Mission Impossible
Once again I decided to try something a little different. We planned the Camporee to have all the events start at 10pm Friday night and end at 4am Saturday morning. When I announced this at the Roundtable, most of the adults were not very enthusiastic about it, and I think that that severely affected my participation for the weekend. Most of the youth that I talked with beforehand were very excited about the prospect, so I think what happened is that there were a few Troops were the youth never even found out about it because the adults didn't want to stay up all night.
This is something that you will have to think about it if you decide to do this event. I had trouble recruiting adult staff as well. I had no problems recruiting Jr. Staff, in fact I had so many volunteers that I had to turn them away.
(Sorry, no pics available)
What went good:
Not as many of the boys decided to stay up till 4am as I thought would, but even at 3:30am we still had a fair crowd out playing with the water balloon catapults (one of the last minute district games we added). We got a lucky break in the weather and had partly cloudy skies for the astronomy. Most of the youth I spoke with were very happy with the events and the chance to stay up very late at a campout.
What went not so good:
Running events in the dark throws a huge variable into planning things. Just getting the Patrols sent on their way after the flag raising ceremony was difficult. Lots of Patrols were wander around trying to figure out what they were supposed to be doing, and it the dark it was sometimes difficult to tell where they were. One thing to think about is that next time have a few adult volunteers wandering around keeping an eye on where the patrols are.
The other thing that didn't work out so well was all the free time on Saturday. From now on I think I will keep the Scouts very busy for the whole day, and not give them any opportunities to get into trouble.