It may seem obvious but practice things the Patrol is poor at, enlist the help of others, and ask the opinions of other Leaders or better still the District Team, remember what may seem obvious to others may not be to you.

Another thing is that the “Best Scouts” or the older ones are not always better at camping, and usually there is a restriction, on the age, or the number of APLs or PLs, you can enter no senior Patrols is the wording, we have found that entering two Patrols a district comp camps works well if you have the numbers, one with the more experienced Scouts both young and old and one of the lesser experienced ones, this helps three fold, one the younger Scouts don’t miss out while the others are preparing for the competition, two this Patrol is getting the experience to take over from the other Patrol, and three this gives the Scouts doing their “Chief Scout’s Award” ample opportunity to complete activities in Scout craft, and their “Leadership Award”.

The competition itself, and this is where my ‘mixed feelings’ come in, at District level you find it is not much different than a normal Patrol camp, and the Scouts taking part will probably have seen each other, and may know the judges, or at least the judges will know or have some knowledge of your Group, they will have seen most of the Patrols before, and if this is not your first time, they will also have judged your Scouts, it is a job I would not want to do, and probably one of the most difficult in Scouting.

During the camp they will inspect site layout, ‘safety and cleanliness’ in the store tent, and the Kitchen/dining tent also the Patrol tent and the general camp atmosphere, the Patrol Leaders Leadership, they may also award points for the camps menu, and programme, but the main points go on safety and cleanliness, should your Patrol win they may be asked to represent the District at the County camping competition presuming they have one.

A camping competition at County level is a different thing altogether, the rules are probably the same, but you may find extra ones, the judges are more strict and better able to judge camping skills and appear to have no connection with the patrols being judged, but this is not always the case. The atmosphere is more in keeping with a competition or should I say the Scouts are more aware they are competing, remember the opposition is made up of the best in their respective Districts for there camping skills and the standard of camping and equipment is better, after all the winners will be the best in the County.

This is where my opinions to camping competitions become mixed, the better your equipment, or the more you take with you, (it would seem), the better your “ chance of winning”, so the amount off equipment for a Patrol of six camping for two nights at our camp comps, is becoming ‘extreme!’ to say the least, as stated before, we only use the patrol tents in competitions, and not the smaller four man tents, the tents we use as dining shelters and kitchen are old frame tents we were given, but as I write we are preparing for our third ‘County camping competition’, and this year we are entering two Patrols, this means we are going to buy a new dinning shelter, gas rings, etc, and extend, our range of camping equipment, I will be able to give you the result of the competition later, but better still see if having new equipment makes a difference, but before then I will continue.

Camping first and foremost must be fun, but sometimes the extra pressures to “do well” can mean that there’s not much time for fun in the true sense of the word, the competition can be a bit trying for some of them, this is why they must practise together as much as they can, building a bond and learning to work together, at the end of the day can you really judge the best Patrol out of sixteen or so in “two days?

With this in mind I have changed my attitude towards these competitions, and explain that because they’re competing they shouldn’t enjoy themselves, doing things right, and working as a team, is all anyone can ask of them, and if they win it’s a “bonus”, but they all must do their best, and never give up, anything less would be letting the team down, and all that practicing would have been a waste of time, as my Dad used to say ‘they can not sack you for doing your best’.

Before and like many others, I used to think winning was the main thing, but if they win does this mean that they are better at camping or even better Scouts? “Yes” for those two days ‘in the opinion of the judges’ they were the best, ‘but does it matter’? This is where Scouting can become complicated (if you allow it to) how can I explain, suppose your Patrol came first at the Competition one year, and the same Scouts came fourth the next year, does this mean they were not doing there best, or perhaps the opposition got better, will they themselves blame one, or the other, whose fault was it, if as the Leader you question their behaviour or standards, it may lead to resentment, after all they will know better than you if they did their best.

Allow them to question their own behaviour, and let them decide for themselves if they did their best, its only a competition and there’s always next year, never let them fallout over it, and never put competitions before the rest of their Scouting or show disappointment. Provide encouragement, and remember they are there to enjoy themselves, but this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a what went well questions and answers, at the next meeting, the competition is an addition to their week to week Scouting, its there for them to ‘enjoy’ and not for you to prove your Scouts are the best! The result could be “worst” than sending them on competitions, and not allowing them to compete!