Most of these ideas can also be found on my Holderness Rangers Resource Pages site.

We have used these themes in various ways, in camps varying from small "long-weekend" camps with only ten or a dozen girls, to big Division affairs. Most of them were originally devised for our own unit’s annual summer camp.

Dinosaurs / Jurassic Park - for a weekend camp (at the time JP was released – there was a lot of merchandise available to buy, which made things easier for small prizes etc.)
Menu : Dinosaur burgers, brontosaurus stew, pterosaur fingers etc. etc. The list is endless – you can call anything anything!
Crafts : Dinosaur footprints (plaster casts), pipe-cleaner dinosaurs, flying pterosaurs (paper planes to you and I!). See whose pterosaur will fly furthest.
Patrol names : obvious – any dinosaur they fancy.
Outdoor games : dinosaur hunt : needs some preparation before you go. Pictures of dinosaurs (drawn, copied, cut-outs etc.) hidden around field / in woods / around site, and an equal number of clues to find them. Can be used as an orienteering exercise.
Camp challenges : patrol emblems / flags; scavenger hunt – initial letters of DINOSAUR etc.; dress one member of patrol as dinosaur; invent a new way of cooking T. Rex steaks (not really!); design-a-dinosaur.

Native Americans (Started off as Cowboys-and-Indians, but nobody wanted to be cowboys!) Took a lot of research to prepare so we used it twice – once for a big Division camp and on a smaller scale for our unit camp!
Names : Sub-camps and Units were given names of main Indian Nations (e.g. Sioux) and individual patrols chose from a list of tribes within those nations (a lot of reading beforehand!). The girls then went on to adopt individual names, some less authentic than others!
Menu : had been planned in advance, so the cowboys got in here – Cowboy’s Breakfast, Chuck-wagon Chow, Root Beer etc.. (Remember, here in the UK our perceptions are coloured very much by Hollywood!) We also ate "Pemmican," "buffalo stew" etc.
Crafts : Bead work; bows and arrows, moccasins (we got hold of a lot of leather offcuts), model tepees, canoes and totem poles etc.. Each patrol also made a large totem pole for outside their tent.
Outdoor activities : pioneering – rope bridges, BIG tepee (not very successful), backwoods cooking. Every camp-fire song vaguely related to the theme – Land of the Silver Birch, We are the Red Men (not PC, I gather, but it doesn’t have the same pejorative meaning in the UK), Take me back to the Black Hills, I’m an Indian too, Black Crow’s Spirit. Tracking in the woods, Wide Game in the dark – organised by someone else and I never did quite understand it, I’m afraid.
Camp Challenges : invent pictograph language and send messages to another patrol / unit; costumes for Patrol mascots or own teddy bear, decorate patrol tent, scavenger hunt etc.

Olympic Games (you’ve guessed, 1996.) Week-long summer camp. GLORIOUS weather so we spent almost all of our time out of doors.
Menu : Colour themed to the Olympic rings, believe it or not – yellow : eggs, cheese (& cheese sauce), mayonnaise, bananas, custard, cakes; green : salads & green veg.; red : fruit, jam, cakes; blue : (we cheated – crisp packets and our bread wrappers are blue) black : cheated again – meat (not really overcooked), chocolate cake / pudding and coca cola. Everything was set out by colour, not food group, (which led to some odd combinations) on plates or napkins of the appropriate colour (you can get black ones, intended for Halloween.)
Crafts : not many – the weather was lovely and they didn’t want to! We did take some indoor games with us in case of poor weather, though, and they made quite a few friendship bracelets in quiet moments.
Outdoor activities / games : "Olympic" events : two or three per afternoon, patrols or individuals, depending on the "sport" – we did synchronised swimming (on dry land – the winning team sported swimsuits, fixed grins, and clothes-pegs on their noses), ice dance, cross-country skiing with 2 ski-ers per set of skis, (OK so they should be Winter Olympics!) , Pony Club Games – not an Olympic sport! Field events - discus (paper plate – good if it’s windy!), putting the shot – water-filled balloon, javelin – drinking straw, plus "ordinary" races and competitions – running, jumping etc., and team games such as rounders. Whatever the event, it usually culminated in a water-fight!

International : (My camp licence test camp! It went like clockwork.)
The Patrols were (their choice) : Hong Kong, USA and Greece.
Menus : We always do a full English breakfast, and fresh fruit, cheese and biscuits are always available ad. lib, but for the other meals, every day had a different country : France – continental breakfast, French bread, cheese and fruit for lunch, Coq au vin for our main (evening meal) with garlic bread and (non-alcoholic) wine.
India – only the evening meal as we were off-site all day : self-service buffet of various curries, poppadums, nan bread, rice, chutneys, fresh fruit and (tinned) tropical fruit salad.
China - Chinese leaf salad for lunch, with tinned lychees; Sweet-and sour chicken with stir-fried veg. and rice, spring rolls (bought), fortune cookies and China tea.
USA - snack lunch of tuna or cheese salads, potato crisps, popcorn and coca cola, evening barbecue – burgers, hot dogs, potato waffles, tomato ketchup, Mississippi Mud Pie etc and more coca cola.
Italy - “Risotto” – cold rice salad for lunch, Spaghetti bolognese and camp-fire pizza in the evening, with ice-cream specially brought in.
England - Fish-and-chips from the chippy for lunch; roast beef, Yorkshire puds, potatoes and 2 veg, (with gravy) plus sponge pudding and custard.
Crafts : China – fans, kites, lanterns; Italy -pasta pictures, models of : gondola (paper boat, must float) L/T. of Pisa; USA - Friendship bracelets ("Indian beadwork"); UK - corn dollies; India - henna hand/foot painting , floating sand pictures (rangoli), Diwali lamps; Japan - origami dolls & birds, "bonsai"; Canada - flower weaving; Nigeria - tie – dye; All - peg dolls.
Games & outdoor activities : We cheated and recycled the Olympic Games, this time with the "countries" vying for medals rather than as individuals.
We also played team games representing other countries : Baseball (USA) – it still ended up suspiciously like rounders - Cricket (Australia), Touch Rugby (Wales), Crazy Golf (Scotland).

