Chills & Thrills
This was my first Winter Camporee and I really had no clue what I was doing. We decided to have it at the Historic Fort Snelling located right near the airport in Minneapolis. It was definately something different from the normal Boy Scout Campgrounds.
What went good:
Bocci ball: Incredible game! We used milk jugs that had been filled with water and left outside to freeze and then a frozen orange juice jug as the bocci. The milk jugs were spray painted 2 colors to differentiate the teams. The boys had a blast.This was definately the hit of the day.
Snow Volleyball: We made 2 walls out of snow (this is NOT as easy as it sounds) so that the teams could not see the ball until it came back over the wall at them.Other than that it is just a normal game of volleyball. The kids had alot of fun on this one as well, even though our beach balls exploded on the first volley, oops, hadn't thought about that. We improvised and used empty milk jugs instead and the boys still had alot of fun. Some tips on building your walls: bring some plywood to use as forms (as in concrete forms) and then lots of boys with shovels. I had brought several spray bottles and boys were constantly spraying down the snow as layers were added. This turned the wall into ice and we had no problems with it dissolving under the hammering of the games. In fact, we had great difficulty taking it down when the day was over.
Not so good:
Snow events like the snow shelter building and snow castle building. The snow unfortunately was very dry and powdery, not good at all for either event. Be prepared with backup events in case of this.
4 man cross country skis: Unfortunately only 2 Troops had brought their skis, and only one Troop had practiced on them. Needless to say, they won. Don't think I will do this one again. I tried it to give people a break from the Klondike derby sled races.