Planning Your Spring Campout

0:08Welcome to Cub Chat Live. This is a weekly show for Cub Scout leaders, new Cub Scout families, and anyone looking to make youth serving programs in Scouting America. Well, awesome. If you're listening to the audio version of today's show, be sure to hit subscribe so you don't miss a thing. And if you're watching live with us today. Please comment along in the. Live chat. Oh, and be sure to check out the audio version of the show wherever you listen to podcasts.

0:33OK, here we go. Hello everybody, happy Friday, it's time for Cup Chat live Sydney, how are you? I'm great. Happy Friday the 13th. Yes, absolutely. I think that's the thing we can say, right? Happy, happy Friday the 13th. Hey, we're we have a very, very fun topic to talk about today. Sydney and I were just doing a little weather talk before we went live here and we both had, she's in Ohio, I'm in Texas. It's a little bit different climate, but both of us have had a little warm spells and this is the perfect time to start thinking about spring camp out. It's not technically spring camping season yet, but I think what it is is spring planning camping season, right? It's time to start planning that spring. Sadly.

1:16Yeah, tell us about that, Sydney. Your overall thoughts on spring camping? Why is this important? Why do camp outs matter? Well, first of all, it's, it's been a really big snowy winter here and it's finally you're able to go outside without, you know, getting frostbite instantaneously. So everybody's gone a little bit stir crazy and wanting to go outside and, and do the things that Cub Scouts love to do. Camping, hiking, fishing and planning a spring camp out is just perfect for being able to incorporate families into the fun. Building confidence and independence in our Cub Scouts, making those friendships and those connections, building those memories that are going to last a lifetime, Connecting to nature and really making sure that our families and our scouts are are enjoying that scouting community that we're building. And, and Cub Scouts and camping with your pack can really do that.

2:06Some of my favorite memories are when my when my scouts were little and going camping on our first couple of camp outs because things weren't always perfect. It rained a lot, I didn't. I over packed, I under packed, some raccoons stole our s'mores, everything happened. But now those are some of the best memories that I have of camping. Yeah, Sydney, you know, I've, I've worked for Scouting America for many years and I spent many of those times, many of those years writing for the magazine Boys Life now Scout Life. And I interviewed a lot of scouts of all ages about their camping experience.

2:42And one of the things I noticed was the stories they tell are often about the rain or the cold or the mud or the buds. But and I and I as a writer, I'm like, can you give me something a little more positive? But they're not really being negative. That's just something that's what they remember. And they remember surviving that and having fun with their families and with their friends. That is all part of the experience. Another thing, Sydney, we talked about this a lot.

3:07You know, we make a lot of promises to families when they when we recruit them into Cub Scouting, right? We do promises is camping. We're going to get you guys outside. And then all of a sudden they join and it's like, OK, now we got to plan a camp out. So today's show really about how to make that, you know, process fun, simple and easy, right? You don't have to be an expert camper yourself to plan a fun family Cub Scout camp out. If, you know, you don't have to go.

3:35We're not talking about going to Philmont for two months, which is also a great experience. But that's not what this is all about. We have a lot of folks in the comments. Cindy, I'm going to. We're going to pause for a moment just to say hello to everybody, Rich from Pack 151 in Scottdale, PA. Rick Rich, excuse me, commented a full 26 minutes before the show started. Thank you, Rich. Rich gets the price for that. Hey, Rusty, Good to see you from Pack 84 in Ohio. His neighbors up there.

4:02Yeah, exactly. Jonathan from PAC 151 in Baltimore, MD checking in. Good to see you. Good to see everybody. Alex from PAC-222-IN Lee's Summit Heart of America Council. Rob says happy Friday Scouters, happy Friday to you. Rob live. Love scouting. Good to see you from Auburn, CA What's up? Doug from Akron, OH, Ohio's in the house. Good to see you everybody. Alexander says let's go camping is amazing memories. Yeah, as a, as a, you know, recovering Cub master and then leader myself, we had so much fun camping Sydney.

