Scouting

Here is a fun relay game that I came up with to play with the Beavers at Camp Opemikon this past weekend. In a slightly altered form it would be appropriate for just about any aged Scout. At this age it is best to do as a father-and-son relay (or "parent-and-child" if your colony has girls). For older kids you could do real races with heats down to first, second and third place. For Beavers it was not really about winning - just about having fun. The fathers did a lot of the work, but we encouraged them to try as much as possible to just help the Beaver do it himself, and then only do it after a good effort was given. And in the end we did not really keep track of who finished first - but rather, we made sure to give each boy kudos in some way or another. e.g. in each heat one boy would get "furthest distance", another would get "closest to the mark", and another might get "straightest cast".

For Beaver age kids you start out with a rod and reel for each team in the heat - we did 3 at a time. The reel is already attached to the rod, and strung with fishing line, but the line is not strung through the eyes in the rod, and there is no tackle on the end of the line. For older kids you may want to consider having them start with the reel not yet attached to the rod, and have them attach it. Or even go so far as to have them string the reel with line first, and then attach it to the rod. For Beavers it was enough to just have them string the line through the eyes in the rod. Beforehand we showed the fathers how to tie a fisherman's knot.

This weekend we took our Beaver Colony (ages 5 through 7, with some 8 year olds depending on birthdates) to Camp Opemikon - arrived Friday evening and left this morning. I have a lot more to write about our trip, but for the moment I only want to scribe a bit about the Compass Challenge that I came up with as an activity for the boys. Earlier this year we did a bit of compass work with the boys - but at this age anything too complicated can be hit-and-miss. A few of the older boys got it no problem, so I wanted to take the opportunity to do an exercise on compass work while we were at camp. This was my first time at Opemikon, so there was not much I was able to do in advance to prepare for it Hopefully this article will be useful to someone else in my position, in the future.

One of the things I've been trying to do this year is have activities that the older boys can learn quickly and then teach to the younger ones. Scouting is supposed to be in part about leadership, and I think this is a good way to try to teach it to the boys. It is also a useful tool because the other boys seem to behave better when it is one of their peers trying to lead them through an activity, so it is also a bit self-serving. We had about 90 minutes of free time in the program first thing Saturday morning, so I took my 2 boys on a walk through the woods to map out a course. My oldest son is 8 and is a "silver tail" Beaver, which means he is actually of Cub age but still going to beavers. In our case our troop does not have Cubs because we did not have enough interest this year at that age. My son should have "swum up" to cubs about 2 months ago. In any case I lead them through a quick 15 minute course, taking notes as we went along. I then found the other 3 silver tails in our colony and lead them each through it 1 by 1, in most cases with their father tagging along. 2 of the 4 boys got it right away, and later went on to do a very good job of leading their peers through the course, explaining things to them as they went along. As I told the Silvers when I was showing them the course, I did not want them to give the answers to the other Beavers, but rather wanted them to help the other Beavers find the answers themselves.

Those who have been following our site for a while know by now that this year I got our boys (5 and 7 at the time) into Beavers, which is the entry-level for Scouts Canada. It comes before Cubs, which comes before Scouts, which comes before Ventures. They did not have Beavers when I was that age, but I did go through Cubs and Scouts - and had a lot of fun while I was there. I'd been thinking that I wanted to start a lot of camping and outdoor activities with the boys, and figured I'd kill 2 (or even 3) birds with 1 stone and get them into Beavers, and volunteer to be a Leader. The year is winding down now, and we are already looking for Beaver, Cub and Scout leaders for next year. So if you are interested, please let me know. Our troop is in the Hintonburg/Westboro area of Ottawa near the Ottawa Bagel Shop if you know where that is. Beavers and Scouts meet on Wednesday evening, and Cubs on Thursday.

Next year I'll be returning as a Beaver leader, and since my oldest is moving up to Cubs I've also let our district coordinator know that I'd be game to be a leader there as well. I'm hoping I do get to do both because the Cubs should be a little less like herding cats, and I'll be able to do a lot more in-depth stuff with them. I have said many times this year that there was a good reason why Baden Powell started them at age 8 :-) Being in charge of the Beavers can certainly be challenging, but it is also an awful lot of fun! And by the time I get up into Scouts with my boys, we'll be doing stuff like what you see in this video. This was filmed last week at our troops' annual end-of-year picnic. It is a trebuchet that our Scout troop has been building for the last 18 months or so.

Next week for our Beavers meeting, we'll be taking the boys fishing on the Ottawa River right here in the neighbourhood. The following is a slightly revised version of the email that is going out to parents about it.

We'll be going fishing at Remic Rapids, on the Ottawa River across from Tunney's Pasture. It is an NCC property directly across from Tunney's, and very easy to find. Take the Parkway west bound from Parkdale, and it is the first set of lights. On the left you'll see the exit for Tunney's, and on the right you'll see the road to Remic Rapids.

If you are a parent and think that fishing is something you'd like to do with your kids, Remic Rapids is a really good fishing spot that is close by, so you may want to pick up a rod and reel, and a bit of tackle. Both Canadian Tire and Le Baron are great places to buy fishing supplies. You can often find inexpensive kids' rod-and-reel combos in the $20 range. These work fine for the most part though can be more prone to line tangles - you'll probably end up with 1 or 2 "birds nests" on your reel per season. It is not a big deal to sort out though - definitely worth the money. That's what my boys started with. If you want something better than that for yourself, there are often sale racks at Le Baron and you can often get a really nice setup in the $50 to $60 range. Last summer I got a really nice reel on sale for about $25, and there were some nice rods on the sale rack in the same price range. Then there is also yard sales - last summer I picked up a huge bundle of rods and reels for $1 for the whole bundle, and managed to get 3 or 4 good rods and reels out of it all (these are the extras we have on hand for the kids). In fact 2 of them were so good that I retired the cheap rod/reel combo I'd bought for the boys to share, and was able to give them each their own rod and reel - in their favorite colour even!

Here is a (slightly modified to remove some personal details) email that I just sent out to parents of the 24th Ottawa Beavers and Scouts. If you happen to be involved with the Scouting movement in Ottawa but are not a member of one of the below groups, yet would still like to get involved in this fundraiser, please feel free to contact me as we'd love to include you!

Otherwise if you just live in the area, please drop by and enjoy some hot chocolate, and make a donation to a good cause!

Last year my oldest son was hearing a lot of great stuff from his friends about Beavers, which here in Canada is the entry level into the Scouting movement - for 5 to 7 year olds. Unfortunately the Colony that his friends went (and still go) to meet on Thursday nights, and we already had something in that timeslot on a regular basis. So I went looking around and found another nearby colony that had been on hiatus for a couple of years because they had no leaders. They were trying to get back together and needed volunteers - so I volunteered!

That was last May. The process includes an interview, a police records check, and a number of other steps, but I had them all completed for September when the first meeting was to take place. The other night was our Colony's 2nd meeting, and it was a great success! There are 10 kids, and one of the other parents volunteered to be a leader as well, so we have things well underway.