RE: [Philmont]: provo crews

Brian,
Somehow I let your question slip by without responding. The success of a
provisional crew depends almost entirely on the maturity of the scouts in
the crew. Our crew last summer was a provisional crew. My wife and I
were the advisors and we had 3 pair of scouts, each pair from a different
troop. One pair was from Rockwall, Texas, the second pair was from near
Birmingham, AL and two scouts from my troop in Moulton, AL. The scouts in
Alabama were over a 100 miles apart and we never had a single hike together
before Philmont. We did manage to meet with the Alabama scouts for a final
pack shakedown one week before we left for Philmont. Of course we never
even met the scouts from Texas until we arrived at Philmont. The scouts
ranged in age from almost 15 to 19 and all came with a good recommendation
from their Scoutmasters. I think that is very important to know if the boys
scoutmaster would recommend them for such a venture.
 
One of the Texas scouts and myself were the only "Philmont veterans". But
all of these scouts were mature leaders, ready for Philmont or any other
adventure and thus are the exception to the rule more than likely. I was
very lucky and blessed to have them.
 
A few on this email group and on the other Philmont list as well as some of
my local leaders told me I would regret going with a provisional crew,
especially since we could not train together etc.. I stayed in touch via
email and occasional phone calls to keep every one up to date. To save
weight I suggested we try cooking using zip lock bags instead of the using
the heavy, bulky pots Philmont issues. All of these "instructions" were
done over the email route. I sent pictures of how to prepare the meals
using zip lock bags and we never had a single problem cooking our entire
trek.
I mentioned the cooking method to point out you can have a successful trek
and even change the way "Philmont does it" without any problems. But it
depends totally on the maturity level of the boys.
The only problems my wife and I had with the scouts during the trek was
keeping up with them!
 
Good luck to you with your provisional crew and enjoy Philmont.

Wayne White

CC Troop 222

Moulton, AL

Philmont 92, 96, 97, 00, 03

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Received on Tue Dec 2 06:59:29 2003