4:35And sometimes it was colder than we thought it was going to be. Sometimes it rained and sometimes it was hotter than we thought it would be. And sometimes we got all dirty. But man, those, those weekends were so, so fun. So, you know, everybody, everybody feels excited about camping when they joined Cub Scouts, They're all excited. How do we transfer that excitement into a well planned, we're going to call it stress free? Sydney's notes say stress free. All right, Cindy.

5:02That's what we want, right? Our, our leaders are already stressed enough. A lot of times the first camping trip can be really stressful for parents. So yeah, we want to make it as stress free for everyone as possible and a really great resource. We have so many resources available on scouting.org's website and there's so many resources available that you can go and you can look up information you can get. That's where we also have our pack meeting planners.

5:31So, so please, please, please utilize this for helping you get activity ideas and planning your, your camp outs, planning your meetings. There's so many resources available, but let's talk about planning a camp out camp outs. We want to start planning a few months in advance. 3 to 4 would be great, but you want to you want to be able to go ahead and plan that out in advance because you need to make sure that you have an approved site. That's really important.

5:59We want to make sure that it there are access to restrooms, access to drinking water, access to parking, that it's someplace safe and that site needs to be approved by your local council. So please make sure that wherever you're going, that site for camping is approved by your local council. You want to choose the right date. I mean, as great as planning something over spring break would be, a lot of families might already have spring break trips planned. If there's some big activity that's coming up at school, you might not want to plan your camp out for the same weekend as the the 1st grade concert.

6:37So keep keep those things in mind when planning ahead. Make sure you're asking your families what dates work for you. And also, Erin, it's really important. I know here in Ohio, the weather changes a lot. I mean, one day it's in the 60s and the next day we're getting like 12 inches of snow. But you want to kind of look and figure out weather wise, when would be a good time frame or a good month knowing that oh, well, usually it's really rainy here in April.

7:02Well, don't necessarily not plan something for that month, but just plan and know, OK, if we're going to go and it's probably going to rain, these are the things our families need to bring or this maybe we'll do an inside camp out or we'll do something a little bit different this time. So making sure that you're reserving those campsites early, planning early, and getting everybody on board. I want to expand one thing that you mentioned, expand on one thing you mentioned, Sydney, and that is choosing a site that is approved by your local council. And the reason we do that is because they are the experts. You may not be a camping expert, you may be a camping expert, but your Cub Scout council knows what you know, what Cub Scout families need to have a successful camp out. So as much of an expert as you may or may not be, it's the council that determines if a site is appropriate or not. Now there's a really good chance that any kind of State Park near you or community park is probably okay, right, Don't you think, Cindy, in general, But you need to check. You need to, because there may

8:02be something that you're not thinking about. And, and the way I always think about this is that that's great because that removes the stress from me. It's not up to me to decide, is this location appropriate? It's up to the council to decide that. And so I, I just think that's really important to know. One thing that I remember again about being a cub master, I'll never forget that first I signed up in the spring. I guess it was so that spring family started asking me questions about camping. And I'm like, well, I mean, yeah, I've been camping a few times, but you know, I'm not the expert. And that's why your local council is a really, really valuable resource.

8:36They can tell you this place has restrooms, this place has parking, this place is easily accessible. Whatever else you might need in your area. Talk to your local council about that. They're a huge resource. I know we're going to talk about more planning and safety and things like that a little bit, but I'm going to do some more shout outs Sydney because we have so many people watching, so many people commenting. Our good friend Tamara. Tamara, it's good to hear from you Sydney and Aaron. Yay, camping is so much fun.

9:00Indeed it is, love you Tamara. Rob says his wee blows and AOL went camping last weekend. I'm trying to think the weather here last weekend I think was pretty good. Rob is my neighbor here in Frisco, TX. I think you had a pretty good weather weekend last weekend, Rob, if I'm remembering, Tim says good afternoon. Good afternoon to you, Tim. Thank you for tuning in. We appreciate it. Montana Council is in the house, Sydney. They say camping in the rain teaches character a little :). I love that.

