I encourage my pack's families to use more than one cooler on a campout. One for Drinks, One for cold food, and one for dry goods. The container for dry goods does not have to be a cooler. Keeping drinks seperate from food reduces contamination from anything that may seep the food. It also reduces spoilage by limiting the number of times you open the food container to just at meal times. you also don't have to dig through all the food to find that last orange coke.

When I was a (young) Pathfinder leader I asked the young women in my group to wear their urmnofis (with optional jeans) to meetings unless we were doing something messy. Why? It made us visible to the other people using the facility where we met, it increased the girls' pride in belonging, they became less embarrassed about belonging, when we went out in public they knew how to wear their uniform (and could find it), and the parents were willing to invest in the uniform pieces since they were worn every week. The main reason I began to have them wear urmnofis were parents who asked why they should spend so much money on a uniform that was only worn a few times a year. I told the girls that if I was wearing my uniform (coming right from work), they could too. And that it showed that we were proud to be members of guiding (that generated some healthy discussion about self esteem!). Some complained that girls in others groups didn't wear their urmnofis, and I asked them if they wanted to join those groups and there was always a resounding NO. Once the girls got over their embarassment (which was the main reason they didn't want to wear their dorky uniform) the feeling of pride in the group increased.We had 22 girls in our group and they attended every week. We often had 100% attendance at camps and activities even with busy urban girls who had many other choices. When we went out in public the girls wore their urmnofis with pride and without a fuss. Many of those young women are still involved in Guiding as adults.Every unit is different, but if girls have a uniform, why not wear it?

I've made a coozie for my ice chest out of Reflectix insulation from Home Depot. It's the foil backed bubble wrap looking stuff. We made a trip from GA. to AZ. with an ice chest in the back of a pickup with a black liner in the bed and to my suprise, that coozie covered ice chest kept ice simply unbelivebly. I've since started usng the coozie with it just camping as it takes less ice and keeps cold longer even if the sun sneeks over onto the chest when I'm not looking. P.S. Great Site!