Spotlight Scout Week
● Spotlight the adventure of Senior Scouting during Scout Week, February 6-12. Scouting will be in the national news—newspapers, magazines, newsreels, and radio. People will be especially aware of Scouting. You can localize this priceless publicity by newsworthy activities in your Senior Unit.
Select projects from the outline below, based on the theme “Adventure—That’s Scouting!” Then put the spotlight on your Unit by giving the facts to the local newspaper and radio editors.
In Senior Scouting there is Adventure in Fun and Fellowship. A spotlight activity may be:
Honor Day!
Honor an outstanding student, athlete, musician, teacher, hero, or others deserving special tribute. This may be arranged as a school assembly or chapel program or a special banquet given by the Unit.
In addition to a well prepared sincere tribute, your Unit may give the honored guest a lasting token in the form of a certificate or plaque prepared by members of the Unit.
More than one person may be honored if care is taken not to cheapen the recognition by giving it indiscriminately or by allowing any possible criticism of the Unit making an award for political reasons or to secure privilege.
The type of achievement recognized may vary from year to year to insure honor for someone who greatly deserves it but may otherwise be overlooked. This may include honoring the outstanding youth leader of the community, a minister, an all-round Scout, or all-round girl student.
This acid test must be applied to every recipient if a Senior Scout Unit is to be justified in giving recognition:
1. Is the person a good citizen, recognizing his responsibility in a democracy?
2. Does the person to the best of his ability exemplify the virtues expressed in the Scout Oath and Law in his daily life?
In Senior Scouting there is Adventure in the Outdoors. A spotlight activity may be:
Field and Sports Day!
Run it on an inter-Crew or inter-Unit basis. Let each group invite a guest (prospective member) to take part. Provide coaching for everyone before each competition or demonstration. Give each man a score card so he may keep a record of his proficiency in sports. Crews or Units may alternate as coaches and judges for the various events. The following list suggests enough to make up either a long or a short program:
Emergency Service training.
Mile run—run a mile in 7½ minutes or less. Score 10 for 7½ minutes; add 2 for each half-minute less; deduct 2 for each half-minute more.
Rope work—secure boat to piling (clove hitch or two half hitches), lower man from wall (bowline on bight), secure line to corner of sail or tent where grommet has pulled out (sheet bend), secure rope to tent stake (taut line hitch), throw rope with knot for rescue (bowline). Score 2 for each correct knot.
Rowing demonstration.
Row 50 feet to buoy, turn, and return. Show proper entry, feathering, and stroke of oars; turning boat; holding it on course. Score 10 for perfect demonstration; deduct 1 for each mistake.
Archery contest.
Place shooting line at 15 yards from 48-inch target. Allow 3 arrows for sighting in, and 6 for scoring. Score according to standard archery target points; divide total by 5.
Skish (bait casting) contest.
If floating skish rings are not available, lay out 4 concentric rope rings on ground, 3, 5, 7, and 9 feet in diameter. Place center of target 15 yards from casting line. Allow 5 casts for instruction, and 5 for scoring. Score 20 for cast in or on skish ring or center rope ring, 15 for cast within 2 feet or less (in second ring), 10 for within 4 feet (in third ring), and 5 for within 6 feet (in third ring); divide total by 10.
Rifle shooting.
In prone position shoot 3 rounds for sighting in, and 5 rounds for scoring. Score according to standard target points; divide total by 5.
In the next three events the basic timing of 20, 5, and 3 minutes may not be appropriate for your group. Try each event a few times and determine the average time to use as a base.
Compass racing.
Lay out a course that will take about 20 minutes on the average (see Scouting Magazine, September, 1948). Score 10 for 20 minutes; add 1 for each half-minute less; deduct 1 for each half-minute more.
Canoe carrying.
Lift a canoe from the ground (with aid of tree or rack to lean it on), make portage carry 25 yards and return, and lower canoe to ground. Score 10 for 5 minutes; add 2 for each half-minute less; deduct 2 for each half-minute more. Disqualify for rough handling of canoe.
Axemanship.
Chop 10-12-inch log in two, using long-handled axe and taking all safety precautions. Score 10 for 3 minutes; add 2 for each half-minute less; deduct 2 for each half-minute more.
Bucksawmanship.
Place 6-inch log on sawbuck. With bucksaw cut off as many sections (about 2 inches thick) as possible in 5 minutes. Score 1 for each section cut.
The following are demonstrations for which you can work out your own scoring system.
Rope rescue.