9:27Alex says anytime I look for this Friday, I'm an alarm set on my phone. Come chat live, Alex. Yes, very, very smart. Set that alarm. And by the way, if you tune in a little bit late, you can always go back from the beginning and watch. And by the way, in case you don't know, we are a podcast now. You can listen to us in your car, on your jog, when you walk the dog, whatever it is. Yeah. Tim says rain is fun. I agree with that, Wendy says. Yeah, shout out to Wendy from Elgin, IL Good to see you, Wendy.

9:55Boy, a lot of people watching. We really camping's a big deal. Sending people love camping. Let's get back to to planning. And you, you have something called building a planning team. What does that mean? What are we talking about there? So we want to make sure that we're including everybody, all of our resources in helping us plan. We're spreading the workload around so one leader doesn't get overwhelmed or feel stressed out. And so that we can all add in kind of our strengths.

10:21Because you might have somebody who's really good at organizing and communication. You might have somebody else who loves cooking and you want to kind of break up those jobs. It's it's not just one person's job to plan the PAC camp out it. It can be spread out and shared among lots of the adults. And it's a great way to give other parents like bite sized chunks of responsibility that they can use, that they can accomplish and that they can build up them their themselves, their self esteem and, and feel like they're a part of the team that made this successful event. So some ideas, you don't have to use these, but some ideas are like a food coordinator and activities coordinator, an equipment coordinator.

11:02Maybe you have a health and safety lead, especially if you have somebody in your group that is a medical professional. Maybe they could be the person in charge of, you know, the first aid kit and making sure that if somebody gets injured, they know what to do. The one thing that you have to have make sure that you have at least one Ballou trained leader. So Ballou stands for basic adult leader outdoor orientation and that is the Cub Scout camping safety training.

11:30So that's going to help you plan, execute and and deliver a wonderful camp out. And at least one of your adult leaders has to be Ballou trained for a pack to go pack camping. I would recommend more than one person be trained because if something happens, if, if maybe that leader has an emergency or is called away, or maybe that leader needs to, to leave to take another kiddo to a soccer game or a football game, you, you have to have a blue trained leader on your camp out.

12:01Otherwise you need to cancel it. So having more than one person in your pack trained as a blue trained leader is great and, and all scouts deserve trained leaders. So get the blue training. It's been recently updated to, to align with the Cub Scout program updates. So it's a great way to feel confidence and, and to build your confidence and, and experience. It's been a few years since I took Balu Sydney and I know it's probably better now, but I, I, it was good even back in my day and I, I kind of felt like it was a little bit basic, but that's a good thing because you know, even no matter whether you're an expert camper or not, these are just good reminders.

12:39If you're an expert camper, you might take some of these things for granted because you're so comfortable being in the outdoors. Our Cub Scout pack, I think probably representative of a lot, a big variety of of people who some of whom have been been camping before, they're very, very comfortable. They own tents. Some of them have never set up a tent in their lives. They have no idea what they're getting into, but they're excited and they want to try it. Balu is a great resource to sort of center everything. So you really know, you know, the kind of things that you need to think about that you might not think about, no matter which end of the spectrum you're on.

13:12That was my impression of Balu, and I know it's been redone since my day. Alex says recovering with a question mark. Yeah, I say recovering. Cubmaster recovering then leader Alex because was such a memorable experience. There's a recovery period where it's it's kind of a let down. Like those days are over. Sydney, I'm fine, I'm totally fine. I know right? Shout out to JD Morgan from pack 21 in Champaign, IL Doug says Pack 3310 will be at the tough covers in May in Camp Beaumont. Very, very, very, very cool.

