Where: We are going to a new location we have never been to before, and the scouts in Troop 230 will have the opportunities to do things at camp that we have never before been able to do.   Its a very exciting opportunity, and I am hoping that most of the scouts in Troop 230 will be able to take advantage and attend this awesome eight days of scouting adventure.     The exact location for our camp is available at the troop meetings, and as we get more details they will be posted to this website.   Last year the Patrol Leaders Council made a unanimous decision to do something different for 2008, and so we are.    Cool!   Yeah!   For 2008, our camp has more than 400 acres of land and more than 90 acres of water to play in, and its going to be a blast!    

Fees:  The fee for camp this year will include the camp fee itself, and a transportation fee.  Because we are attending camp 400 miles away from Anchorage this year, we have arranged for a charter bus to take our troop to camp, which is expensive.    That said, we are still planning to keep the cost for camp reasonable, and our intention is to keep the total fee for camp this year (2008) including the transportation costs, under $300.   Last year we went to camp for 5 nights and six days.   This year we are going for 7 nights and eight days and traveling 400 miles as well.    Obviously, we will be spending more than what we did last year, but then again we are hopefully going to be getting a different experience, and we are hoping that by doing something different and spending two extra nights camping in the land of the midnight sun the troop will reap rewards for every scout that goes.    As the scoutmaster, it is my goal to keep the price down and make this an experience every family can afford, and still make camp better than it has ever been for those guys that attend.     As soon as we have all of the expenses nailed down, we will set the exact camp fee.    Expect to pay the camp fees sometime in April.         

Medicals:  All scouts and adults attending summer camp in 2008 will have to have an updated physical.  No exceptions!   Please check at the troop meetings, and make sure your son's physical is current.   Physicals for youth are valid for three years, as long as they are updated annually with a parental signature.    For adults, the physical is required to be on a different form, and has to have been accomplished within the previous year.   

Getting there: We are meeting at the Lions, on July 5th, at a time that will be announced.    We will travel by charter bus, complete with a video entertainment system and a bathroom, and reclining seats with huge picture windows.      We are going in style!     We won't be needing our patrol boxes this year, because we aren't cooking any patrol meals (YEAH!).   Still, patrol leaders must insure that all of their patrol gear they need, such as tarps and their patrol flag, is loaded and brought with them.     If you forget something this year, you can't go back home to get it!    July 5th is our planned travel day, and the actual camp kicks off on Sunday, July 6th.  We are returning on Saturday, July 12, arriving in the afternoon back at the Lions.

What to wear: Your son should be dressed in a full scout uniform. That is scout shirt, scout pants, troop neckerchief, scout hat, and a scout jacket if he owns one. He won’t wear his uniform all of the time while he is in camp, but there will be multiple occasions when he will need it and he will want to wear it proudly. For example, at breakfast a uniform is the meal ticket. The scouts learn fast. Make sure your son has bug stuff, bathing suit, towel, and a pencil and pad of paper near the top of his pack. He will need all of these items soon after his arrival.  

 
Get Wet!   Arriving in camp in uniform is important. After inprocessing, one of the first items will be the waterfront swim test so the camp staff can assign him to a swimming category. This is important, because without a category a scout cannot attend ANY waterfront activities, and this camp is loaded with waterfront activities.     If you aren't a swimmer now, work on it and make sure you can pass the BSA swim test prior to July!    You don't want to miss out on all of the fun!!!!

