On April 17-19, 2015, the troop participated in our local camporee. It was held at Rancho Alegre in the Santa Ynez Valley. 18 scouts and 6 adults met at the church at about 4:00pm Friday afternoon to head up to the camp. We had a total of 26 scouts, but some arrived later Friday evening and some on Saturday morning. Camporee is a gathering of troops in an area to compete in various events. Scouts compete by patrols and the total score of the patrol is announced at the closing campfire. There was a total of 11 troops with 29 patrols. There were also 4 webelos dens attending.
Once we arrived at our campsite, we unloaded the cars and set up our tents. The campsite inspection on Saturday is a scored event. After our tents were set up, we started to build A frames and a H shape to make the entry gate (For once, James wasn’t in charge of the gate building because of being a camporee leader – in full pirate costume!). Also, 2 tripods were built to hand lanterns on.
After a long hour or so of lashing, we sat down to our dinners (we brought our own for the first night). A few scouts started to arrive later in the evening. After dinner we had some free time, and at 10:00pm, it was lights out.
The next morning we got up and had a breakfast of fruit, hot coco, sunny D orange juice, and oatmeal. In our free time during breakfast, we tidied up our tents and gear for the inspection. After breakfast was cleaned up, we got into our class A, got our day packs, and went to the flag ceremony.
From 9:00 am to 12:00pm, we participated as patrols in scored events such as orienteering, first aid, fire starting, tomahawks, etc. There were a total of 10 scored events. Patrols were judged on leadership, teamwork, completion of tasks, and a few other things. Tomahawks had replaced rifle shooting as a scored event. Since not many people had thrown tomahawks before, many patrols did poorly. Each scout had 4 practice throws before 2 sets of 4 throws for a score. There were a few stand out performances, though. Sam Johnson stuck 7 out of 8 of his throws to help his patrol’s score. Also I got 4 in a row and split a tomahawk! Sadly, this was during the challenge event and not worth any points.
Our patrols did well in most events, especially in an event called “raise the flag”. We had to lash 3 long poles together and stand it up, tying support lines to it, to make a flag pole. Once we had it standing we would raise a flag on it, then after taking the flag back down, take it apart. It definitely required some teamwork.
Once it was around noon, each patrol started to head back to camp for lunch. For lunch we had sandwiches, roast beef, turkey, etc. We also had some chips, fruit, and cookies. After lunch, each patrol set out to complete their scored events. We had until 3:00 pm to complete them.
After a patrol completed their events, they could get their hand stamped. After their hand was stamped, they got to do challenge events or just hang around camporee. Some challenge events were sling shot, archery, rifle shooting, etc. They were all relatively close to one another, so it was easy to switch around.
Once the challenge events ended at 5:00 pm, the scouts headed back to camp for dinner. It was the best dinner ever! We had tri tip, turkey, hot dogs, salad, dinner rolls, and cookies! A lot of family members of the scouts came as well. Mr. and Mrs. Hirsch put together the dinner, and had the help of Mr. Beckstrand and Mr. Randall with the cooking. It was Sam’s Birthday as well, so we sang happy birthday and had mini cupcakes to celebrate.
After the wonderful dinner, we went to the closing campfire. There was a poem, a few songs, a few announcements, skits, and an OA callout. 4 scouts from our troop were called out for OA. They were: Riley, Josh, Wesley, and Vaughn. Finally it was time for the ribbons. Our troop got 2 first place ribbons (crocs and panthers) and two presidentials (foxes and bats). The foxes got the highest score in camporee with 922 points out of a possible 1,000. After the campfire ended we went back to camp and retired to our sleeping bags.
The next morning we had a breakfast of french toast, fruit, and little smokies. After breakfast we packed up, got in the cars, and returned home.
The trip was attended by the following scouts: Robby, Logan, Wyatt, David E, Jonathan, Cooper, Ben, Cameron, Billy, Carter, Jeremiah, Nathan, Simon, Vaughn, Timmy, Josh, Tyler, Jason, Riley, Alex, Kellen, Sam, Jarrison, Eric, Sean, and James. Adults included: Mr. Brown, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Weakliem, Mr. and Mrs. Spencer, Mr. Soga, Mr. Pinner, Mr. Shaw. Extra drivers also included: Mr. Nichoson, Mrs. Swider, Mrs. Spencer, Mr. Tressler, Mr. Wong, and Mr. Bohley. Mr. and Mrs. Hirsch were in charge of dinner on Saturday, when other family members joined the troop.