13:45Alex says they have camp next month at a Rotary camp. Very, very cool. Shout out to Pack 138. Good to see you in, tuning in. Rob says his camp out last weekend. Still some snow on the ground. We arrived, but it was beautiful weather. That's typical. Yeah. Texas, kind of like where you are. It could be snow on the ground, but by the time you get there, it's 60 or 70°. Perfect weather for camping. Let's talk about food, Sydney planning menus. You mentioned getting a lot of people involved, and I think that's a great tip. You know, whoever you are, whatever your role is in your pack or your den, you don't have to plan the camp out by yourself.

14:22As a matter of fact, you shouldn't. It's great to get different perspective, different folks, and one of them could be say you called it a food coordinator. That's a great idea. Talk about food planning and how we make that easy. Well, Erin, I don't know about you, but when I get hungry, I get hangry. And I know a lot of our Cub Scouts can also get very, very hungry very quickly. So food is very important and food safety, making sure that we're paying attention to allergies or special dietary needs and restrictions.

14:52Those are all important, important pieces of a, of a big jigsaw puzzle that we need to, that we need to plan for and we need to be able to deliver to make sure that if people have an enjoyable camp out, planning the food can be one of the biggest, most stressful parts of a camp out. And when we talk about a camp out, a lot of people think that if you're going on a pack camp out, you have to go from Friday night until Sunday at noon. Well, you don't, I mean you can, you can, you can spend 2 nights camping with Cubs.

15:25But a, a, a Cub Scout pack camp out could be from Saturday afternoon, like right after lunch, everybody gets together and you do some fun activities. Maybe you go fishing and then you set up your campsite and then maybe you have an evening program and then you go to bed and the next morning you wake up and you do a nature hike or something and then maybe you have lunch. It doesn't have to be the whole weekend. It can be an overnight which would greatly reduce the the food stress related planning.

15:58But the biggest thing is to keep things simple. You do not have to prepare a 5 course meal over, you know, using a Dutch oven and exclusively making everything from scratch right there at your campsite. In fact, it's a great idea to go ahead and and pre make a lot of the food that you're going to serve and then just bring it with you and heat it up over the campfire or over your camp stove. That way you know that it's already cooked and ready to go. You're, you're reducing a lot of the prep time and making sure that you can have adults that are engaged and involved with your scouts instead of that are standing over making sure that the meat's cooking properly.

16:36You can, you can ask your, your families to kind of potluck bring food in too, especially with snacks and drinks. That's a great idea because Cub Scouts are always going to want snacks. Things like easy things like hot dogs, walking tacos, foil packet meals are something that a lot of that that's taught a lot in Balu training. And foil packet meals, while they're great for providing kind of an individual flair on dinner, they can be really, really tricky to pull off, especially with a large group of people. So think something like like chili or walking tacos that you can cook ahead of time and then just warm up. Also eggs in a bag, or I think Tamara calls it Superman eggs, where basically you you chop up a bunch of mixing ingredients for an omelette and then using the freezer Ziploc bags, you add in eggs, add in your toppings for your omelette, and then toss it into an adult supervised boiling pot of water to let your eggs cook.

17:36And it gives everybody a way to make their own scrambled eggs delicious. And actually with that one, Aaron, my favorite part about that is thinking that you could have your Weeble O's and your arrow of light work on their chef chef's knife and knife skill adventures by having them cut and mince and dice all over the veggies that you might be throwing in Sunday morning or Saturday morning for your breakfast. So it works in those skills, those activities that are required for adventures, but in a fun kind of practical way instead of just mincing and shopping for no reason. Well, you minced the the onion that we used for breakfast. Awesome, awesome.

