Summertime Events

"Summertime and the livin' is easy....fish are jumpin'..."

Summertime is my favorite time of year as the weather gets hot and the days are long.

The perfect time for scouting events in the great outdoors.

Camping is the number activity with most units but scouts can do so much more during the break from school.

In our recent roundtable the discussion turned to other activities unit do to keep the scout program from going into a summer hibernation.

What can units do over the summer?

The answer is easy...whatever you want to do.

Camping, working on the Swimming merit badge or Aquanaut or swimming belt loop, orienteering with or without the use of a GPS or hand held compass, community service projects, sporting events, parades, biking trips, hiking, rock climbing or caving, and building model rockets and launching them are always a hit.

The skies the limit.

One of my favorite pack activities is kite flying. Not the store bought kites but the ones you make from scratch.

There is something about creating your own kite and watching it soar or not even achieving liftoff is a valuable learning experience.

Most of my kites were eaten by the same tree Charlie Brown had issues with.

We could go kite flying in a field with a lone tree in the distance and sure enough the tree would attract one kite like it was a magnet and the kite were steel. That one kite would be mine.

It didn't matter though as the fun of the day was the designing and building a creation that would come alive with the slightest of breezes.

Oh sure, sometimes, the kite eating tree would cause me to lose my temper when it ate the kite but I had a Cub Master that always said go make another one but build it better than that last one. And build a better kite I would adding details like painting the flaming chainsaw of death that I was sure would deter the tree from munching my latest and greatest kite.

It didn't.

Seems like that maple tree loved those ominous designs that much more.

Still, the overall event was always fun. We got outside. Kept the scouting program alive over the summer months and when we started up again in Sept. we always had stories to talk about that would carry us through until the following summer's kite day.

My advice to all of the scout leaders, don't break for the summer...get out there and have fun.

Keep the OUT in Scouting!