District Freezere

This year the Soldotna LDS Troop hosted the Tustumena District Great Alaska Council Freezeere. This event was not as could as it could have been when comparing it to cold alaska temperatures but it was cold enough to warrant standard winter camping procedures. During this one night campout we ended up have 2 to 3 inches of wet snow fall during the night. This wet snow is definitely not my favorite type of snow because it caused everything to be not just wet but super wet.

For the competition our patrol was to use cotton balls dipped in vasoline, a flint striking fire starter, wood we could gahter,and a t-shirt to make a cup of water. The other two parts of the challenge for the day was to build a snare and to throw sticks at various targets in a course. Our group did not work together very well for two reasons. The first reason is because the leader in charge of the group does not get the respect he deserves. The Second reason is because everybody in the group is more concerned about their personal interests than working together to chaieve a goal. It is really hard to do well in any competition when the people you depend on for that competition are not willing to be cooperative.

A few of the lessons I stressed to the group after this experience include the following ideas:

1. Never Give: When I say never give up what I truthfully mean is that you never give up until you have exhausted all methods that are possible for completing a task. Once a leader stops believing in task completion the group will join that band wagon of thinking that the task is impossible to complete.
2. Teamwork: Remember the saying together everyone achieves more. There is no I in team. Teamwork is necessary for any task that requires multiple people to get the job done efficient. Yes the majority of tasks a person completes can be done by themselves but are you really getting the task done in a effective and efficient manner. When working as a individual in most cases the answer is no. Teamwork is required to hold together a group.
   
3. Follow directions: The leaders in the Troop are not out there just to pick on a certain scout when giving instructions. These instructions are either to accomplish a task that must be done or to prevent or stop unsafe actions from occuring when possible. Following directions means actively listening to the information given by a person, ensuring you intetrepret the information correctly, acting on that intrepretation, and then evaluating or examing our performance on the activity.

These are just a few of my observations from a recent campout. I could probably write a book with the amount of information I have to process about this campout but I am not here to do that.

Yours in Scouting Service
Mark W
Junior Assistant Scoutmaster
Troop 1616
Great Alaska COuncil
Eagle Scout OA Brotherhood Member
NSJ '05 WSJ '07 Philmont AA '08