18:17Yes. I want to do a quick shout out to Alexander, who I think has a really good point. He made this comment 7 or so minutes ago that when we talk about recruiting some help for your camp out, this could also be a good way to try to get new people into leadership roles. I think that's a great point because we have a lot of new families, a lot of families who maybe were never in Scouts when they were kids, right? They don't really know what they're getting into. They're eager to be part of something, but understandably, they might be a little bit nervous. They might not be comfortable speaking up in a in a meeting type setting, in a classroom type setting. But when you say, hey, who wants to cook burgers at the camp out? That might be their thing like that. Me some I do that all the time at my house. You know, I'm and we had I, I was nervous. I'm I'm not afraid to cook burgers for my my wife and kid, but I'm terrified to cook burgers for 30 kids. But we had a, a dad in, in our pack who just did it like it was nothing.

19:10You know, he could just do it and have conversations and he's cooking burgers and they're delicious. So, you know, I think that's a great point, Alexander. You could find somebody, Cindy, Mitch and some other possible activities coordinator, camp out coordinator, equipment coordinator, health and safety lead. When you bring up these options as a way for folks to volunteer, there might be something that rings a bell that makes them think, oh, this is something I can do.

19:31This is something I'm I'm good at. I think that's a great point, Alexander. I appreciate you contributing. Real quick shout out to Crystal Marie from the Northeast Georgia Council. Hey, let's talk real quick. If we don't mind about allergies, you mentioned this a little bit of more things you have to consider, allergies and dietary needs. Crystal Marie says our pack had so many allergies, we've started using a clean menu, no pork, no margarine, etcetera, finding alternatives that work for all, all scouts.

19:57Can you talk about that a little bit, Sydney? Is there a particular way we need to go about making sure we account for those kind of things? So that's one of the reasons why you want to get parents involved in the planning early on. That way they can jump in and speak up and say, actually, my Scout's gluten free. I need to make sure that you know, that the hot dog buns don't have gluten in them. But that's also why in in the safety and preparation for camping, why it's so important.

20:22It's vital that you get those Med forms, part A&B, because those will have any allergies or dietary restrictions on them. And that should alert you as a leader that hey, we need to make sure that we're taking into account the scouts needs. And also don't forget, if you're serving something and that might be an allergen for somebody else, make sure that you're serving utensils, any tongs that you're using, any spoons that you're using. Make sure that you have extras so that you don't contaminate one item with another.

20:53And, and I think, you know, like you said, getting a lots of parents involved, so many advantages of doing that right, allergies being one of them. And, you know, if, if there's something you're not familiar with, if you don't know what, you know, gluten free means, I don't know what it means, but I don't really know what you have to do. You know, that's a parent you can ask. So, So what do you, what do you need then? What can we do to make sure that your child is able to eat and enjoy the experience just like the rest of us?

21:16And, and they'll be happy to explain all you just need to buy this or use that. It's probably not a huge deal. So a great way to sort of get other parents involved. Like you said, so many advantages to doing that. We all win when parents are involved and inviting. You don't have to do it all yourself and recruit. Them to be on your food committee say hey, your kid has special dietary needs. Will you come help us to make sure that we can, you know, include them in food, that we can include them in snacks, that we have things that are appropriate, get them involved. Yeah, yeah, a dietary restrictions, allergies, all that is important part of keeping a camp out safe. Sydney, what?

21:53What else can we talk about when it comes to safety and preparation? What do we need to know? You know, whether you're an avid camper yourself or maybe you're in this for the first time as well. What do we need to know about safety and preparation? So having a prepared leader creates confident families and that's really important. And to be a prepared Cub Scout leader, make sure that you have your Cub Scout, your leader, your position, specific leader training done so that you know the rules. Make sure that you're always following our safeguarding youth training.

22:23Make sure that you have your hazardous weather training updated, especially important for camp outs, so that if there is hazardous weather, you know how to keep your scouts and their families safe. Before you go check the weather forecast. It might seem like a silly thing, but if all of a sudden there's going to be a cold snap, you want to make sure that your families are bringing extra blankets. Or if it's going to be raining, you want to make sure that your family families are bringing rain gear and that you're setting up your tents in appropriate places. Make sure that you have families correctly fill out parts A&B of your Med form and make sure that they're present and with one of the leaders, preferably the leader who's going to be in charge of health and safety.

