Camp Geronimo 2017 Recap

• 19 Scouts attended Camp Geronimo
• Troop earned the Big G Gold Award!
• John Asher was the Geronimo Scoutmaster – Thank You!!!
• Completed a Service Project of cleaning up a campsite (3 hrs)
• Qualified “12 days of summer camp” skit for the final Campfire
• 15 scouts completed Polar Plunge
• Hikes included  Totem to Totem, Tiger Eye, Levi Young, Inspiration Point and Tenderfoot Run
• Seven adult leaders that attended Geronimo
• Total Merit Badges earned: 46 (+ some partials)
• Total Service Hours: 57         
• Total Miles Hiked: 95          
• Total Nights Camped: 133

                                                                                                            (Edited to protect scout’s identity)

Troop 441, quite simply, rocked it this summer. It has been an unbelievable week and I quite honestly don't know how it could have been any better.

We have had a super busy first 5 days of camp. Unforgettable. Kent Tang has been a champ in helping your boys get 3 to 4 extra merit badges in the afternoon free time.  Our mantra has been to keep them busy. They always seem to get in trouble on their free time....

84.21% of the boys now all have Polar Bear DNA in their blood. One boy, had a worried look on the death march this morning at 5:00 am and then was whimpering a little when we all jumped in as we shouted "Geronimo" at the top of our lungs. After some encouraging for me, he jumped in swam across got out looked at me and said "that wasn't so bad, and now I am part Polar Bear Mr. Asher" ..I had a tear in my eye as I patted him on the back - that's why I am up here.

Our very original skit, "12 days of summer camp" was one of 9 (out of 60 Troops) skits selected for Friday night performance in front of 800 people. The boys are nervous but excited.  Our troop, even the younger scouts, have never lacked for energy, entertainment, and performance in front of others.

Lesson for the day for the boys today: "when the going gets tough, the tough get going." And "Triumph" is simply "try" with a little "umph".

Your boys will all return a little tougher this Saturday. There are only one or two boys without any cuts or scrapes or bruises… But we are trying to remedy this.

The second to last night at Camp was pretty awesome. We had a long and detailed and very well done story about the Mogollon monster, Magoosa. It quite frankly scared the hell out of me so it might've messed the boys up for life....but it sure as hell helped last night by keeping all the boys within the confines of the camp and getting them to bed very early!!!😇

I talked to Boys today about three different kinds of people. Those that make things happen, those that watch things happen, and those that wonder what happened. I asked the boys what kind a boy and man they are going to be.

I also told them a story about a frog sitting by a river. A stork happened by and tried to eat the frog. Why it was looking hopeless for the frog The frog decided to reach around and stretch out with his long arms and grab hold of the storks throat as the stork went back-and-forth trying to eat the frog the frog did not let go of the storks throat. The stork said "Let me go I want to eat you" so but the frog said "no I don't want to be eaten today". So they reached an agreement and The frog said " if I let go of your throat will you let me out of your mouth" while the stork wanted to enjoy his meal, he realized he had no choice. And he let the Frog Go. And the frog lived.  Lesson: never give up there's always hope.

We had a great camp fire last night in front of almost 800 people. The boys easily had one of the top two or three skits. They also won the big G gold award.  Out of 60 troops, only five won the big G gold award. So for a bunch a new scouts, this is pretty darn good.

We had a perfect wake up this morning all the boys formed pack lines and then ate breakfast for the final time as a Troop, at 6:50, 20 minutes later than planned. Pretty good.

By now, all the scouts should be at or near home, probably wanting a very long hot shower and some good food, and perhaps they might be a little bit sleepy. I will make a $20 bet that more than half will be in bed by 6 o'clock tonight.

I am probably a little biased, but I am not sure if we could've had a better week at camp with all of the boys. We just about did everything you could do, got a lot of merit badges, had a lot of free time, did a lot of advancement, learned a lot of knots and the boys learned some pretty valuable life  skills and lessons.

Please remind your boys to keep up with their exercise charting for the entire summer for 90 days in a row so that we can complete the personal fitness merit badge in September.  Personal fitness merit badge is a very difficult one to get, and summer is a perfect time to be tracking your physical activity for 90 days. I went over all of this with the boys.

Scout S did an excellent job as senior patrol leader, and scout N did an excellent job as assistant senior patrol leader. It was a particularly daunting task because we had so many new and relatively inexperienced scouts.

We also could not have had such a good week at camp without the help of all of the dads That were up there. No dad was a liability, which is always a good thing.  And almost all of them came up to me and pleaded, NAY, BEGGED, me if they could be scoutmaster next year for Geronimo, so we have plenty of volunteers…😬

A special thanks also to Keith Eckhardt, a past Troop 441 Geronimo scoutmaster, whose advice prior to me going up to camp, was invaluable and critical for success this week. I took copious notes as Keith suggested, and will present an outline of camp Geronimo "what to do and how to do it " notes that Keith already has already started to ensure that each week we have a great week at camp.

See you all in August.

One last thing, I told the boys, but they will get all of the merit badges and patches at the fall court of honor. It is much better to do it then because if I had handed out the stuff at camp, most of it would've been lost.

Scoutmaster John.