Junior Leader Training

Though I like the idea of the 100 Days of Scouting challenge, I feel like I’m wracking my brain to daily seek out scouting-related material to post.  Most days I have some, but much of it is so miniscule that I just can’t bring myself to invest the time to blog about it.  On the bright side though, the challenge has caused me to blog more…  so that’s a good thing.

This past weekend my son and I attended our first outing with his new troop – Junior Leader Training (JLT).  Apparently, this was the first JLT in a long time that was held at one of our council scout camps, in this instance, Camp Pigott. I guess in JLTs past they had done them at a troop Scouter’s cabin. This, of course, limited the boy’s activities. With it being at Camp Pigott, along with the classroom-style training, we were able to get the boys out doing First Aid scenarios — three in all.  The boys were also able to experience alternative methods of cooking and each scout cooked their own food for every meal using the fire in the fire pit and dutch ovens.

Regarding the First Aid scenarios, the first scenario consisted of a scout, while on a hike, falls behind the group and ends up being attacked my a cougar.  The boys had to assess the injuries and treat them according to their severity and transport the scout back to camp to for help.

The second scenario was of a group of scouts on a hike, on a switchback one of the scouts kicks a large rock down to the next switchback but when he does so, the entire path gives way causing him to fall to the switchback below.  This action also splits up the group with two behind the slide, one injured in the slide, and the rest on the other side of the slide.  The injured scout has broken bones and the boys need to get him back to camp.

The third scenario was a full group exercise where Timmy the Scout got in to a tif with the other scouts the night before, got mad and took all of the candy bars with him and fled the campsite only to get lost.  The boys needed to devise a plan of how best to search for the lost scout knowing that he had his 10 essentials, was likely cold and hungry, and hunkered down in an area utilizing his scout skills to the best of his ability.

The scenarios were a HUGE success with the boys as was the cooking and simply being outdoors.  It did rain on us, as is typical for this part of the country and this part of the year, but during the debrief of the weekend, the boys came up with great ideas to minimize the negative impact of camping in the rain.

The weekend was a great success and I look forward to the next JLT in the fall.