Camping and Conservation BRINGING WHERE TO GO CAMPING GUIDES INTO THE 21 ST CENTURY Session Length: 50 Minutes Learning objectives: Learn about available resources for a Where To Go Camping Guide. Learn update you lodge s guide through the use of outlines. Learn how updating the lodge s guide helps fulfill part of the OA s Strategic Plan. Required Materials: Enough copies for one per breakout group of the guidebook called Manual for Producing a Where to Go Camping Guide: A Manual for How Your Lodge Can Produce a Camping Guide for Your Boy Scout Council (copies can be downloaded at www.oa-bsa.org/resources/pubs/index.html ) Bring all of your own published guides and maps that include camping sites in your area. Also, check out additional guides from the local library. Ask the advisers and others who will attend the LLD to also bring their own published guides and maps. Bring copies of your lodge s past Where to Go Camping Guides. If possible, bring printouts from websites that have camping and hiking information for your area. Backpacker.com and Recreation.gov should be just a few of the websites you should examine. TRAINER PREPARATION Introduction: 5 Minutes Trainer Tips: If your lodge has a current WTGCG, introduce it to the class so they are familiar with it. Use the session as an opportunity to solicit ideas how the lodge can improve its current WTGCG. Dynamic and constantly updated information sources have forever changed how we gather and process information. Social networking probably contributed the largest shift in our quest for up-to-date and local information. While books and guides still constitute a valuable resource, the fact is these new resources are much quicker reacting mediums. Trainer Tips: How can our lodge deal with the information transformation and still help its units know where to camp? Deal with it by simply embracing the change. We need to stop thinking of our Where to Go Camping Guide (WTGCG) as a one-stop shop. It cannot possibly contain all of the information that has already been gathered by others. We should start
Camping and Conservation - Bringing Where to go Camping Guides into the 21st Century 2 thinking of our WTGCG as a gateway to other information resources, including some additional information suited for our specific market: Scout units and their youth leaders and adult advisers. Trainer Tips: 1. Learn who is in your audience, by asking them their name, where they are from, what they hope to gain from your session. 2. Ask the class probing question and listen for their answers so that you know their familiarity level with Where to Go Camping Guides (WTGCG). Example questions include: a. Is publishing a WTGCG guide important our lodge today? b. How have our past WTGCG guides been received by our unit leaders? c. How can we improve our WTGCG efforts? SESSION NARRATIVE Break Out Session: 15 Minutes In May 2005, the published the Manual for Producing a Where to Go Camping Guide: A Manual for How Your Lodge Can Produce a Camping Guide for Your Boy Scout Council (copies can be downloaded at www.oa-bsa.org/resources/pubs/index.html). The manual emphasized the need make a WTGCG an on-going project and that revisions and updates should be a year round process. Ask each breakout group to report back to the entire group their answers to these questions: 1. How well does our lodge s WTGCG book (or website) incorporate some of the suggestions found in this manual? 2. What suggestions would you make to improve the Manual for Producing a Where to Go Camping Guide: A Manual for How Your Lodge Can Produce a Camping Guide for Your Boy Scout Council (i.e. are there some things in our lodge s current WTCG book (or website) that has worked so well for us that we want to share it with other lodges)? Trainer Tips: 1. Make sure that everyone in each of the groups is participating. 2. If your lodge would like to forward to the National Committee its suggested improvements for the Manual for Producing a Where to Go Camping Guide, please email your suggestions to the attention of the Outdoor Program subcommittee at webmaster@oa-bsa.org. Brainstorm Session: 10 Minutes Gather the group together and brainstorm all of resources that publish any information about camping in the area where the lodge s units like to camp. Think of local, as well as national groups, clubs, publishers and entities that promote camping. Think about resources that your WTGCG can point to If you think about your lodge s WTGCG as a guide of guides, or a gateway to already published and available information.
Camping and Conservation - Bringing Where to go Camping Guides into the 21st Century 3 Below are a number of sources of this kind of information: Backpacker.com Resources www.backpacker.com
Camping and Conservation - Bringing Where to go Camping Guides into the 21st Century 4 Trails.com Resources www.trails.com
Camping and Conservation - Bringing Where to go Camping Guides into the 21st Century 5 Recreation.gov Resources www.recreation.gov American Hiking Society Resources www.americanhiking.org
Camping and Conservation - Bringing Where to go Camping Guides into the 21st Century 6 Professional Guides and Atlas Resources
Camping and Conservation - Bringing Where to go Camping Guides into the 21st Century 7 Social Networking Resources Facebook users can become a fan of an organization (i.e. camp), or a member of a group.
Camping and Conservation - Bringing Where to go Camping Guides into the 21st Century Create an Outline to Change Your WTCG 8 15 Minutes After the brainstorming session is over, discuss with the group the options that the lodge has to publish its WTGCG. The guide could be an online database (see the online database example below from T Kope Kwiskwis lodge), or it could be a downloadable pdf (see the pdf example below from Cahuilla lodge). Also, the lodge s guide could consist of a webpage with links to sources of information. It is up to the lodge to determine how it can best provide this information to its units and leaders. Spend the rest of the time creating an outline for the lodge s new WTGCG. You should discuss how to make specific provisions for how the WTGCG will become a guide of guides to show units in the council about other resources that are available for them to use. Lodge Online Database Example: T Kope Kwiskwis http://www.tkopekwiskwis.org/gocamping/tripfinder
Camping and Conservation - Bringing Where to go Camping Guides into the 21st Century 9 Lodge PDF Publication Example: Cahuilla www.snakepower.org/camping/camping-guides.html Conclusion: 5 Minutes The main purposes in this session were to evaluate the lodge s current WTGCG and to come up with an outline of how to improve the guide. The mission now will be to implement the changes to make our WTGCG a guide of guides and something that will be a useful resource to our council and its units. I will report back to the lodge chief of our success today and recommend that he task our WTGCG committee (or to appointment a committee) to revise the guide as we ve discussed today. I will also report on our discussion of what kind of medium we can use for our WTGCG.
Camping and Conservation - Bringing Where to go Camping Guides into the 21st Century 10 APPENDIX: SOURCE MATERIALS AND RESOUCES Manual for Producing a Where to Go Camping Guide: A Manual for How Your Lodge Can Produce a Camping Guide for Your Boy Scout Council http://www.oa-bsa.org/resources/pubs/index.html Referenced websites in this presentation: http://www.backpacker.com http://www. www.trails.com http://www. www.americanhiking.org http://www. www.recreation.gov http://www.tkopekwiskwis.org/gocamping/tripfinder http://www.snakepower.org/camping/camping-guides.html