Old-Fashioned Camp : Full week, lousy weather – it stopped raining once!
Menu : all the old favourites. Full fry-up for breakfast every day – sausages, bacon, eggs, beans, tomatoes, eggy bread or fried bread; DIY sandwiches and fruit for lunch; evening meals – Corned Beef Chuck In (large Billy with water and Oxo cube(s), add chopped up corned beef then chuck in whatever vegetables you have! Cook until vegetables are tender, thicken gravy if necessary just before serving – easy and delicious.) Camp Pizza – always burnt, always delicious. If they make their own then they can’t complain that they don’t like the toppings – provide a good selection e.g. cheese, tomatoes, tuna, sweetcorn, peppers (green are cheapest but red or yellow seem to cook quicker) onions, pepperoni or salami, corned beef is OK. My QM Carol makes a mean Spag. Bol.
Patrol names : we stuck to the traditional UK Guide patrol names; at the time our unit patrols were robins, chaffinches, swallows and nightingales so for camp they chose flowers – thistles, bluebells, snowdrops and scarlet pimpernels (unfortunately abbreviated to scarlet pimps!)
Games : indoor games from our wet-weather list saved us! Also lots of crafts – they always like making friendship bracelets (it keeps them quiet for hours), tie-dye tee-shirts, decorated candles, quizzes, puzzles, card and board games. Outdoor activities : Backwoods cooking; tracking (each other or animal tracks; nature walks; night-time “Ghost walk” (be careful if the girls are young / nervous / away from home for the first time!); pioneering – rope bridges, ladders, A-frame swings, shelters - depends on the equipment available. Kite flying – some bought, most home-made (bin bags and split canes). Even mundane stuff like “wooding” can be made into a game – we are lucky and use a site where we are allowed to go wooding.

Dig For Victory : (theme for last year’s camp)
Patrol names : Patrol tents are "Air-Raid shelters," Patrol names Gas Masks, Stirrup Pumps, Incendiary Bombs and Barrage Balloons.
Menu : ("Rations" – everyone to have a "Ration Book." ration the sugar – it will do them good!) The usual stuff but heavily disguised with wartime names : Churchill Chilli, Hitler Hash, Doodlebug Delight, plus real wartime delicacies such as Spam and Dried Eggs. Haybox cooking. No bananas or oranges – they were not available until after the war. If it is the right time of year, go brambling (blackberrying) and cook them to eat. BE CAREFUL. IF YOU ARE UNSURE OF IDENTIFYING HEDGEROW FRUITS, DON’T PICK THEM). Blancmange.
Crafts and Games : make own ID cards, evacuees’ name labels and "gas masks." "Make Do And Mend" : using only the clothes they have brought with them and anything they can borrow or scrounge, make themselves a “new” outfit; "Waste Not, Want Not" : make a useful item out of rubbish / discarded stuff; matchbox furniture (a craft taken from a wartime children’s book – you will need to collect empty matchboxes for some time before camp) - doll’s house style furniture can be made by glueing matchboxes together covering with newspaper and painting them. "Even The Walls Have Ears" – tell them that spies are listening to their every word. If you overhear anything said within their tents and can identify the speaker, she must pay a forfeit. This might even teach them to keep their voices down at night! "Be Like Dad And Keep Mum" - you would recognise this as Charades or Give Us A Clue – patrols have to mime, or otherwise convey without speaking, words or phrases, song / film titles etc.. Traditional games with minimal equipment : hopscotch if you have a hard surface or means to mark out the squares, skipping, ball games, hide-and-seek, tag in its 1000s of variations, any singing ring games you can remember.
Night Game : (and a way of getting them back to their tents quietly!) It needs to be dark for this one. Set the scene : they have been to the local "Hop" with the GIs and have to sneak back in without irate fathers finding out. In pairs, and with a torch to flick on and off to avoid tripping, they have to get back to their tents without getting caught. Guiders spotting a light shout "Mind that light!" and it must be put out immediately. They will stumble and giggle as they try to move quietly, but take my advice and don’t catch them unless they actually walk into you!

The girls are now Rangers, so we don't theme our camps the same way as we did when they were Guides, but in September 2000 we are taking part in (and helping organise) a large-scale District day camp, at which the proposed theme will be Mediaeval (or Robin Hood - there is still a bit of a dispute!)

Watch this space for more ideas.....