GimletBlog

August 15 – 20 was the second week of National Youth Leadership Training put on by the Chief Seattle Council.  I had the privilege of acting as the Assistant Course Director for Program (Assistant Scoutmaster for Program).

In order to create the program a youth staff had to be recruited and then trained.  They were trained over one Saturday, three weekend programs and finally the entire week’s presentations were given an additional run through the three days before the August 15 showtime.  The youth staff performed exceptionally well.

Thing One was a Guide and loved by his Team/Patrol.  His style of servant leadership showed.

Showtime happened and the participants arrived.

The Scouts that participated were great kids and it showed.  One Scoutmaster that came to the presentations at the end of the program stated that while some of his Scouts that had been in the past claimed they did not learn anything and were often bored, those same Scouts were the ones that stepped up and led his troop after the program.  He had asked his troop committee to send four boys this year rather than the two last year.  Like many things in life, the value of the lessons learned at NYLT cannot be seen immediately but change the way these young men react to future opportunities.

It really is a Scoutmaster’s secret to success.

• Upcoming NYLT sessions for the Chief Seattle Council

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Friday night Team Gimlet drove to Camp Pigott for the last time (for the summer) to pick up Thing One and his gear.  His first year of camp staff is over!  We haven’t had time to hear much about it, but it must have been an overall positive experience, because Thing One already is planning on returning to camp staff next summer, and would like to work on weekend winter camp staff as well.

There was barely enough time to do laundry and catch a little sleep before Thing One and the Gimlet were on their way again, headed to Camp Sheppard for a week of NYLT staff.

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Visit the WashJam photo album in the Gimlet Gallery.

On August 20, 2009, my troop went in to Fort Lewis for WashJam. There were about 6,000 people who came to this camp.

There were activities like the mountain man area, where there was caber tossing, shot put, and knife throwing. They also had tomahawk throwing and archery, but those were either closed or had a long line.  Other fun activities were gold panning and blacksmithing.

On Friday I worked at a pizza stand to raise money for my 2010 Jamboree troop.  While trying to get rid of the last pizzas of the day, the whole pizzas had dropped in price since the afternoon from $18.00 to $10.00. at one point while walking through camp I made advertisement for the pizza. “oh wow, camp food! It may be charred on the outside! It may be raw on the inside! But at least it’s got that special outdoor flavor! … of lighter fluid! Mm-mm, when do we eat? Come and buy your troop whole pizzas for $10.00!” it was easy to work with the troop in the stand as runner (brings to the table the order) and as stocker (brings pizza from truck to stand and carries signs about the pizza and specials.

There was music at the end of the day at the stage, which the staff had built at Fort Lewis.  The rental equipment was bad and shocked one person, and there was nothing in between shows for a few minutes, but some of the songs were still good.

On Saturday I went to the NYLT staff meeting, which talked about when they would know who the staff would be, and when the dates of the staff meetings would approximately be. We also got to talk to who would be staff, which was fun. Later, WashJam had an inspirational speech at the stage at night.

Sunday was church all day. They had sacrament meeting at the stage for all 1,600 LDS troop members. After the priesthood meeting, there was dinner, breaking camp, and a fireside with talks. After the fireside, we finished up breaking camp and left.

I liked going to WashJam.  It was fun to especially do the mountain men area, and I liked the Order of the Arrow museum, and the booths about different camps, like Camp Sheppard and its High Adventure program. There were lots of things to buy at the stores.  It was fun to see people that I got to know from OA, NYLT, and Camp Parsons earlier this year.

If your troop goes to a future WashJam, see everything you can, and do as much as you can, because there’s not enough time to do all the activities. Sometimes it was hot and sometimes it rained, so troops should bring a pop up canopy.  It’s also a good idea to bring folding chairs so you don’t have to sit on the ground, and lots of food for breakfast and after the stands close.  I would recommend troops go to the next WashJam because it is fun to be with so many scouts and there are activities to do there that you usually cannot do in your home area with just your troop.

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Editor’s note: For those who may not have heard the news, The Gimlet was recently made Scoutmaster for Thing One’s Scout troop. Expect many more camping stories, fueled by plenty of red juice.

My scout troop went on a winter camp in Camp Sheppard. We got to the camp by 6:00, and then another troop was staying and lights out was at 11:00 pm. At 6:00 am, most of the people in our cabin (not me or Daddy) went on a hike called the “polar bear hike”. When everybody going was up, I was ½ awake and also ½ awake when they got back, but right then, Daddy got everybody up. Then, we had biscuits in sausage gravy and red juice, and then we had an introduction to the camp and met all the staff. Then, we went inner tubing, and the run we went on had a bump and Daddy made movies of people on the bump. There was another run, but people got too tired to go back up again. Then, we had roast beef sandwiches for lunch with red juice, packed up, deflated all the inner tubes, played games in the cabin, and had a snowball fight. Then at 3:00, we left. We were expecting to be home by 5:00 pm, but we got back by 3:52 pm.

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