Activity Write-Ups

CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) is a volunteer program that helps with disaster response, and in this instance Venture Crew 27 had the opportunity to be a part of the team that trains the team. The part we did was helping with the training of triage, or assessing the order in which to help people, as a “victim”.  All the “victims” were assigned a specific injury and got appropriate moulage to match, then spent the rest of the day acting out the injury for the CERT team members to assess. It was truly an interesting experience.

By Griffin

Venture Crew 27 returned to our recurring adventures in trail maintenance in our most recent service project at Wunderlich Park. With assistance from the preeminent park personality of Stu we geared up with McLeods and shovels to restore the trails from the damage inflicted on them by this year’s inordinate amount of rain. After a not insignificant amount moving and leveling we came to our great reward: scotch and/or french broom. At arriving at the boon of broom we weeded to our heart’s content, and the a little more, and left safe in the knowledge that we’d done something to help the community.

By Griffin

We left for the snow early in the morning, and after a drive to Dodge Ridge (a ski place in Stanislaus National Forest), we arrived by the side of the road where we camped. We spent a while bringing all of the various supplies up to the camping area and starting to make our snow shelters. We continued building the shelters for the rest of the day until it got dark. At this point, there was a lot of rain and snow coming down. Those who had finished their shelters built an eating area, and those of us who were still working to secure the shelters from the rain and snow attempted to finish their shelters before their bags got too wet from the pouring precipitation. It was dumping snow when we were eating together outside, and the wetness of our clothes made it very cold. Finally, we went back to our shelters go to sleep, but the continued rain and snow quickly caused further problems for many of us who had design flaws in our shelters (including mine). A few of our shelters suffered problems of the roofs not being sloped enough, so they began to fall in, and we had to get out of our sleeping bags and put on our soaked snow clothes to repair and redesign our shelters. The Troop had even worse problems with their shelters, so we had several people in Venture Crew going over to their area to help them. Eventually, we went to sleep, and we all survived the night. The next morning, we had to dig out our shelters and knock them down while packing up to leave quickly in the event that the snow got worse. The snow got worse, and we canceled all events in favor of bringing things down the mountain as fast as possible and quickly organizing and packing everything up, as the snow was projected to continue getting worse and worse. Finally, we got into the cars and left to come back home.

By Evan

V27, along with the troop, partied their way through the new year at St. Bartholomew’s Church in San Mateo! We had a surfeit of games, food and party tricks to keep us entertained, and we even got a game of Beer Cran Mango Pong going! (patent pending.) The Crew participated in the Troop’s Iron Chef cooking competition, and we rang in the new year at midnight while cooking a delicious meal that included Gnocchi with an artistinal tomato, garlic & onion sauce. Some of us even made it all the way through without crashing out in the early hours of the morning.

By Diego

The crew arrived early in the morning at Marlon Park for Scouting for Food. After drinking some coffee and eating some donuts the crew set out to collect nonperishable food from the surrounding neighborhoods. We went around politely knocking on doors and collected food on behalf of Second Harvest Food Bank. We ended up acquiring loads of food for a great cause and had fun doing it.

After that, the crew drove down to Coyote Valley Sporting Clays to shot some shotguns. The crew split into three groups and with a guide went around to different ranges with several clay launchers, each with a unique parabola. Some shot the clay high but slow while others had the clay shoot across the range at high speeds. One had the clays bounce around on the ground to mimic rabbits and another shot from over your head. Once we got good enough they launched two clays at the same time and had shoot them both out of the air. Overall we had a great time really enjoyed ourselves out there.

By Corey

It was a fun night with many activities. It started at around 6:00, with some coming as early as 5:30 to set up.  The event was held outdoors, with everyone in attendance dressing up in Halloween costumes. Everyone attending brought an assortment of tasty treats: cookies, pies, cider, pasta, and much more. A covered table was set up with various craft supplies, mainly glow-in-the-dark sharpies and paint. Lots of time was spent painting gravestones, and doodling was done while enjoying the tasty food. For the main course, burgers and hot dogs were cooked up on a grill, with many sides and toppings. Later in the evening, time was spent singing karaoke together during that time, others played games like Mario Kart, and Super Smash Bros on a projected screen. A game of Giant Chess was played, and both sides battled out with unwavering determination until the end of the night.

By Deniz

After our departure from Beresford Park at 8:30, the crew reached a park where we would learn how to windsurf. All the crew members shocked the instructors with our skill to properly raise, and use the sail properly after only having little to no experience. Multiple crew members were able to successfully turn their sail and board around without falling over by the end of the session. Crew members got a chance to not only play in the water but also learned new skills while having a big smile on their faces.

Once our session was over, we got cleaned up, dried off and ate lunch. Luckily, when we began to eat lunch, the wind started to get chilly and blow harder. The instructors were kind and let us sit in their wonderful back patch of grass. The crew had a lovely view of the water, the boats in the distance, the clouds above, the large mountains in the background, and the many birds that flew overhead.

