The Reservation Today:
Camp Ottari Woodshop

Comments from Quenten Ratliff, Woodshop Volunteer:

I think that the purpose of the Wood Shop is to allow Scouts and Scouters to use hand tools and their imagination, the way their grandfathers did, to create something useful, wheather it's a dinning hall bench, a stool for their alarm clock, or a bird house. And it exposes people to a useful craft that they can carry and expand the rest of their lives.

The boys seem to enjoy the company of the adults who are also working on their projects, observing them, how they do their work, and engaging in trivial shop converstion. It often requires physical effort and sweat, which they don't seem to mind since they're producing something useful. The reward for the boy is the finished product that he takes home when he leaves.

The reward for me is the smile and satisfaction the boy presents when I compliment him on his hard work and a job well done.

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One story that is worth repeating is of a young boy who stumbled in the shop one day and asked what he could do. I informed him that he could build a stool if he had enough time. He was a small boy and I doubted his ability, but he said that he and his grandfather worked at home he that he thought he could build a stool. He did a very good job and finished the stool on Friday. Before he left he asked if he could come back next year and I certainly responded posivitly.

The following year, one Monday morning during the middle of the summer, I awoke to the 7:00 alarm clock and looked out the cabin window to see the same boy walking up the path to the shop before breakfast to start his project.

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Scouters say that the program is very expensive. When I asked why they say that, they say that they went home after camp and spent $1000 purchasing tools from antique shops and flea markets and setting up a shop in their basement.

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I generally keep the shop open until 10:00 at night and often times the crowd is 15 people, all engaged in their project, when we close. The rifle range is closed down at dark at the end of shooting light, and a large group of boys generally gravitate to the shop at that time. like moths to a flame. Twice, at 11:00, I informed the Scoutmaster that I was going to bed and would he please lock up the tools and turn off the lights when he and his boys quit working.