Survival Tactics
This past meeting (10/5/10) happened to be the first one held in the month of October, which is usually the time when all sorts of scary things start to happen, such as pumpkins suddenly appearing outside of houses and Kings Island advertising the heck out of its “Halloween Haunt” once again. In the spirit of being scared, it seems natural that the camp out for this month is the (in)famous “Survivor” camp out, which most of this meeting was focused on planning out.
Before the planning could begin, Greg B. held a skill session on making survival shelters that would be necessary if stuck in the middle of nowhere for a multitude of reasons, one of the biggest being to keep oneself warm at night without a tent or sleeping bag. This was very important for the new scouts, who probably haven’t had to make survival shelters before, as well as the older scouts in the idea that this skill session was a “refresher” course on how to keep their butts dry over two cold October nights.
After shelter building 101, the scouts separated into three different groups according to how they were going on the Survivor camp out to plan. For those reading who do not know what the Survivor camp out is, the term “camp out” doesn’t apply so much as does “where several scouts (and maybe a hapless Scoutmaster or two) are almost literally dumped out of a car in the middle of nowhere and left to survive on their own for two days in the wild with nothing but the ten scout essentials, some plastic lining for drum barrels, and the clothes on their back.” Parents of the newer scouts need not worry, as the actual “Survivor” portion of the camp out is restricted to those scouts who are at least First Class. Anybody who is not First Class will not be left to fend for themselves; rather they will get tents and be able to bring enough food for the weekend. Oh, and plenty of willing adults will always be around along with at least one older scout for protection and for working on requirements. In a change from the usual way Survivor is held, the two scouts in each tent will share individual grubmaster duties (i.e. one handles the food for lunch, the other will take care of dinner, etc.) with everybody having to cook over an open fire as opposed to using propane stoves, all in observation of making things a little more “survival”-like for the young scouts but not to the point where they’re using each other to fight off rabid bunnies (see inset picture).
The third group was of scouts who weren’t going on the camp out for various reasons of varying legitimacy.
As the planning came to a close the infamous “thing” came out of the quartermaster’s office for a few rounds of “Swing the Thing”. Things started off well, but towards the end some of the newer scouts kept on jumping back into the game despite being rendered out more than enough times. As a round of Swing the Thing cannot be finished until only one person is left standing, this prolonged the game and rendered getting “out” a moot point, so much so that SPL Alex eventually called the game for that reason. With the troop settling down, final announcements were given and everybody circled up. During the Scoutmaster’s “minute”, the scouts demonstrated somewhat remedial counting skills to go with the lack of geometry skills when some people got confused in a reciting of the ten scout essentials. When everybody finally got back on track, the meeting closed with the all-at-once-clap and it was off to home.
-Ben Hallenbeck, Troop Historian
Before the planning could begin, Greg B. held a skill session on making survival shelters that would be necessary if stuck in the middle of nowhere for a multitude of reasons, one of the biggest being to keep oneself warm at night without a tent or sleeping bag. This was very important for the new scouts, who probably haven’t had to make survival shelters before, as well as the older scouts in the idea that this skill session was a “refresher” course on how to keep their butts dry over two cold October nights.
After shelter building 101, the scouts separated into three different groups according to how they were going on the Survivor camp out to plan. For those reading who do not know what the Survivor camp out is, the term “camp out” doesn’t apply so much as does “where several scouts (and maybe a hapless Scoutmaster or two) are almost literally dumped out of a car in the middle of nowhere and left to survive on their own for two days in the wild with nothing but the ten scout essentials, some plastic lining for drum barrels, and the clothes on their back.” Parents of the newer scouts need not worry, as the actual “Survivor” portion of the camp out is restricted to those scouts who are at least First Class. Anybody who is not First Class will not be left to fend for themselves; rather they will get tents and be able to bring enough food for the weekend. Oh, and plenty of willing adults will always be around along with at least one older scout for protection and for working on requirements. In a change from the usual way Survivor is held, the two scouts in each tent will share individual grubmaster duties (i.e. one handles the food for lunch, the other will take care of dinner, etc.) with everybody having to cook over an open fire as opposed to using propane stoves, all in observation of making things a little more “survival”-like for the young scouts but not to the point where they’re using each other to fight off rabid bunnies (see inset picture).
The third group was of scouts who weren’t going on the camp out for various reasons of varying legitimacy.As the planning came to a close the infamous “thing” came out of the quartermaster’s office for a few rounds of “Swing the Thing”. Things started off well, but towards the end some of the newer scouts kept on jumping back into the game despite being rendered out more than enough times. As a round of Swing the Thing cannot be finished until only one person is left standing, this prolonged the game and rendered getting “out” a moot point, so much so that SPL Alex eventually called the game for that reason. With the troop settling down, final announcements were given and everybody circled up. During the Scoutmaster’s “minute”, the scouts demonstrated somewhat remedial counting skills to go with the lack of geometry skills when some people got confused in a reciting of the ten scout essentials. When everybody finally got back on track, the meeting closed with the all-at-once-clap and it was off to home.
-Ben Hallenbeck, Troop Historian
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