23:04That way, if something does happen, you have the Med forms and you know, if there are any allergies, their medical history, all of the important information. And then really making sure that our families are prepared for camping because Erin, like you said, instead there are so many different levels of, of camping expertise that our families have. Some families enter Cub Scouts because they already know their, their family goes camping all the time. They love the outdoors.

23:33They're hiking, they're trekking. They, you know, they have a lifetime membership to REI. It's they, they own half the store. It's that kind of a thing. But there are other, there are other scouts that don't have that, don't have families that camp, that have never been camping before, that aren't really used to being outdoors that and it's a wide range. So making sure that when you're planning your camp out, you're talking with your Cub Scouts, but also your families about gear. Do you have a tent?

24:02And if you don't have a tent, that's OK because this other family that we have, well, they have an extra tent or it's OK because the troop that meets next door or the troop that meets at our, our same building, they have extra tents and we can borrow one from them. That's a great way to to work with your local Scouts, BSA troop and make those connections and build that relationship is by saying, hey, we have a family that that needs to borrow a tent.

24:30Do you have one that we could borrow? So make sure that your families know what they need to be prepared, set them up for that success. They need sleeping bags. And if it's going to be really cold and snow on the ground, you need a different sleeping bag then if you're going to be, you know, at summer camp in Texas. So make sure that you're you're helping them. I like to give out a little packing list that lets them know these are kind of the basics that you need to bring sleeping bag, pillow, water bottle, flashlight, those kinds of things. And then find out from them.

25:06You know what, what's on this list that we can help you with because you will have those new families who've never who've never been camping before. And then Aaron, once you get to the campsite, you're going to want to make sure that you as a leader, encourage your experienced families to help the newer families or or the the new families to camping. You want to make sure that you're helping them set up their tents. Setting up a tent for the first time can be it can be tough making sure that you have the tarp down the right way, putting up the rain fly, figuring out which things you have to tie wear and it it can be a lot for a new family. And so offering to help, making sure that we're there, making sure that we're making it successful for them. Those are all really important things that we can do as leaders that are that are simple but very effective to making our families feel welcome.

26:01Yes, awesome, awesome. We have just a few more minutes here with Sydney. I can't believe we're already almost done on Friday afternoon talking about your spring camp out. I want to address real quick a a sort of statements last question from Scouter Craig who says bring a friend, friend for recruiting. Question mark Sydney, I think that's a thing you can do now your friend has to fill out a medical form, right? It is. What do we need to know? Wouldn't let people know about bringing your friend with them camping. So you want to make sure that they have a medical form and you want to make sure that they're interested in joining scouts, that it is a recruiting thing just because, because that's, that's what's that's what's encouraged and that's what's important.

26:43But camping is a great way for people to to try things out, to have fun at the activities, to get to know, to get to know the pack. So it's a, it's a great opportunity. Yep, Yep. Get those medical forms, especially for non members you know might not know them. Food allergies, all that stuff like that applies to them for sure. Any special medical conditions, anything like that, Very important that you know about that, especially if you don't know the family already. You know you need to know these things. And it's for the youth and the adults. So make sure that the parents and siblings, anybody who's coming along, anybody who's going to be there, make sure that they have their Med form.

27:21Todd says pancakes, the one you just add water to. Oh, man, that brings back memories. Todd. That's exactly what we did. We would pour the pancake mix in a little like a coffee mug and add water and pick it up and then pour it on the on the on the grill. Delicious. Delicious. Alex says, remember, these are activities that will kindle the fire of scouting spirit in all of us. Yeah, it's so true. It's 100% true. I agreed. Let's close out our discussion Sydney, by talking about planning activities. What do you do on a camp out?

