[Philmont] Cameras and notepads. A differing opinion.

Thanks for your thoughts Mark and especially thanks for the memories shaken
from the cobwebs in my brain of Winton. Spent three summer there with my
son and troop back in the early 90's. Still have the patches (Winton Tribe)
and a few pictures. Would love to take my two other sons there some
day...but California is a bit far to go for summer camp from Texas...for
that matter every where is far from Texas, even in side of Texas.

On our Trek to Philmont this year, I encouraged journaling but never
required it. Found that for the most part, the adults journal and the kids
play...and that is a good thing.

On our crew we had a historian ( a scout), who asked to be the historian
because he had just got some super new camera and an adult and myself (just
a big kid at 51) also had cameras. Our historian took a lot of pictures, as
did us two adults. Our Historian than took our pictures and made a
wonderful slide show presentation and gave each trek member one for their
memory book...brought tears to my eyes when I watched it and made me
realize...it would be good to go back to Philmont again, and probably again,
etc.

I agree with Mark, that it should not be forced on anyone to have to journal
(although I think journaling is good) or have to take pictures. I trust
today that someone in the crew, will be taking pictures, and maybe that
ought to be the Crew Advisor and let the boys pay attention to everything
around them....deer, mini-bears, BEARS or at least their tracks, birds, etc.

Brian Cummins
A missed placed Californian in Texas :-)

-----Original Message-----
From: Philmont@troop47.com [mailto:Philmont@troop47.com] On Behalf Of Mark
Liechty
Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2007 6:53 PM
To: Philmont List Member
Subject: [Philmont] Cameras and notepads. A differing opinion.

Kinda feeling a bit nostalgic today based on yesterday's conversations.

John made some interesting observations about notes, marking maps and
cameras. Having spent a week with him I can assure you he is not
bluffing. he takes careful notes of everything from what he does to the
menu choices at the St. James restaurant.

For him this is a good thing. For others that may not be fun as much as
a bunch of work that gets in the way of pleasant memories.

I am not a camera guy. I have throw away cameras at home with god knows
what on them taken in the early 1990's. We have boxes of pictures that
get moved from place to place and now that I have a digital camera I
have literally thousands of photos with names like 000001243.jpg and I
struggle to remember where or when they are from.

Never have been good with notepads either. For me they are a lot of
work and I don't enjoy writing when I am outdoors. I really appreciate
those who do like writing because I love to read.

None of the above have impacted my ability to enjoy or remember camp.
Last summer I took my son to his very first Sumer camp. Camp Winton,
Golden Empire Council. It took less than 5 minutes for me to be fluent
with the entire place, just as if I never left. The reason it took 5
minutes was I had to see a CURRENT map to locate the few things that had
been moved.

I spent a lot of time that week wandering around looking at "pictures"
that came from memories of long ago camps with friends and brothers. I
have nothing "solid" from those summers other than memories and patches.
    I would trade neither for all the film at Kodak.

But I did take another 200 or so pictures of the camp, my son, and
whatever else caught my fancy. They are sitting in a folder with bad
numbers on my hard drive.

Things are different now than when I was 14. Now I can stop and enjoy
taking the photo's. Back then I wanted to be IN the pictures, and IN
the action. I offered the camera to my son several times, he was not
interested, way to much other stuff to do.

So don't force your kids to take notes and pictures. Let them remember
the trips the way they want. Rest assured that SOMEONE will be taking
pictures and notes. The trip is supposed to be fun, not a summer job.

Just another opinion.

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As you gather around this virtual campfire with fellow
Scouts and Scouters, do your best to be trustworthy,
loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient,
cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent.
-------------------------------------------------------

 
Received on Wed Oct 17 08:59:30 2007