What to bring: Boy Scout Handbook, merit badge books for the badges he intends to work on (many available from the troop Library for checkout), the Scout Essentials (Boy Scout Handbook, p 224), camp clothing (Boy Scout Handbook, pp 203-228), and personal items (Boy Scout Handbook, p 225). Please personally check to see your son has bug repellent, good raingear (pants and top or poncho), a swim suit, a cup, plate, and eating utensils, and has at least one other outfit besides his uniform that is not 100% cotton. If they get wet, cotton blue jeans and cotton sweatshirts won’t insulate and are dangerous. Also, make sure he has a jacket--regardless of how nice it is there will be times when it gets cold. Raingear doesn’t have to be an expensive gortex suit, but it needs to be able to keep him dry if the camp is a wet one. The extremely thin plastic suits are cheap, but they will rip easily as your son travels the wooded trails. Rubber ponchos and nylon waterproofed rainsuits are better, and will last several seasons. THREE to FOUR towels are also recommended, especially if your son is working on waterfront merit badges. Experience has shown that the tropical weather last year is not the norm, and there have been weeks in years past where towels hanging in tents never dried. Your son’s pack should be packed neatly so he can hike it into his campsite. Cameras are also nice-to-have items. Mosquito netting is highly desirable, and can be hung from his tent and draped over his sleeping area.
            Getting ready for camp is part of the learning experience, and your son will learn a lot just going through his stuff and making it fit ‘neatly’ in his pack. Some scouts bag up their socks and underwear in ziplock bags, as well as other clothing they want to insure stays dry until it is needed. Don’t let him forget his personal items, i.e. toothbrush, soap, etc... As he packs, he should refer to his Boy Scout Handbook for guidance. All items, including clothing and equipment, should be marked with his name and troop number, so that when (not if) he leaves them somewhere they can find their way back to him.  For a specific list of recommended items to pack, this one has been  put together by the camp staff.  To see the checklist, take this link now----->  PACKING CHECKLIST.

Electronics, games, radios, etc: For the long travel time, scouts will be allowed to bring their electronic games, gameboys, radios, CD-players, and IPODs as long as they have ear pieces.    But once we arrive at camp, those items will be locked in a vehicle and will not be used at camp.    Scout camp is the opportunity to get away from city life and enjoy what nature has to offer.   Please make certain any expensive items, such as an IPOD, have your sons name on them, and the serial number is recorded somewhere in case we have to sort out whose is whose.    We highly recommend that scouts leave very expensive items and other very important or sentimental things at home. The woods have a way of swallowing up stuff, and the lost and found pile grows daily.

Food: Three solid meals will be provided by the camp.   At camp, all meals will be catered in a chow hall, and while the food probably won't win too many awards, it will get the job done and we don't have to cook it (or clean up after cooking it).     That said, we recommend that your son brings other food (i.e. snacks), and have it marked in a small box with his name on it. Emphasize that he should not ‘sneak’ food into his pack or tent. In fact, food will NOT be stored at our campsite at all---we don't need bears visiting us when we don't want them. I will allow the scouts to lock up their snack boxes in my truck in the evenings. Remember, your son will have plenty of food, but sometimes an occasional snack or candybar is something that he might want. By bringing his own snacks, money that could be used for special scout items (leathercraft kit, basketry merit badge kit) isn't spent on a candy bar at the trading post. 

The following ecololgy and conservation badges will be offered at camp this year:

The following First Aid and 'Emergency' badges will be offered at camp:

The following Scoutcraft and Scoutskill badges will be offered at camp:

The following Handicraft and Special Interest badges will be offered at camp:

Other activities offered at camp this year (2008):
Campers can participate in the following evening activities on Monday, Tuesday, or Thursday evenings from 7:00 – 8:30 .  

Project COPE

For the first time ever, scouts in Troop 230 will have the opportunity to do something entirely different than the traditional summer camp they are used to.    This opportunity is called COPE, and is designed for the older scout who had "been there-done that" before and wants a new challenge that is different than traditional scouting.    If that's YOU, then project COPE might be just what you need to get your blood pumping and your heart pounding.     COPE stands for Challenging Outdoor Personal Experience.  It comprises group initiative games, low course elements, and high course elements.  Some activities involve a group challenge while other activities test an individual's skills and agility.  Participants climb, jump, balance, and swing their way to creative problem solutions to a variety of different activity problems.  Group activities are ideal for emphasizing group synergy, developing trust, and leadership skills.  The activities are not designed to be competitive but to stress the goals/objectives of Project COPE.   At camp this year, the COPE course features a world-class climbing tower that overlooks almost a dozen elements for the course’s participants.  These elements include a zip line, trust fall, balance beam and a confidence pole.  These simply named elements present extraordinary tasks.  Other elements have more exotic names like:  Burma Bridge , Nitro Crossing and Wild Woozie.  Regardless of the names, the course is both exciting and worthwhile.   Realize, that participants need only sign up for COPE during the week and they will find their week full.  However, some Scouts may choose to work on a couple merit badges or other activities during what would otherwise be free time.  Project COPE participants will still have the opportunity to participate in camp-wide activities.  The participants will receive a Project COPE patch to mark their participation.  There is a $30 equipment fee to participate in the program.