After arriving at the Chabot Campground in Castro Valley, the crew played the game of Kubb. Kubb was exciting, as crew members took turns throwing wooden blocks attempting to knock down the other team’s wooden blocks. Sometimes, we got lucky, other times, we weren’t, but regardless, all the crew members built better friendships. In addition, the crew successfully used rope and wooden beams to build a ten minute tower. Although the tower didn’t take ten actual minutes, the tower represented the crew’s skill and demonstrated that we knew some impressive lashings.

Further, once we had set up camp, we cooked delicious pesto noodles and chicken. One of the crew members might have gone a little crazy with the chicken cooking, in which when the noodles had been eaten up, there was still plenty of chicken to go around. The crew had a wonderful time cooking and shared funny jokes and stories with some lights.

One crew member built a fire that was both warm and bright. Once the light had faded away, the crew got an extremely great chance to look up at the night sky and view the Moon, and some planets. Using our equipment, and help from our adult leaders and astronomy expert, the crew got to view the night sky with its beauty. This was an amazing opportunity to see things that normally wouldn’t be as obvious.

After we woke up from our cold sleeping bags the next morning, we made large fluffy chocolate and blueberry pancakes. One pancake was the size of a frying pan! We got our dishes cleaned and sorted, packed up our gear, and went to project management and axe throwing. This portion of the outing was a good opportunity and experience to go learn about what it takes to lead a good project using steps such as what materials you need, what kind of communication you need, and many other important life skills that the scouts could use in their future lives. The crew also got a chance to throw both tomahawks and large wood cutting sized axes. Many of the larger scouts successfully landed the huge axes deep into the wooden target.

Overall, the crew got an amazing chance to go on an amazing outing that showed that the scouts knew their skills, learned some more, and got to have fun all within 48 hours.

By Dominic

After arriving at Camp Lotus on a smokey morning, we set off on the American River in three rafts: two with crew members and one with the adults. After bumping through some class II rapids, we stopped on the shore for lunch and continued through the first class III rapids. The rafting was exhilarating and exciting during the rapids, and tranquil during calm periods.

After rafting, we went to Beals Point campground and proceeded to cook, clean, and get ready for the night.  While camping, we tried some weird cooking techniques, such as skewered eggs, cookies above coal, and cinnamon bread on wooden rods. The skewered eggs did not cook evenly if  when we were able to skewer the eggs without them cracking, which is not a trivial task. After experimenting with cooking the cinnamon bread, we found that buttering after wrapping the stick with the bread worked well for flavor and texture along with cooking the bread on the stove. The bread was good, as well as the cookies, though they were slightly burnt on the bottom as they were too close to the coals.

We then practiced our lashing skills by building a merry-go-round out of rope and wood that held up for the initial test but fell to the side upon more testing. We learned that we need to tighten and reinforce our lashings with more windings, especially for the center tripod, as they were the point of failure. Overall, we had a lot of time to chat, bond, and learn various rafting and cooking skills.

By Liam

V27, alongside older scouts from the Troop set off on a trip down the Sacramento river. We gained experience controlling watercraft through just over fifty miles of river, including plentiful whitewater. We greatly enjoyed the opportunity to travel down this section of river, bonding all along the way.  This run of the Sacramento further developed the skills and bonds of our Crew.

By Andrew

On a misty Saturday morning, the crew headed to the Phoenix Garden in San Mateo to help with weed control and garden maintenance. A few of us focused on laying out the cardboard and raking, while some of us shoveled piles of mulch into wheelbarrows and transported it to the orchard area. It was very fun finding creative ways to run a wheelbarrow across the garden, but also very nice to return to the Phoenix Garden after doing my Eagle project there.

Thanks to Erik Frydenlund and Jacob Gottesman for coming to assist the crew with this project!

By Katie

Aqua trek in the Verdon Gorge, bike tour around Castellane, cave exploring (Via Souterrata), kayaking in the lower Verdon Gorge, windsurfing on the Mediterranean, sailing on the Med. with a stop to snorkel, swim and kayak. Visited Troglodyte Caves in Villecroze, the Rhone American Cemetery, the Baume Obscure cave, Chapel Notre-Dame de Gratemoine in Seranon, Sénanque Abbey, Pont du Gard, Avignon and Pope’s Palace Did a special tour of a French Coast Guard station, road the cable car up Mount Faron in Toulon and visited the World War II museum there. Spent an evening with French scouts.

Itinerary (PDF)
Narrative

V27 in combo with the Troop planted flags on veteran’s graves for memorial day! In a short matter of hours we had covered most of the cemetery in American flags. While camping at Millerton Lake, we ate good food, sampled a desert contest and provided lifeguards for a troop swimcheck. We also had time to go kayaking and canoeing.  We taught songs at a campfire and practiced the ones we plan to use in France!

By Diego