CampFire USA Leader Training

So, my co-leader Lori and I went with another local club leader, Carrie, up to Spokane Valley for a day long leadership training for CampFire. It was a great opportunity to share ideas and talk about the direction the council is going in. I had a blast with my caravan group. There were moments where I didn't think we'd ever stop laughing.

Lori's husbands cousin :) put us up for the night. Waking up at 4 and driving up for an all day meeting just didn't sound like any fun. It was a lovely home out in the countryside of Deer Park. Unfortunately it wasn't heated and it was around 40 degrees outside, so it was cold. We made use of the many heavy blankets available to us. We were served a warm breakfast and we had some lovely company from our host. It was a nice stay. The house was about an hour from our destination point though, we had some interesting dilemmas with logistics. But we just left the house at 7:30 in order to get there in time.

We got to meet the new council program manager whom I just think is great. She is quite charismatic and her experience and background will add a lot to the INC. She has a lot of great ways to get kids active and involved and I'm positive that even though she has one of the most stressful and underpaid jobs in the world she will be terrific in her new role.

I really underestimated the importance of the paperwork that I'm supposed to require parents to do and Lori and I will definitely be more diligent this year in our registration, insurance, field trips and financial records. That was some of the most useful information that I left with. We shared a lot about our website and expressed the desire for more clubs to head in that direction. It would help so much to be able to see what other clubs are doing.

Kenny worked on a little program for me last spring (in order to fulfill graduation requirements for Regis) It is a web based program for scout style groups to use to keep track of their individual accomplishments. Specifically tailored for Camp Fire, it can be a useful tool for leaders and members to record trails completed and track service hours. It was brought up at the meeting and they were quite excited about it. It may be something that scout groups all over the country will utilize... I think thats pretty cool.