From: Assistant Camp Director, Long Lake Scout Camp
To: Camp Advisory Council, Two Woods Scouting District
Subj: Annual Report on Camp Rules and Suggestions for Improvement


As there are many new members of the Camp Advisory Council this year, I will begin by providing some history on this report.

Approximately 60 years ago, the Two Woods Council was provided with a charter for scouting in this city and the surrounding area. After about 10 years of scouting activities in the decreasing wilderness areas around the city, it was decided to set aside some unimproved forest areas for future generations of scouts. This became the Long Lake Scout Camp.

At the time that we started hosting scouting events and campouts, the policies for scout behavior were taken directly from the guidelines provided by the BSA. Over the years, though, the general attitude of the boys in our camps has seen the rule book less as a guideline, and more as a challenge. They do not try to break the rules as much as find loopholes.

We have since performed an annual review of the behavior of the campers, and updated the rule book to address any remaining loopholes. Unfortunately, we cannot always predict the efforts of dedicated and imaginative scouts, so our efforts lag events. Such is the nature of the conflict between the individual and the institution. Or, as we used to say in the Navy: “Rules are written in blood.”

For example, the boys in the Horned Lizard Patrol built a catapult a few years back. When we put catapults on the prohibited list, they proceeded to construct an onager, a trebuchet, an arbalest and a ballista. Rather than consult ‘Armed Sieges Through the Years, Volume II: Before Gunpowder’ to list all the possible names and classifications of such weaponry, we have adopted a single rule that ‘no device that hurls objects in the air’ may be in the possession of any scout while at camp.

Protests that Assistant Counselor Fazzini was not hurled, but rather flung, slung or thrown three quarters of the way across the obstacle course are adequately addressed by Counselor Goldberg (an English Major) with a thesaurus. Similar protests that human beings are not ‘objects’ were addressed by the fact that AC Fazzini certainly objected to being the payload of any torq-powered delivery vehicle.

So, following this year’s campouts with the Chess theme, I submit the following amendments to the camp policies for your approval.

  1. In general, this year’s Chess theme was useful in delivering lessons on team play, sportsmanship, communications, and chains of command. However, the boys’ attraction to and use of the concept of a Camp Queen probably do not bear repeating.
  2. The rules on respecting the area wildlife seem to be sufficient, but could be improved by noting these rules also apply to dead animals.
  3. Nothing, nothing, nothing beneath a guest bagpiper’s kilt is of interest to any camper, before, during or after a piping demonstration.
  4. Leave the noble art of dentistry to professionals.
  5. “I was bored” is not an excuse for anything done indoors with a bullhorn and a US Navy-man-overboard whistle.
  6. Rules for behavior while ‘Indoors’ should be taken to include ‘inside a tent’ and ‘inside a building with walls whether it has doors or not.’
  7. There is no ‘good’ use of a biohazard sticker in the mess tent.
  8. No snorting helium before using the loudspeaker or a bullhorn.
  9. Scouts will not be allowed to sing sea shanties using words they can neither define nor spell.
  10. The ‘Chipmunk Song’ is to be used in moderation, especially in conjunction with helium.
  11. There should be no creation, soliciting or signing of loyalty oaths among the staff.
  12. No den chief duties are to be performed ‘Skyclad.'
  13. Jousting is the sport of knights on horseback, not scouts on laundry carts.
  14. No point of the color ceremony includes the optional phrase ‘Bite Me, Spiro Agnew!’
  15. No part of the Boy Scout Oath says anything about ‘the lamentation of their women.’
  16. No part of the Boy Scout Motto includes the phrase ‘blaze of glory.’
  17. No part of first aid includes shouting ‘Circle of Life, dude’ and leaving him for the scavengers.
  18. The provisions for providing political asylum to campers need to be spelled out more clearly in the Counselor's Manual

    Update, 18 November:
  19. The chaplain is not sufficiently prepared for the outbreak of Stigmata in one of the scouts. We suggest supplemental training for the lay leaders in this subject.
  20. The fifth amendment does not cover answering questions about the status of a project.

    Update, 2005:
  21. The organization of ice-fishing tournaments during summer camp will cease immediately.
  22. The diving competition will be moved to another part of the lake until the ice-fishing judging booth can be recovered from the bottom of the lake.
  23. The tradition of snipe hunting is not as harmless as some will have us believe, especially when it coincides with the Forestry service's relocation of a truckload of wolverines.

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