. So did I and the other leader. I also got to do many of the activities the boys did. The other leader was just happy to be out doors, and took a long nap that Saturday afternoon.

This year, the MMR got moved to June 6th & 7th. We put it on the calendar. I had a couple more boys that turned 14 since the last one, but I also had one move, and a couple go less active and decide that they were too cool for church and scouts. On top of that, our scoutmaster was recently put into the bishopric (with no replacement), and the young men's president has had personal family issues that have taken him away from his calling the past month. The former scoutmaster assured me that he'd be able to go to the MMR as the second leader (he went last year too). But about 2 weeks ago he said he'd be gone for work. We're in a struggling ward, so available male leadership is spread pretty thin. Couple that with the few boys that can go, not fully committing to go. "I think so." and "maybe" were the most common replies. Then all of a sudden, with a week before the MMR, 2 of the boys are wondering why we're not planning anything for the MMR? I mentioned their responses to whether or not they were going, and I wasn't going to plan a trip and have no one show up (it's happened before). I gave them 48 hours to recruit one more boy. If they could do that, then I would find another adult. They waited till the last minute and were told maybe by one boy. He would tell them for sure on tuesday and mutual. He didn't show up.

I'm not completely blameless. I've been looking forward to the MMR all year, but with the changes and turmoil in the YM presidency, it's all kind of fallen on me to keep the program going. That includes scout camp that takes place starting the 28th of this month for 7 days. My mind has been overwhelmed with all of it. The scouting doesn't come to me naturally, I didn't do much scouting as a youth myself, and then to have to be a scout leader has not been easy. Because of all of that, the MMR trip needed to come together naturally, and it just didn't. So no Mountain Man Rendezvous for me this year.

There will be another chance for our Varsity scouts to do some of those activities in November. It's called the "Turkey Shoot". Probably because it happens in November, there's no turkey's shot. It's actually a service project to maintain the council's scout camp in the off season, but they get out the bows and arrows, tomahawks, knives, black powder rifles, etc. for the scouts to have another opportunity to do those activities during the year. Our Team (troop) hasn't gone to this in the past, but I think we'll have to this year.

I already had it as a goal for this year, but all of this has reinforced that goal, that I need to be a "trained" scout leader. I'm hoping that receiving such training will help me create a program that runs more naturally and fosters leadership in the young men in our ward. Next Saturday, the 14th, I'll be at training all day, and hopefully the following weekend as well. I think I'll need all I can get before scout camp rolls around.

Wow, this turned into a rather lengthy entry for not having any pictures. Sorry about that.