Rescue a man marooned across a ravine or stream 20 feet wide. Use ropes, vines, temporary bridge, or raft (see Scouting Magazine, March, 1947).
Wild foods.
Find as many wild foods as possible, and prepare enough for tasting by the whole group.
Overnight camp.
Set up a Crew camp with proper shelter, beds, sanitation, water supply, and fires.
Breeches buoy rescue.
Rescue a man from a mast 40-50 feet away (see Sea Scout Manual Chapter 18).
In Senior Scouting there is Adventure in Citizenship! A spotlight activity may be:
Home Management!
Encourage Senior Scouts to take over the management responsibilities of their families for one week, with the cooperation of their parents. Each will plan menus, purchase food (no, he won’t have to cook it), make payments of bills, plan family entertainment, include cost, and finally report to the family showing a saving if possible on a satisfactory program.
Preliminary conferences with mother and dad will be necessary to learn certain routine and long-term obligations as well as to establish a family budget if one is not already in operation.
Rowing and Riflery are Field and Sports Day Events
Senior
Briefings
● It’s On Ice
If your Unit is in the two-thirds of the States in the snow belt, it can do something spectacular when called on this winter for an act in a Council circus, high school assembly, or Scout Week demonstration. That is an ice rescue staged in realistic fashion.
A skater gliding around a pond suddenly breaks through. As he thrashes around in the water, another skater comes along, tries a rescue by incorrect methods, gets too close, and also breaks through. Then two Senior Scouts—instead of the Lone Ranger—come along and rescue the skater-swimmers.
The action takes from five to ten minutes, depending on how much of a script is written for it. A commentator verbally sets the scene and explains the wrong and right rescue techniques as they are used. If a public address system is not available, a megaphone or a strong voice should be sufficient.
The spectacular part is the staging. It is best in an arena where the spectators look down on it, although a stage will do, the lower the better. A platform is set up and covered with newsprint. The platform can be put together from fifteen long tables such as found in many church dining rooms. Set them together, three long and five wide, with an opening in the center of the resulting oblong. In this opening set a tank of water. It may be hard to get and handle, but it is the crowning touch when the audience sees the victims splashing about in real water.
Cover the whole platform, including the hole, with three or four thicknesses of blank newsprint. Ask the press foreman at a newspaper plant for the paper left on the spindles at the end of the roll.
The four actors, wearing ice skates, can give a good imitation of skating on ice after a little practice. Rehearse the act—dry runs without the water and paper—until it clicks. The actors and commentator will have to coordinate themselves. The men at the mike may have to work up a few ad libs where action might slow down in a performance. Then have a dress rehearsal.
Ice rescue techniques may be found in the Safety Merit Badge pamphlet and the Scout Field Book.
Game Equipment
Game, equipment in your headquarters comes in handy during parties, and also is a pre-meeting attraction. The one danger is that sometimes the games are so popular they stretch the pre-meeting period over the major part of the evening. However, that can be avoided by a gentlemen’s agreement to close the games at a definite time on meeting nights.
Game equipment can be bought, of course, but it can be made inexpensively.
Darts is a game the GI’s found popular in war-time England. Make the target of corrugated cardboard cut from a large carton. Mark colored concentric circles on it with crayons. Make each dart of a match stick (kitchen size). On one end lash a needle with thread. On the other glue four small paper fins. Hang the target on the wall and let fly with the darts, making sure the firing range is not a thoroughfare.
Table tennis requires a smooth 5´ × 9´ playing surface. If you don’t have a suitable table, get a piece of half-inch plywood. Sometimes you can make a better deal by taking two large scraps of standard pieces, sawing them to 5´ × 4½´ and then hinging or cleating them together on the bottom. If you don’t want to bother putting legs on this playing surface, lay it on a large table or two small ones, just so it is at least 30 inches off the floor.
Make paddles of quarter or eighth-inch wood, whittled or cut with a coping saw to shape and then sandpapered. They may be any size, but generally are 6″ × 12″ over-all.
The net must be 6″ above the table. Make it of cheese cloth or muslin, hemmed and reinforced with strong cord threaded through the hems. Hang it from dowels set in cleats that extend beyond the table edge at the center line.
Buy a supply of balls at the dime or sports store, or mail order house, and soon you’ll be searching for them under the furniture.
Other games for which you can make most of your own equipment are shuffleboard and paddle tennis, providing you have floor space of 52´ × 6´ for the first, and 20´ × 44´ for the second. Buy or borrow a rule book, find dimensions of equipment, and turn it out in your workshop.