Ready, set, Yawgoog!

It's just over one week until we head of again to Camp Yawgoog for what I like to call "seven days away from reality". It doesn't have to be that way. Some Scoutmasters head down to the lodge every day to read the papers and chat about the outside world. If something really big happens, like a major blackout of the entire East Coast, someone will let me know, but usually, I just "skip" that week as far as anything outside Yawgoog goes. Sadly, this year, I will be missing most of the Olympics, which I really do look forward to, but that's why there's DVRs!

What comes of this for the boys is something different. It's a week away from TV, parents, scheduled activities, friends and , for some, work. But it's truly good for them. I enjoy watching the growth in each boy over the time we have them, but Summer Camp is a condensed version of that growth process. In one week I learn every boys name, their ability to plan and follow through, what makes them mad and what makes them laugh. By the end of the week, 30+/- boys go from being a random group of boys to a disciplined, focused and more confident team. New leaders get a crash course and will be much more ready to handle their respective responsibilities when we resume activities in September. Someone will conquer his fear of insects, another will experience his first week away from parents. Still others will learn to swim, use a pocketknife safely and others will just learn to get used to living in tight quarters with his peers, friends and otherwise, for seven days. but it's all good. I dread it every year, but I am always glad I went. Someone will meltdown sometime late Tuesday, but we'll fix it and by the last Sunday, all will return smelly and with smiles on their faces. I guarantee it!

Scouts with Cell Phones

It's late July, and for our Troop, that means all my focus is on get the Troop ready for Summer Camp. I spent my first week at Yawgoog eight years ago. In those days, few Scout Leaders and NO scouts had cell phones. If you had one, likely you couldn't get any kind of usable signal. A boy spending a week in camp was expected to be there to grow, and part of that meant going a week without mom or dad, save the exchanges of "care packages" and postcards home. Everything in Scouting has a purpose and the rules of Camp Yawgoog exemplify that philosophy. It was a RULE that scouts were not to use the pay phone to call home without permission from and knowledge of the Scoutmaster. Calls home were for emergency only. I remember the year the three boys from our Troop broke that rule, skipped out on lunch and went to call home. Guess what, they got sent home! I was not the Scoutmaster then, but those were the rules. In truth, the three sent home wanted to be sent home.

Now things are very different with regard to cell phones, though little else has changed at Yawgoog. I can only ask the cell phones are left home, but it's very difficult to enforce. My only choice would be to search every trunk and every pocket and lock the phones away until the last day of camp, but I have never taken that action and I don't think I should start. But I am STRONGLY against the use of cell phones in camp by boys. Leaders have responsibilities and businesses at home that they leave to spend time in camp, so they are excused from the cell phone ban. Officially, they are asked to use them discreetly and as infrequently as possible.

The use of ipods, Gameboys and cell phones is in direct opposition to what we try to accomplish by taking the boys to summer camp. If there is an emergency, they will have a phone made available to them. Please, please do not send them to camp with cell phones.