27:50You want it to be fun. You want it to be age appropriate. What do we need to know about planning activities on a camp out? So camping is really core to helping make those like, like you said, those those scouting memories. So planning something unique is always great. My pack went to the Columbus Zoo and we had an absolutely amazing time. And it's not a traditional type of camp out. We, we still considered it a camp out because we went somewhere else.

28:18We slept in sleeping bags on the floor, but we also got to see the animals at night. We got to have up close encounters with them. It was a really amazing time and it was something that my scouts are still talking about years later. Lots of zoos, aquariums, museums, even battleships do overnights. So again, check with your local council and make sure that it's an approved site. But then go for it and have fun. I mean, camping at at your State Park or your local council camp is awesome, but it's not all that's out there.

28:51And then you want to make sure that you have a balance of structured activities and some free time. Keep the activities simple. They don't have to be overly complicated because things are probably going to, you know, go a little crazy sometimes like a nature hike or a scavenger hunt. Outdoor games. A great option is a recycled rain gutter regatta. That's a really fun thing to do in the spring and to use like the juice boxes that you had at lunch and now you're going to recycle them into boats and race them. Stomp rockets or bottle rockets, like water bottle rockets. Those are really fun fishing.

29:31You can work on your the the activity, the adventure for fishing. That would be a great one. And then things that you really can't do other times. So like work on your whittling adventure with your bears, work on different, different things. You're you're camping and hiking. Obviously with your outdoor adventures, you could do a flag ceremony or a flag retirement ceremony and then you could do a pack campfire. And campfires are some of the most magical and impactful moments in scouting that we can have.

30:05There are going to be some campfire skits up on the website soon. We know that you have been asking for them. We have a bunch of fun and games activities that are already up there. If you're looking for that, that easy thing that you can do with a group of 20 kiddos and you have a big open field at your camp out and you know, type in your, your ages, type in your numbers and you can get a whole list of ideas of fun games, fun activities. And the goal is is fun.

30:36Make sure that you're having fun, that you're adults are having fun, that you're being safe and follow the guide to safe scouting. Make sure that you're following those rules to keep our to keep our scouts safe. Yeah, I think the important thing, like you said, Cindy, the only real requirement is that you do it safely and you follow the guide to safe scouting and follow the rules of scouting. Other than that, you can do a bunch of Cub Scout adventures if you want to. You don't have to.

31:04You mentioned earlier letting the older kids let weevils in her of light scouts prep and cook for their chef's night night safety adventures. If the camp out is a good opportunity to do that, you can do that. You don't have to. You can have a campfire, you don't have to. There's all kinds of things you can do, you know, depending on where you live and what your meeting structure is like and how often you're able to get together. Maybe you're outside all the time, maybe you have DIN meetings outside all the time, in which case a camp out, you know, is not the only time you're going to be outside. You can do that stuff later if you want to. Or maybe like Cindy said, this is your chance. This is your opportunity to get the kids outside and do some of these outdoors adventures.

31:41And when I say adventures, I mean with a capital A, the Cub Scout elective and required adventures. Maybe it's a good time for you to do that. You don't have to. The only thing you really have to do, follow that guide to safe scouting. Play by the rules again. I remember and back in my day, Sydney, we had one family and, and they were so comfortable in the, in the camp camping out with their young, young child. And maybe it was a tiger Cub, I don't remember.

32:04They were, they were ready to do all kinds of stuff, go out and go out in the lake and do all kinds of stuff. And I was like, well, now we, you know, we can't do that as in a part of an official Cub Scout camp. So just keep that kind of stuff in mind. Yeah. In general though, the camping experience, it doesn't really get better than that. I mean, in, in, in the Cub Scout camping experience, like you said, our kids still talk about their Cub Scout camping experience and the things they did and the one time where they saw Poison Ivy and the one time where they saw this giant spider. And boy, I'm so glad you mentioned the idea of camping out at a museum or, or some sort of facility. Like we did that too.

