This will definitely be one for the books. I spent a fair amount of time planning and coordinating the meeting. However, the moment the car parked, everything SNAFUed.
The meeting would have Order of the Arrow (Scout honor society) elections for 20 minutes, then we would go outside and work on lashings. THis one scout had volunteered to lead an activity called Kim's Game.
Before the meeting, I sent our Quartermaster to go set up 2 propane lanterns for lighting. Then, I put the scouts into formation, and started up the meeting. After the opening, I had the scouts twiddle their thumbs for a few minutes. Just Kidding. The OA people were supposed to show up to hold the election, but they decided not to... Well, they were late. So, after 10 wasted and boring minutes, I had the scouts go outside to set up lashing stations and Kim's Game.
HOWEVER, this one adult had decided to have a presentation for all the new scouts without letting me know, and so the activities missed the main point, and were sorta reviews for the older scouts.. Meanwhile..
The lanterns weren't up yet, so I had the scouts get started on the stations. We were already 20minutes into the meeting, so I wanted to get started ASAP. The scouts and Patrols began setting up poles and stations. I headed to the lantern station and went
"Status report" and this guy said "
operational" "Anyone got a match?" Well, alrighty then!. I headed to a Patrol Box and extracted a blue, snub nosed light. Click click*. And then all insanity broke loose.
FWOOSH Whoomph wahhha wahhhunknjf safuawuif for a currently unknown reason, there was a propane leak in the head of the lantern, and it went up. Like a crazy torch. Oh, btw, some genius had decided to open up the gas valve before I got there, and so there was gas running a bit earlier, which helped make the explosion a bit more balloon-y.
It was slightly panicky and yelling for a few minutes, but someone turned off the tank, and stopped the propane flow, but the fire continued. I set up a perimeter around the fire, and then checked on the tank. The quartermaster and I quickly blew out the remaining fire and then contained the situation.
ALRHGTTT THE FIRES OUT EVERYONE CALM DOWN.
QM, mark this lantern and put it back in the shed.
Put the lighter back in the patrol box and stop ..a . adwda.geg
I gave the lighter to an older scout, and headed inside.
Then, to further complicate things, the OA people showed up, called me inside, and wanted to run the elections.
Alright I'll send everyone in in a few minutes.
When I headed back out, everyone was like
after a minute of observation, I realized that some idiot (the older scout prob) had not only restarted the lantern, but opened the gas, set the PLASTC knob on fire, and ignited the entire lantern!!! There was poisonous smoke billowing out, the knob was covered propane and melted, burning, and liquified, and on fire!! There were actually gobs of molten plastic and metal dripping off the contraption! I called for a fire extinguisher, and they brought one over, clipped off the safety, and gave the furnace a full double-barrel.
I got the bureaucratic OA elections started, and then headed back out to pack up.
It turns out that the new scouts weren't going to vote, and so they would just run around while the other scouts voted. Fortunately the Scoutmaster saved my stripes by stepping in and teaching the new scouts a couple knots while they voted and I helped pack up the molten lantern. Meanwhile, remember the scout who volunteered to run a station? (BTW we never got any lanterns up) He/ his parent's weren't too happy that he couldn't lead his activity. We were already running overtime, and there were elections, messes, and classes going on. His dad was like "no we have to do it. just 5 minutes maybe" and I just went: No next time."" THEN reports started coming in about new scouts fighting and biting each other. -.o I had to go sort that out for a bit. And then this little scout threatened me because his mom was the adult grubmaster.... .. .. . . .
After the long, boring 1/2 hour vote, I managed to do closing and apologize about the crazy meeting. (half an hour overtime)
D:
I'm going to do something about the fire thing later.
Meanwhile, remember the bear trap I was building? Well, i've made a wooden model and have designed it and I'm gonna test it out at this week's campout.
Remember the guy who I could tell he was lying about his emails? He just proved he was lying. He showed me his outbox on his phone to show that he sent ONE email RIGHT BEFORE THE MEETING. And he sent it to -----------@gamil.com. -.- I didn't catch on until later, but earlier he said he sent 10+ emails to me. His outbox only showed one email to me.
Should he still get the position? :D Comment!!
Littledude!! BIGDUDE IS LEAVING BOYSCOUTS. I can't say "yay" as the SPL but read the other posts about him to decide how I feel. His parents want him to transfer to another patrol. for some reason. I think they think people are approaching him and bothering him . it's pretty much the opposite.
Anyways, can't wait for the campout this weekend!! :-) I'm going to do a complete guide to camping for scouts soon. :-)