Eight boys represented the troop at Webelos Woods this year despite all of the problems getting the event going. For once, the problems were not with the unit but the council. Information was incomplete and didn’t come out till very late (to the point where the troop really didn’t know what it was presenting till it arrived at the event). The confusion was compounded by a call from another troop a few days before the event who thought they were also supposed to be presenting the same skill! The troop decided to head up to the event as planned and just muddle through.
The trip up turned out to be eventful in all the wrong ways. Leaving was slightly behind schedule, but that was all of the problems we encountered. Untill one of the boys threw up! Apparently the books and video games weren’t put away soon enough and the windy-twisty section of the road was too much for one of the boys. The procession pulled over till he had all of his gyros going in the right direction.
When we arrived, things weren’t any more organized than in the run up to the event. Check in went OK, but there were two sets of troops doing the same skill. In addition, there were several troops doing the same skit for skit night. In addition, the organizers didn’t have a clear idea of how many Webelos vs. Parents they had signed up. The layout for the events and the order for the rotations changed twice that evening.
It got worse the next day. Several of the troops were placed into unworkable locations, so a lot of them defaulted back to the locations they had always used in previous years. Also the schedule shifted again. The first 1/3 of the day had one rotation which changed as the day went on. This wasn’t communicated to the troops, so they only knew that the groups were showing up for smaller and smaller amounts of time. Some of the patrols got lost altogether and skipped stations.
Still we did our best to muddle through. The boys presented first aid skills to the visiting patrols. The scouts had come up with a fun script to highlight the skills in light of the zombie theme of the event. In the end, despite the problems, the troop and the Webelos had fun.
Hopefully next year will work out better.
Leaders: Mr. Polkinghorn, Mr. Griffin
Lessons Learned: You just have to roll with the punches
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