32:39Can we camped out with some dinosaurs bones, you know, it was great for years and years and years. Very, very cool. This has been a a great discussion. Cindy, any final thoughts on as as we as we head into camping season? I I like to say right now is camp planning season can't spring camping season will be here before you know it. Any final thoughts any before we let you go? Like you were saying, Aaron, they years from now, our Cub Scouts won't necessarily remember the schedule.

33:09They won't necessarily remember, you know, the how much prep work went into things or the meal that they ate or the adventure, even the adventure with a capital A that they earned. But they will remember those special moments, those silly things that happened, the laughing with their friends singing around a campfire, those, those memories, those things that are so simple and almost, almost impossible to plan. Those, those are what are going to be their core memories. And so plan for it not to go all the right way. Plan for something to, you know, there's going to be a freak rainstorm or, you know, somebody's going to leave the marshmallows on the table and the raccoons going to steal them.

33:49And, and don't panic. It's OK. That's, that's, that's going to be a memory. It's going to be it's going to be something for your scouts to to talk about and laugh about later. Absolutely, Yeah. Yeah. Todd endorses a battleship in Massachusetts and battleship in New Jersey. You mentioned, you mentioned camping on battleships. Yeah. Another thing that we, we should say is that, you know, camping at a museum, camping at a battleship, camping at your local council property. You can do all that stuff.

34:17And they may have like a program planned already. You can do, or you can camp out at at a State Park as long as it's approved by your council and sort of come up with your own program. You can be as structured as you want or you can be as loose as you want. Yeah, Alex says let's go remember the adventure is out there, you just have to go find it. 100% agree, Alexander. Rusty says some of them remember everything. That's pretty funny, Rusty. Some of them do remember everything. I think we should close.

34:43Well, let's give a tease real quick. Tamara is hosting next week. And Tamara actually sent me a message about what they're, you may already know this and about what they're going to talk about. Yes, it's. So exciting. Do you want to give it a plug real quick? Next week's show. OK, so next week's show they're going to be talking about the amazing patch and celebrating America's 250th birthday and how Cub Scouts can earn that patch and what they can do to really dive into the spirit of our of our country's birthday. Yeah, it's time to get your patriotic hats on. Patriotic hats on for next week.

35:19We're going to talk about America 250. That's very, very exciting. And, and what a cool opportunity for those of you who have Cub Scout age kids at this time, at this year to get to go through that. I'm going to close Sydney with a comment that you put in your notes that you sent to me before this meeting. Camp outs don't need to be perfect. I'm going to quote Sydney on that. That's a great quote. It doesn't have to be perfect. And I remember again, back in my day soon, I say that a lot, but I remember, you know, doing activities and we would finish faster than I thought I would. We have a whole hour to kill now. What are we going to do?

35:50And it's amazing. They had a great time. They didn't need me, as it turned out, to fill that every single minute with programming. They had a great time filling that time themselves, playing with each other, having a good time while we got the hot dogs ready or whatever it was. And bounce don't need to be perfect. Couldn't have said it better myself, Cindy. It's always so good to see you. Thank you for joining us. Thank you so much, Erin, and thank you to everybody for tuning in. Thank you for all the great comments. We appreciate it very much.

36:14Yes, Alexander, next week's show will be amazing. Tamara will be the host. TuneIn to watch, please. Thank you all for watching today. As a reminder, you can go back and watch this anytime. It's a podcast now. Listen to it as a podcast. Whatever works for you. We love it. Thank you again, Cindy. Thank you all for watching at home. See you next time everybody. Have a good weekend. Thanks for tuning in today. Be sure to catch next week's episode Same Time, Same Place and let us know how we're doing at go.scoutingmagazine.org/rate Cub Chat. We love feedback and ideas for new episodes. And.

36:53You can visit blog.scoutingmagazine.org/cub Chat live. For all our past episodes, you can see us live, except it's recorded. But it it was live. OK, see you next week.