Now that everyone has had a chance to decompress, and warm back up (Ugh!), I want to thank the 16 scouts and accompanying adult leaders who participated in Summer Camp this year at Fiesta Island off of Mission Bay in San Diego. T648 had never attended this particular camp before, but general consensus is that it will now be on the regular rotation for consideration for future Out of Council years! This year’s camp was spectacular on many fronts – the scouts completed all daytime merit badge requirements that they were eligible to complete, and still made time for fun in the water, next to the water, fishing in the water, free time on water craft, building moats, writing in the sand, building campfires on the sand, sleeping on the beach, relating as friends within our troop, and with scouts and camp junior trainers from other troops. Too many highlights to cover them all, but a few are worthy of mention: After a great start, we finished 4 consecutive days with perfect campsite inspections, and finished the week with the equivalent of a Big-G Gold award from Geronimo, our council camp – an Honor Troop Candidate award! We won the prestigious Aquaticade 4×100 relay race pulling away, and had Mr. Murphy rate a ‘9’ on the pain scale with his scoutmaster belly flop. We toured the Midway, won multiple events to go to the head of the line for meals, and were often the first sailboat out on the water because of our excellent knot tying abilities. We intelligently took ‘Wilderness Survival’ merit badge at a place where it was 72 degrees overnight on the beach, presented a hilarious campfire skit named ‘Igor’, and caught a stingray with squid bait. And best of all – nobody spent any time at all in the health lodge! I think my favorite moment was when T648 led a flawless camp-wide flag ceremony, crowning it off with a perfectly on-pitch rendition of the national anthem as a singalong (SPL Mr. Achor allowing that he wasn’t about to have the troop do a ridiculous ‘repeat after me’ song like all the other troops - ‘Da Moose, ‘Da Moose, Swimmin’ in the Water! – Are you kidding me!!??). Here is a shot of young Mr. Achor getting everyone ready for the Star Spangled Banner. You can be both proud and happy that T648 represented our troop well, and had a ball all week doing it.
29 Jul