Last Saturday, Oct 11, I took Guillaume to a Fall Cub Scout Day Camp. It was in Casteau, Belgium which is about 2 hours away on the US military installation called SHAPE (didn't find out what that stands for). I might have mentioned last year that I was trying to get a BSA Cub Scout pack going here in Luxembourg. Well, I had a few boys that attended activities regularly but I never found a sponsor and the group didn't really go in the direction I wanted - toward being official. So this year I signed Guillaume up in the Lone Scout program so he can actually be on the records of the BSA and earn his Bear. Since he was a registered lone scouter we were able to attend the cub scout day camp. It was a lot of fun and well organized. It ran from 8-5 with an hour to register/check-in and get in groups etc. From 9-12 we rotated through 3 activities of an hour each. 12-1 we ate lunch (one of the boy scout troops had a BBQ to make money so we just bought lunch from them). 1-4 we rotated through 3 activities of an hour each. Then we ended with a short meeting to thank everyone, pass out patches and we were done before 5. The weather was foggy (what can you expect from the Ardennes) and cold and wet but we survived and will definitely dress even warmer for next time.
The most exciting activities that they had were the BB guns and the archery. Of course Guillaume didn't hit the target on either one but he had fun trying. Plus he's excited because he'll be able to get his belt loops for these. The rest of the activities were your standard variety cub scout games. Guillaume loved all of them. I took notes for future use.
They had divided the groups up first by pack (of which there were 4) but if the pack was larger than 10 the extra kids got put together so there ended up being 6 groups of 10 boys. Each group was had a color flag. Guillaume's group was red/white/blue.
There were two packs from Belgium, one from the Netherlands, one from Germany, and Guillaume Duffort the Lone Scout of Luxembourg. It was kind of fun because when they passed out the patches at the end of the day they called out the pack number and one of the leaders went up to get the bag of patches to pass out to his boys. But Guillaume actually got to go up himself to get his own patch because he doesn't have a pack.
This is Guillaume with his group's flag and his orange patch hanging on his shirt. He had a lot of fun and will be excited to attend the next day camp scheduled for April 2009 in the Netherlands. While Guillaume did his activities I had time here and there to talk to some of the men. Considering I know very little about cub scouting and also considering I don't really have a functioning organization to jump in and learn from, I asked lots of questions about how they run things, etc. I particularly liked the man that led Guillaume's group and he invited us up to participate in their Pinewood Derby in February if we can make it. I'll have to get Patrice to schedule a business trip to the Netherlands so we can attend.I also lucked out because the parking lot that we parked in was also the parking lot for the library. That was the one place I had wanted to hit while on base. I went in and browsed the book exchange shelf and came home with 21 books FOR FREE!! I was so excited.
One observation about the day... it was really nice to be able to attend an American event. Americans are so much more efficient than the French. I have a hard time with church functions in France because everything takes forever and there is so much wasted down-time. For example, the stake Primary activity each year is from about 10-5. From 10-12 is an activity. From 12-2 is lunch (kids eat for 30 minutes and then run wild while adults eat and talk for the remaining 90 minutes-drives me mad). From 2-4 is an activity. At 4 is a snack and then we go home. Nothing seems to go as planned. So this Cub Scout event was so nice and organized in comparison. It didn't run exactly like clockwork but close to it compared to my experiences in church. Plus I actually enjoy organizing things like this so it gave me ideas for when I'll have to do it someday.
Now I guess I need to get on the ball and get Guillaume the rest of his uniform. All he has right now is his shirt, thanks to Gramma Cass. Oh, I forgot to mention that we are in the TransAtlantic Council which is the largest in the BSA, and the Charlemagne district which I think is all of France, Belgium, Lux, Netherlands, and Germany. The office is in Mannheim Germany but will be moving to Aviano Italy in 2009. I'll keep you posted on our scouting progress.
