The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Right now, "The Ugly" would be a good description of my mood. Not for any particular reason beyond a lack of sleep, whiny people and a long week. Actually though, I usually am grumpy out of exhaustion on the day a camporee ends. That is the main reason I am "ugly" right now, the others I'll save for later.

This was the second camporee the district has held since I got here and thus marks the first time in almost a decade that the district held two in a year. It was a Lewis and Clark theme with events taken from a camporee we did back in Pon-Man in '04 with a variety of modifications. The events were mostly similar as was the dinner featuring buffalo.

Picking up the buffalo meat was different as I had to stop in a town just east of Appleton after a business meeting to pick it up. So Brian and I walk in dressed in nice dark-colored suits into a meat market and completely threw the clerk when we asked for the Boy Scout order. They were nice enough to load it in my ice chest for me so that I didn't get anything on my suit. The buffalo roasts ended up as shreded meat sandwiches for our potluck.

The favored event of the weekend was sharp-object throwing. The scouts got to try their hand at both throwing tomahawks and knifes. I safely observed the procedings from the deck of the building they were doing it in front of. Amazingly no one was injured.

The only event I actually took part in was the bartering event that took place all day. There were five of us "Indian Traders" whom the patrols needed to trade with to obtain the goods that Lewis and Clark traded for on their journey. Each of us was identified by wearing a feather. I actually ended up with many feathers attached to my hat with duct tape (see photo posted after this) and came up with the name "Chief Walks-On-Water...but only when frozen" (last part said in a mumble). My loyal sidekick was Chief Baked Goods (aka Chief Confectionary aka Chief Cupcake) the past chapter chief whose line for the day was "Pastry's got your back, man." The goal for the corps of traders was to get as much from each trade while giving the least. Frankly, we were too good. The final, very funny straw was when a fellow trader got 5 scouts as "slaves" for a horse and a beaver pelt. I had joked about trading for a set of kitchen slaves but thought that was in bad taste. This group of "slaves" had kids from several troops in it who were quickly emancipated but took on the name Slave Patrol and came up with their own theme song and did some miscellaneous work to help with the campfire and earned baked goods for their help. It was a little hard to explain when one of the leaders showed up looking for his Scouts and had it explained that they had been traded for a horse...he was completely at a loss. Priceless.

Overall it was a good event. I got some good picutres of the camp that I will post later this week--it is a neat camp with cool theme buildings. I did sleep out both nights camping with a troop. I guess it is a good sign that another troop commented to the chairman that I had camped with the same troop before and they thought that was unfair. My perspective was that I was invited and that they had the best food in camp--their leaders are excellent cooks and the kids fend for themselves.

My frustrations last week came from cantankerous old people. The first was a volunteer I appointed not long after getting here. He is a retired Army Colonel that hasn't left the old school version of Scouting, but is organized as hell. He has been a bit of a pain since he came on board, but did well with the events he's worked with. This week at our committee meeting he got upset at a decision that had been made without his input and proceded to yell at me during the meeting. Sadly he didn't get up and leave. He refused to even listen to the reasoning behind the decision. This made me very cross. When I saw him this weekend you could have frozen a lake in the chill between us. I don't mind people disagreeing with me, but it has a time and place and outbursts at public meetings are the last place it needs to happen. I'm not blameless since I have not communicated with him as much since getting a chairman on board, but he hasn't tried to reach me either. This will have to be resolved one way or another and both results will be interesting at best.

The other irritating person was the person from our regional office who I had to have lunch with Friday--hence the meeting in Appleton and suit. He is way up my chain of command and makes my teeth grit every time I see him. He represents the worst of the old school BSA mentality of achieving goals at any cost and punishing failure without finding the root cause. Winning for his achievement is his byword. The "me" in Team is all he cares about. I spent almost the entire meal clenching my jaw to keep from laying into him about how backwards and counterproductive his viewpoint was. He seems to like "Yes" men and was decidedly unpleasant and gently scolded me when I did not give him the answers he wanted about membership and money--I didn't even want to discuss it with him since quality and sustainability are just catch phrases to him. Brian was faintly amused at how cranky I was after we left our lunch with him.

Upside, the camporee is done, I only have two night meetings thus far this week. The other good thing is that Brian is growing into his job faster than my best guess and continually impresses me with his ability. I would almost be insecure if I didn't know that I was perfect....