C5-177-15 aka WOODBADGE!! Part 1

Guy and I at woodbadge (I really like this picture of us)

Woodbadge for those of you who do not know, is adult leadership training for BSA leaders. Think of it like the top most leadership training and experience you can get. It's one of the best leadership courses you can attend. Woodbadge doesn't just apply to your life in scouting you can use the same tools for all areas of your life. You learn different communication styles, teaching styles, how to plan and organize a project, what goes in to having the best bonfire/campfire, mentoring others and much more. Every activity you participate in is designed to teach you something. For years, I have been dying to go and this year I finally got my chance! My family is a huge scouting family and I've been waiting for this (4th generation to attend). When I found out the information for when they were offering the course I talked to Guy about it, and that he might also be interested in attending. He agreed to go since it was an ideal time for both of us to attend.

Some of the courses are a week long, others are 2- 3 day weekends, or you can have 3-2 day weekends. Our course was 2-3 day weekends.

When we arrived at camp they split us into dens (like cub scouts). Each den had 6-7 people in it. The morning of the first day of camp you simulate being in a cub scout den.

My den was den 7

Guy was in Den 5

After lunch we participated in the Arrow of Light ceremony and "bridged" into Troop 1. Each den then became a patrol; and each patrol was assigned a different animal. So the big deal with the animals is that at any scouting event you go to, if someone sees you with the woodbadge beads they ask about it. The animals are: beaver, bobwhite, eagle, fox, owl, bear, buffalo and antelope. In my family, we have the bobwhite, beaver and bear covered. I was excited to become a fox, and Guy became a buffalo. (Yay!)

Moving into Troop 1, getting our neckerchiefs 

My patrol (Fox)

Guy's patrol (Buff

The first day was kind of miserable. It rained pretty much all day and I had a cold so I felt like crud the whole time, and with no voice. Our cook is the head cook for Valley High School in DSM so our food was fantastic. It was also on time which was important because we only got 45 minutes to eat. (They kept us on a pretty tight schedule the entire course). That first day we ended with an indoor campfire where we learned what goes into planning a campfire and how to make a stellar one. We also played different getting to know you games, to help you better interact with your patrol. By the end of the day we were suppose to come up with a group cheer and a group name. Guy's patrol name was the "Noble Buffalo" with their cheer being "TATONKA!" My patrol is the "Fantastically, Feisty, Funky, Friendly, Fun, Fast Foxes! Yip, yip, yip!" (our name was our cheer).

The rest of the weekend procedure in similar fashion. We had different presentations about various topics, games that taught a different leadership aspect, activities and etc. Saturday we had 20 minutes to design and build a bottle rocket.

The Troop Guides blasting their bottle rocket

Playing memory

Learning to tie the famous "woggle"

Attempting to tie the woggle

Guy's real focused on the lesson....

I'm focused too...

And the next assignment...

 On Sunday we did participate in a scouts own service, where we learned what all goes in to planning a service for those of different religions. It was interesting seeing how one is done, since most of the ones either of us have been to have typically been LDS specific.

At the Scout's own service on Sunday

At the end of the 1st weekend you leave with a few different projects to accomplish. Each patrol had: to make a flag representing their patrol, design their totem, complete the outline for the conservation project assigned to them, and complete a patrol project that covered some aspect of scouting. We were given 2 weeks to complete these activities. We also had to come up with what meals we wanted to eat because the second weekend each patrol was responsible for making their own food (so you got the camping aspect of it as well).

Lunch on Sunday was dutch oven style. Each dutch oven was a different dish