While serving as Scoutmaster and Assistant Scoutmaster of Troop 1 in Charlotte NC, I did these cartoons of the Troop's outings. These "awards" were called the funny awards though many were serious. Each outing had a "Scout Spirit" and "Leadership" award. The boys in the senior leadership patrol would come up with the funny events of the outing on the car ride back to the church. I would draw up a humorous depiction of the events in sharpie on copy paper. Then the awards were given out at the next meeting. The awards encouraged many things: event attendance, positive remembrance of each event, esprit de corps among the boy and adult leaders, and scout spirit. A side effect was positive behavior modification. If a boy who had grown up car sick got the "1st to Spew" award, he quickly outgrew that habit. The word for vomit changed for every outing, but no boy ever earned it twice.
One of the other Assistance Scoutmasters was mystified by the awards. "Wil, none of these awards are accurate to the facts," he said. "The point is not factual accuracy," I replied, "being silly while encouraging scout skills is." The funny awards was a way to teach scouting skills to the boys without lecturing or preaching. And many were side splittingly funny!
The troop forgot to bring even one tent on this trip.
Fun hike to the cow graveyard!
Torrential rain! Again!
The troop did not bring one metal pot to cook the freeze dried food in . Fortunately two boys had old timely metal mess kits from the army.
The famous Powaconda appeared and terrorized the troop!
Snow hike!
Bears chased new scouts.
I love this!
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