Post edited 11:16 am – September 9, 2011 by Veretax

Well I can't speak for everyone else, but its good to be back at the start of a new scout year. Our round up was decidedly different than last year. Largely because due to illness, I was unable to attend the planning session. So whatever the original plan was, beyond some general theme of 'water', that all went out the door when the Remnants of Tropical Storm Lee showed up. We had to quickly shelve that plan and try to come up with something new in just a matter of days.

Personally I think it turned out great. Instead of having stations for each activity like last year, we had the boys work through a progression of games and activities that required some team work to complete.

1. The first stop for the new arrivals is the sign in sheet (name, phone, email), and the parents get the youth app for their son. We waited a bit for enough kids to show up and then our District Executive went up stairs to give them the 'talk' about the scouting program. That left the kids down stairs to have a lot of fun.

2. Game 1: Balloon carry: Essentially the boys were paired up, with their arms joined, back to back, an da small blow up ball (could have been a balloon) was put in between them. Each pair would start behind one line, and had to get across the room to the other line, without dropping the ball, which required them to work together to accomplish this feat. (I think this is one of two of the activities that we substituted air for what would have been a water balloon).

3. Game 2: Marshmallow golf: The boys were divided into two teams of about equal age/size, and would start at one line. Each was given a golf club (some kind of iron), and a marshmallow. At the go signal the boys would use the club to push the marshmallow up to another line, around behind a chair where the organizer of our round up was sitting, and then back to their original line. (Now there was some concern the boys might lift the clubs up too high, or try to wack it, but given we were on tile floor, lifting the clubs was actually no help at all, the best tactic was to try to keep it in front and on the ground as they went, and the boys loved it! Mid way through I suggested the team members who had already gone sit down so we could see which team was done first.)

4. Game 3: Balloon Buster: Same two team format, a chair for each at the end by the other line. In turn each boy ran up to the chair took a balloon and blew it up as far as they could (for younger kids an adult helped), then they handed it to the adult on their side who would tie it. The goal was to sit in the chair and pop the balloon. Most of the boys tried to accomplish this by sitting on it, but the balloons if not stretched big enough were not easy to pop. So, one boy tried putting it under the foot of a chair, and then sitting on it, after a few failed attempts of wiggling on the thing. (We made an ad hoc rule that this was acceptable but you had to try and sit on it a bit first, we also had one leader ready with a pen to poke it when they sit on it so most of the boys were not having to do that.) The boys really liked this one, and I'd recommend it for a meeting too.

5. Game 4: Word Jumble: Finally a calmer quieter game. The words from the Promise were put on a card, and words cut out into two sets jumbled on the table. We divided them into teams of 3 or 4 at most, and they competed in pairs, cycling through a few times so each group got a couple tries. The one catch was, that the promise wasn't the actual cub scout promise (I think the organizer said she'd lapsed and put the Girl Scout Promise instead, but I think it worked out for the better, because our older scouts had to actually look at the card to complete this task, not just rely on memorization, which made it a fair playing field.)

6. Game 5: Coloring: We had print outs of a lot of different scout scenes, and each boy colored them as best as they could. We awarded 2 categories: Most Colorful, and best artistic interpretation, or most natural looking.

7. Game 6: Guess the life preserver count: We had a mason jar packed with life savers, and each boy took a chance to guess how many were in there.

8. Awards: Each boy who participated in a winning effort earned a prize, and any boy who participated also got a prize.

9. Food: We had a cake made up like a beach (brown sugar) on the ocean, with fruit roll ups as towels, and umbrellas and everything. Nuggets, and carmel corn (trails end for the win).

All in all as ad hoc as it was this year, i think it came off great, and the kids had fun, and that's really all that mattered!