Today was the Cub Scout Day Camp… It’s actually a 2-day camp, but we have a swim meet tomorrow so we only signed up for today… Yes, I signed up to attend as well – I would have to have a volunteer job at the camp but as it turns out we’re the only Wolf/Bear cubs attending from our pack which meant my job would be to walk along with Christian and the rest of the scouts assigned to his company (along with parent volunteers from the other packs). On the schedule for the day for our company was opening flag ceremonies, BB-Guns, lunch, Swimming, Games and then closing ceremonies.
The BB-Gun rotation was comprised of 3 stations, so our company of 45 scouts was split into 3 groups of 15 each. Our first station was the shooting station. They had 10 stations setup, desks with BB-Guns, safety goggles and down range was a target. With only 10 stations and 16 scouts they split our sub-group into 2 groups. Unfortunately, this also meant they had half the time they should to shoot. So the first part of the station was everyone learning gun safety, point it downrange, etc… Then Christians half of the group went down to shoot first. They were sitting in school desks using BB Rifle guns and he couldn’t get the butt of the gun into his shoulder making it really hard to aim. And before you know it, it was over. I think he shot 10 BBs or so, I was disappointed in the amount but thankfully he didn’t really care. The second half of that station they entertained themselves by trying to toss a bean bag into a bucket. It worked at keeping them somewhat entertained.
The second part of the rotation was a Gun and ammo history lesson and shooting positions, but no actual shooting. The final station was a water bottle rocket station where they got to launch bottles filled with a little water and then pressurized into the air. They spent a lot of time doing it and had fun with it. I was assigned the task of sending each group of kids over to their station – they were a great group of kids that listened well and were all excited to launch their rockets.
The afternoon was spent swimming. They offer the swim test in the Lake (Lake Jenkinson, aka Sly Park). I asked Christian if he wanted to do it but let him know that he didn’t need to since he’s on the swim team and that basically means he gets both the belt loop and pin. He wanted to anyway, but he took it a step further. There are 2 swim tests – the elementary swim test and the BSA swim test. Christian went for the big one, the BSA swim test and did great. It’s basically a 100 yd swim test, 75 yards doing any stroke, 25 yards of an elementary backstroke and then finish it off with a survival float. He had minor problems with the float (lacking body fat) but did do it in the end. He passed the test. After swimming they had various water crafts, making a sailboat, etc… We went home tired, but had fun!
