Don't Panic! Well, at least not yet...

Sunday, 18 April 2010 18:52

The Crew drew double-duty last weekend. On Friday night, an envoy of the Cabinet (President, VP Admin, Secretary, and 1 Crew Guide) visited Camp Parsons to meet with the staff of the Centennial Wood Badge course. The Crew has been invited to serve on the 2nd weekend of the Wood Badge (Friday and Saturday, May 14-15) and needed to review the syllabus as well as introduce themselves to everyone. On mid morning Saturday, the remainder of the Crew rendezvoused with the Cabinet at Parsons for lunch.

As a light rain began to fall, everyone loaded up to drive down to Hamma Hamma. As soon as we reached the turnoff and started up the Hamma Hamma River Valley, it started raining in buckets. A hard rain. The kind of rain with the wipers going full speed and you still can't see more than a car length in front of you. We parked at the FS Trail #810, mounted up, and started up from the Trail head. It's not a difficult or technical trail, but with the heavy rain, the trail bed soon changed into a creek. We joked about taking a kayak back down and retitling the event as a Whitewater Backpacking. There was no one behind us, and everyone we encountered was coming down to escape the weather.

At Mile 3.0, we crested the ridge line and the rains finally abated. We dropped a hundred feet or so to the base of Lena Lake, and started looking for a large enough site to accommodate all 18 of us. As luck would have it, we found an open site with several adequate flat spots that were fairly free of rocks and even had a few tree stumps that could serve as tables for our camp stoves. We quickly set up the fly for our packs and pitched our tents, setting aside 2 of the Crew to start putting dinner together. Needless to say, we were just a little moist, so the hot meal hit the spot. Temperatures plummeted as soon as the bear bag was hoisted and the sun fell, so the more valiant of us set about to find as much dry wood as could be gathered; the small campfire was started with flint and steel, and while no one could claim to have been warmed or even dried out by the fire, the stories started and morale soared.

Amazingly, we awakened to a beautiful cold blue sky with alto-cumulus. The tent rain-flies came off and were set out on lakeside logs to dry in the sun....along with the rest of us. While we were breaking camp, we found a old bronze plaque bolted to a rock: Welcome to Camp Cleland, Tumwater Council, 1939. Wow, imagine that, this place was dedicated over 70 years ago by Scouting. Not surprisingly, we all stood up a little taller and hiked out in less than half the time it took to hike in the afternoon before. Day hikers coming up the trail commented incredulously, "You really camped up there last night? In that weather?" I guess there's only a short gap between being mentally tough and just being plain stubborn. We hauled out a lot of trash and wondered what Camp Cleland would look like in 2081. Back at the cars, we reflected on the weekend and promised to come back in better weather and swim the Lake.

Crew Leadership Training

Monday, 12 April 2010 10:52

For the April 9-10 weekend, we BETA-tested the new Crew Leadership Training (CLT) course which was provided to us by the BSA National Leadership Task Force. CLT is the intended replacement for the introductory Venturing Leadership Skills Course (VLSC). Due to some last minute logistics, the venue was changed from our normal meeting place to one of the Venturing family homes, including filling the back yard with the tents of the Crew and their visitors from Crews 898, 1504, and 1561. The garage was emptied and turned into a cozy multimedia "learning center".

The new CLT course is broken into three modules that cover Unit Organization (previously overlooked in VLSC), Tools of the Trade, and Leadership and Teamwork. Each learning point in the course is then reinforced with an "activity exercise", or game that reflect the objective of what needs to be learned. As an example, learning about how your Crew is organized, the duties of each of the Crew officers, advisors, and supporting committee members requires a clear understanding of each position's roles and responsibilities. No one person can do it all....thus the game is learning about How to Delegate. You can't carry ALL the balloons and be effective, right?

Another change to the training is that common terms that match all of the different leadership courses in Scouting are now present in CLT. The EDGE method (Explain, Demonstrate, Guide, Enable) is matched up to the Stages of Team Development (Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing), just as it is presented in National Youth Leadership Training, National Advanced Youth Leadership Experience, and of course, Wood Badge. Common goals, common language, common understanding. Whoda thunk?

It's Silver!

Saturday, 10 April 2010 18:14

It was only a matter of time...literally. On a sunny but cool afternoon, a Crew Review was convened by Admin VP Dante with Conner, Samantha, Zack, Christian, and Eric attending, while observed by Associate Advisors Duane and Bob. Grinning and standing before them was Jeff, who was grilled for the next half hour with a gauntlet of questions that probed deeply in leadership, dedication, vision, and character. It was just like watching batting practice. There was an obvious windup as each Board member spoke, a question pitched, and the bat swung to squarely stoke an answer back into play.

When it was all done, it was unanimous. Jeff had completed the last step to earn the first Venturing Silver Award in Crew 42.

Flapping His Wings

Saturday, 10 April 2010 03:44

The Crew now has a tenth Eagle. Please congratulate Zack, who made it through his District Board of Review and has joined the aerie. Everyone gets to move over and make room in the nest. Zack has scheduled his Court of Honor for 2 to 4PM on Saturday, June 5th, so we'll add that date to the Crew calendar...please do the same on your calendar at home.

The tentative location for the Court will be at the Fredericksen Wilderness Park on Big Valley Road outside Poulsbo, the church property where Zack's Eagle Scout Leadership Project stands proudly for all to see. It's been a long time since there's been an Eagle Court in the outdoors here in the Pacific Northwest. We're sure looking forward to it!

More Articles...