Outpost Camp Opportunities:   For camp this year, scouts wanting to get away can participate in one or more of several outpost camps, and take on a greater adventure than every before possible.   There will be an overnight mountain biking opportunity for those that like that kind of thing, and an overnight canoe trip down a remote wilderness river.   These "outposts" are just one more exciting thing we have in the plan for summer camp 2008! 

About homesickness & camp "escapes":  With new scouts part of the adventure of summer camp is learning to get away from home for the first time.   Often scouts will call up mom and dad, and express this feeling.  Its a normal part of growing up, and I've found that the calls rarely happen when the scouts are busy, swimming in the lake, shooting the guns at the range, or rappelling off of rock faces.   However, when the rain is pouring down, a class they were taking didn't go right, or the bugs are bad and they and their friends are having to deal with it, then those are the times when scouts typically call home.  While its a normal part of growing up, some parents make the mistake of jumping in when an encouraging word is a better way to go.    Scouting is trying to build character through individual achievement and a "I can really do this" attitude.   Baden Powell, scouting's founder, once remarked to "...never do for a boy, what a boy can do for himself."  Those words could never be more true than they are today.  Scouting tries to teach independence and leadership; both traits that every parent wants and hopes their son will learn.    This year we will be far enough away that its not going to be possible to just "pop in" and visit, so in some ways that will force boys to grow up some and get through an "entire week" of camp by themselves.     If you do decide to drive up out to visit, please coordinate your visit with the parents who have volunteered to spend the week with the troop.    Sometimes in the past we have had a well meaning parent drive out to camp and takes their son into town for a bite to eat, a refreshing shower, and an evening of fun.     In at least a few cases, this happened without any of our volunteer parents even knowing about it!   I'm sure you can imagine yourself looking for someone else's son only to find out hours later that their mom or dad came and took them away for a shower, some TV, and a little playtime.  Please realize how totally unacceptable this is---the boys should always be encouraged to stay the entire week and help their patrol get through the tough times as well as the fun activities.  Mom and Dad can be a BIG help in making sure their scout sticks with camp and learns from the whole experience.  We absolutely have to know which boys are in camp and which are not, 100% of the time without any exceptions.
        One "trick" some parents do is to write letters to their son, which they then give to one of the parents camping with the troop for the week.   Then, each morning during "mail call" the letters get "delivered" one by one over the course of camp.    The camp does have a mailing address, and it will be announced prior to our departure.

About visits: Parents are welcome at scout camp, as they are at any troop activity.  This year we will be about seven hours from Eagle River by car, so we don't expect to have a lot of parents pulling their kids out of camp throughout the week.   For 2008, if your son attends camp, we expect him to attend camp.     Also, if you want to send a special box of goodies or refreshment for your son, please coordinate it with one of the volunteer parents who are spending the entire week camping.   It can be quite disruptive to fill a patrol up on sugar in the evening and your "treat" might be welcomed by the boys, but not apprecaited by the parent volunteers.    If you do send a refreshment, or brownies or similar treats, please realize that nothing builds resentment faster in a scout troop that when a boy gets a lot of goodies that his friends do not.    Food items can build jealously rapidly, and can work to tear down the great spirit that has been building in the troop and patrols all week.   So, please, coordinate your snacks with the adult leaders there, and think group snack to be shared with everyone.