Summer Camp at Woodruff Scout Camp was absolutely incredible this year! Taking 51 scouts and 16 adults was a huge deal for the troop, we were the largest troop in camp this year and had the most leaders. There are too many people to thank one by one, but to name a few…, especially Mrs. Shumpert who handles all the all the planning and input of schedules, Mrs. Arkenberg who painstakingly reviewed everyone’s health forms, and all the leaders and parents who helped get scouts to and from camp. For a brief overview of camp, check out Col Tom’s nightly summaries:
Sunday: We easily sped through in-processing. Our Troop was too big for the benches used for the picture, so our camp arrival photo was taken in the amphitheater. The boys had plenty of free time to set up camp and have fun in the afternoon. We had chicken fingers in camp for dinner followed by orientation meetings for leaders and the opening campfire.
Merit Badge classes begin in the morning.
Monday: Today we started the regular schedule. Rising at 6:30 the boys spiffed up the camp for inspection and scored an 85 – pretty good, but we need to average 90 out of 100 for the top award. Breakfast was French toast and sausage followed by merit badge sessions until lunch. New lunch procedures were a real hit with very short lines at a number of kiosks. Most finished lunch before we would previously have been entering the mess hall. Micky did a great job teaching all the academic portions of the First Aid MB today, tomorrow the boys will finish the hands on portions. After that was free time until diner (chicken fried steak) and more free time later. We played field games, went swimming, played Frisbee golf, mountain biking, kayaking, stand up paddle boarding, and board games in camp. Of course everyone didn’t do all of these, but all had fun.
Tuesday: The boys scored 95% on today’s inspection and are back on track for the streamer. After a full morning of merit badges and a quick turkey sandwich for lunch we finished the First Aid MB in camp and were able to start the handicraft drop in Merit badges. Looks like some of those projects may be getting finished at home. Today was Order of the Arrow (BSA national honor society) day at camp. Troop 2319 was called out in front of the entire camp to be presented with the OA Unit of Excellence Award. Less than 1% of all Troops nationally earn this award so we felt very honored to be publicly recognized.
Wednesday: Congratulations to the 6 adults who completed leadership training today! We will greatly benefit as a unit by being able to have multiple ASMs per patrol. The Scouts continued to work on advancements with the younger Scouts also completing the orienteering and 5 mile hike requirements. The 6 foot long, 2 inch diameter rat snake near the adult tents gave us a bit of excitement today. Scorpio came over from the nature lodge thrilled to add it to his collection. We scored 95 again on the camp site inspection. That combined with the older Scouts completing the Ranger campsite improvement project makes Honor Troop a virtual certainty. The boys are now focused on the top award of Scouting traditions. The adults not in training completed the geocaching course and other items to help toward that goal. We welcomed Nick and Greg to camp today. River and horse rides Thursday.
Thursday: What a full day! Many brave souls went to the lake for the polar bear plunge at 6am then dragged their shivering bodies to a breakfast of sausage biscuits. The inspection was an 88% today so our average currently stands at 90.25%. We need a 90% on Friday’s inspection or we will fall short of our goal and miss out on the award. Some of the Merit Badges are already complete. The rest should finish Friday morning except for the handicraft badges where the boys just ran out of time. Lunch was an adventure today. It was delivered to the kiosks late which led to a huge jam at load out for the horse rides and raft trips. After a short delay to ensure everyone was fed, most of the Troop boarded busses for their off camp activities. Devin led a battle bots team and took 2nd place out of about 20 teams. Many adventures were had and the boys can’t wait to tell you all about them. The late departure led to a late return, but the adults were able to enjoy a steak dinner and the boys were able to do open boating after dinner. Sugaring them all up with cobbler as I write this. Friday will be our last. The mile swim, inspection results and closing campfire look to be the highlights ahead.
Friday: Another glorious day at Woodruff. Too bad we have to come home – we are getting kind of used to this. Most merit badges were finished, but some are partials and will need to be completed in the coming weeks. We had a great showing at the mile swim and the camp wide games. The campfire was a bit anticlimactic though. Then we picked up our results. Did we do well on the inspection and earn the Scouting Traditions award? How much bling did we really earn? Adult awards will be presented Monday the rest you can find out from your triumphant Scout at pickup.
Full Photo Album:https://photos.app.goo.gl/LnBMJ6AqwYPBW5ou5
Highlights from the Week
