Today is the last day for traing before the camp starts.
In the morning, some "somebodies" came to visit the site. One leader (troop committee) had a "long" stop at our area. He asked all the details about our preparation from how to separate the patrols to the equipment. Everyone even did the teaching demonstration again in front of him again. In short, he was keen to know how and what we have prepared during the week and encouraged us to do our best for the coming weeks. I like this mental support very much. When I work in a Taiwanese camp, we also have Mr./Ms. Big to see how we are in the camp. However, they seldom ask for the details like the leader did today, basically, if they see everything is fine on the "surface", they become satisfied and then leave. Mr.S told me why those people came to the camp afterwards. We could call these people sponsers of the camp. They have donated so much to the camp, and it's time for them to see how their money is used to. I kept asking, how and why did you have so many sponsers? We always had problems collecting enough money to run a camp, e.g. 國中童軍營. He answered, you should step out and talk to people. Once people understand how good Scouting is, you will get what you need in the end from those people. Wow, interesting! He has the same thinking as my principal! But, I agree with that, Scouting needs better PR in order to let the public understand us.
In the afternoon, we had a LSS training. LSS, Lost Swimmer Search. It's a very serious training. Once the waterfront staff realizes that someone is missing (No one is in the water, but its name tag is still on the check-in wall.), the camp has to collect people by playing the alarm to the assembly field to see if it's only the person who forgets to check its name tag out or we do have a missing person. If it is the second, then all the staff has to put on their swimming suits and starts to search in the water. The waterfront is separated into two areras, swimmers' and beginners'. The swimmer staff is asked to search in the entire area, while the beginner staff only needs to help search in the beginners' area. ( Thanks God that I am only the beginner!) To search in the swimmers' area, the staff has to stand in line with their right arm streched to the next person's shoulder on the dock. Then, it's buddy check! The people in pair need to grab the other person's hand and to raise the hands up with counting off. The staff glides into the water. First, they need to check if the body is stock in the bottom of the dock. They dive into the water vertically. Once they touch the bottom with their feet, they may float up with their one hand raised over their head in order not to hit the dock with their heads. The staff turns around and does again the buddy check. And then, they dive into the water. When their hands touch the bottom, they have to swim three strokes before heading up. The lifeguard on the dock asks everyone to stay in line, which means if someone doesn't swim very far, others have to swim back until being at the same line as the person. For the rest, just repeat doing the buddy check and diving until finding out the body. As for the beginners' area, the staff stands in a line, side by side, with their arms escorted. The staff walk forwards with their feet feeling the bottom of the water. Once you touch some thing, you may shout out, stop! Everyone is supposed to stop wand wait for your checking. If it is a body, mission ends. Otherwise, everyone will continue searching. I helped out the begginers' area searching. After 20 minutes, my buddy found a fake limb put there by the lifeguards before. We shouldn't say it's great that we found it! I mean, you know how horrible it will be once you are look for a real body! In short, I appreciate this training, and it is necessary to do once your camp schedule contains water activities. BSA takes this training very seriously. We even have the alarm gathering training with all the campers every Monday morning!
We talked about how to evaluate our activities afterwards. Campers/Troop masters are our customers. Customers are not alway right, but they are still the customers! In order to let the camp run well in the future, we just need to work as hard as we can.
In the evening, we had our camp fire rehearse. The fire was at the other side of the lake. I felt so good that the fire place was next to the lake, although it should be at the center of the arena according to my experience. We had MCs, master of ceremony, to introduce the rundown. It's just so fun and everyone was laughing all the time. It was super dark when the camp fire rehearsal ended. I followed another group to go back to our rooms. The leader was a little bit lost his direction, so we spent more than 30 minutes until the destination. I was scared...
Staff's free time
Football, basketball and frisbee. I joined the frisbee, since I hate to play balls. I am not good at it!
