Brownsea Camporee
Last weekend my son and I went on a campout with out his Troop. This was not a normal camp out, it was a Camporee. A Camporee is a camp that is organized and carried out by the District. The Falls District in the Snake River Council to be exact. We camped at a nice little place called Frenchman’s Island near Burley.
The boys setup camp Friday night and then attended a campfire program. While they were at the campfire, I decided to hang back and try my hand at cooking rolls in my dutch oven. I had planned ahead by making some dough in my breadmaker. After burning the bottom of my first batch, I decided to put more coals on the top of my dutch oven to hopefull cook from the top down. This worked a little better but I still need to do a little fine tuning to get it right.
After the scouts returned, cooked some hotdogs, ate a few rolls, they were off to their tents.
In the morning, we were off to learn some skills from a bunch of volunteers from the Council. They learned about knots, lashings, wildlife, campsites, building latrines, and staffs. As I listened to some of the instruction, I thought to myself how important some of this training was. Where else would these young men get this training? They wouldn’t learn it in school, nor at home. Thanksfully, the LDS church uses the Boy Scout Program as the activity arm of the priesthood. The Aaronic Priesthood teaches gospel principles to these boys and the Boy Scouts provides the activities in which to put them in practice. By learning about how to keep a campsite clean and how to build latrine, Andy was able to pass off one of his Duty to God requirements. The two programs go hand in hand.
