Outdoor Skills 2008 - Carlisle Report

Dear Scouter Bill,

This is my report for the 2008 Fall Skills Camp. The camp was held at Valens, which was great, as it gave us a change from Manitou, and a picnic shelter for meals and activities. This was especially good since it did rain a fair bit. The only drawback to having the camp at Manitou was that some people had trouble finding it. Combining patrols also worked great.

My patrol (Carlisle) seemed to have a good time. Our menu, which I made and did the shopping for, was nutritious and easy to make. It wasn't exactly origonal - I got most of the ideas from previous camps - but it gave us the energy we needed. I also ended up doing alot of the cooking, but everyone was helpful. I think the two best things were the popcorn from Saturday's mug-up and the one pot dinner. Our equipment was good, except we didn't have dishbins, but we got by using other containers. The tent went up without trouble, even though it was raining, and everybody stayed dry.

The activities were very good, and I think the idea to have the people who had already been to the camp got seperate activities went over very well. The first year activities included knots and lashing, fire building, first aid and maps and compass were all fun and I learned alot from them. The fire challenge (which we won), the geocashing, and the air photo challenge (which we also won) were awesome too. I think everybody had a great time, despite the weather, and I will definatly be back next year.

Yis,

Andrew E - APL, Falcons

More Outdoor Skills Camp 2008

Dear Scouter Bill,

I am writing a report about Outdoors skills camp. This year we were up at Valens conservation area. At this camp there were 3 patrols and there was the hungry hippos and the wild fox teaming up as a patrol, the geckos and the buffalo wings teaming up as a patrol, and last but no least Carlisle. I was in the wild fox/hungry hippo's patrols.

I did some of the cooking for my patrol this weekend. I was on clean up for lunch. We had hot dogs so we only needed to clean tongs and a big pot that has the hot dogs. I was also on Sunday's breakfast clean up. We had to clean the stuff we cooked the bacon on and all the knives and whatnot we used for breakfast. For breakfast we also had bread and toasted some bagels. I helped cook dinner. We had riblets that Greg cooked on the barbeque. Also he heated up the garlic bread. Daniel H. cooked the instant mash potatoes. I cooked the mixed vegetables. Overall I thought the food was pretty good.

There were four groups for the activities. One group was the people who has been to camp before. Then there were 3 groups of the people that ha not been to the camp before. If you had not been to the camp before there were 3 activities and they were lashing, fire starting, and compasses and maps. All of those things were lead by Scouters. The senior people talked about menu planning for different camps. For example depending on what season and if you have to hike stuff in or if somebody is allergic to some kind of food you bring in different kinds of food. We also did a quick thing on stoves, mantels, and lanterns. As well a bit of our time on sanitation. Then after that we went on a hike and noticed about the different types of trees, different types of animals and what trees we don't get in Burlington.

We left no trace by picking up all the garbage and taking down the tents and packing all the troop gear into the troop bins.

By Sam - Wild Fox

Outdoor Skills Camp 2008

This year’s outdoor skills camp was held at Valens conservation area. I think it was nice change from being at Manitou, I personal preferred Valens over Manitou because Valens had the picnic shelter and in Manitou we had to make the shelters. Another nice change was that the senior scouts got to do a different program then the first years. It made it more fun not having to do the same thing yet again this year. Yet the picnic shelter wasn’t my favourite part, I would have to say my favourite part was the hike that the senior scouts went on in the afternoon. It was an awesome way to check out the natural environment in our local community .I also found that it was a fun way to learn the plants and few animals that were there, i enjoyed seeing them in the nature then on a print out. The best part about the hike was that it didn’t rain while we were on our hike. It pretty much only rained while we slept and ate.

I found this outdoor skills camp to be more relaxed than others. The leaders seemed to be just as laid back as the scout or even more then the scouts. The food was awesome like always. I have to say my favourite thing cook was the popcorn made by the Carlisle patrol for their Saturday night mug up I found that awesome, but I’m sure the only reason I loved it was because I love popcorn! My group did really good to when it came to meals I loved our taco dinner we had it was awesome! I hope to go back to Valens conservation area again for different camps.

- Bleu, Troop Leader