Talk:Camp Fire (organization)/Archive 1

Name
The article correctly states that the current name for Camp Fire Girls is Camp Fire USA. So would anybody object if I moved this page to Camp Fire USA? That would turn Camp Fire Girls into a redirect to Camp Fire USA. (I would then straighten out the resulting double redirects.) Art LaPella 02:16, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

Pictures
Please disregard. Pictures will be forthcoming with appropriate tags. WarFighter 04:21, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Bluebird
The article correctly states that Bluebirds are now called Starflight (I can't imagine my son wanting to be a bluebird), but it still says that the mascot is a bluebird. My wife has her own Camp Fire group, and she says the bluebird logo went out when they changed to Starflight. Art LaPella 01:49, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the info. Could the mascot (versus the symbol) for the program still be a bluebird? I'm going to change it to say the mascot was "originally" the bluebird, but let me know if the bluebird still factors into the program anywhere. It used to be a popular project to make bluebird nesting boxes--it would be sad if they ditched the bird completely. Katr67 02:04, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

My wife is emailing somebody local. Art LaPella 02:22, 23 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I removed the reference to the bluebird entirely until a cited source can be found for its continued use in the program in any form. Katr67 19:18, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

If you check with Camp Fire USA's national office in Kansas City, Missouri, you will find that the blue bird remains the mascot for all of Camp Fire USA. The mascot was redesigned in about 1988, and it looks rather like a "Big Bird" kind of blue bird figure. It may not be often used, but it is a mistake to remove it entirely. And, I'd like to point out that I am the person whose information has been the basis of all that is on this page. AliceMarieBeard 17:09, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Camp Fire Law
The Camp Fire USA Eastern Massachusetts Council gives "the original Camp Fire Law" as simply "Seek Beauty, Give Service, Pursue Knowledge, Be Trustworthy, Hold On to Health and Be Happy". Not present are "Worship God" and "Glorify Work". Has the Camp Fire Law changed over the years?

This old book from 1916, The Camp Fire Girls at School by Hildegard G. Frey, gives "the Law of the Camp Fire, which is to seek beauty, give service, pursue knowledge, be trustworthy, hold on to health, glorify work, and be happy". Again, no "worship God".

Finally, how can this article state that "Camp Fire USA is inclusive ... open to all youth of any .... creed, religion," if one of the requirements of the Law is to "Worship God"? What about nontheist youth? — Coelacan | talk 20:34, 6 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I couldn't find the Camp Fire Law on the national site, but I only spent about 5 minutes looking. Since they have a lot about diversity, including religious diversity, I suspect that they dropped that from it, but it's hard to tell, since I can't find it at all. --Habap 23:10, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

For a quote, see http://www.campfireusaihc.org/campfireusalaw.html - as it says there, "In 1942 the words “Worship God,” implicit in the whole statement, were explicitly given as the first item of the law." Doesn't say which one, but I kinda have an idea... Enno 18:51, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

User Habap is absolutely wrong! The Camp Fire Law remains "Worship God. Give Service. Seek Beauty and Knowledge Pursue. Be Trustworthy Ever, in All That You Do. Hold Fast Onto Health, and Your Work Glorify. And Shall Be Happy, In All That You Do." It appears that this information is being written by people who do not have or use the basic publications of Camp Fire USA. If you obtain the most recent "song book," you will find that song in the book. To suggest that "Worship God" has been eliminated from the Camp Fire Law because Camp Fire does not discrimate based on sexual orientation is way off base. It appears that the people who are "editing" the information on Wiki about Camp Fire USA have their own agenda, and their agenda has nothing to do with Camp Fire USA. AliceMarieBeard 17:09, 20 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Please Assume good faith until there is reason to believe otherwise. No one has been "editing" the words "Worship God"; they have remained in the article, unchanged since before this discussion began. Some people were asking about it, because they had some good reasons to believe the words had been removed from the law. You have additional information from a song book. Good, that is the purpose of a Wikipedia talk page. I presume the words "Worship God" will stay in the article unless someone has an answer to the evidence from the song book. Art LaPella 20:59, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

According to information at Camp Fire USA's National website at http://www.campfire.org, there are 145 "Camp Fire USA councils and community partners." Many of those councils have their own web sites. This is a quick list of the web sites that include "Worship God" in the Camp Fire Law: http://campfirechicago.org/VolunteerHandbook2006.doc (on page 3 of the handbook for volunteers); http://www.campfireusa-ok.org/whatis.htm (Heart of Oklahoma Council); http://www.campfireusadallas.org/aboutus/index.htm (Lone Star Council, Dallas, Texas); http://www.dayton-unitedway.org/campfire/default.htm (Greater Dayton Council); http://www.campfireusaga.org/campfire/alumni%20newsletter%20April%202007.pdf (Georgia Council); http://www.campsingingwind.org/Totem_Pole.html (Lower Columbia Council, southwest Washington & northwest Oregon); http://www.cftejas.com/campfirelaw.htm (Tejas Council, Waco, Texas); http://www.wathana.org/pdf/Annual_report2007.pdf (Wanthana Council, southeastern Michigan & northwestern Ohio); http://www.iowanacampfire.org/purpose.htm (Iowana Council). Additionally, the book put out by Camp Fire USA called "Makin' Music with Camp Fire USA" includes "The Camp Fire Law," and it begins with the words "Worship God." AliceMarieBeard 16:41, 21 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you. Art LaPella 18:10, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

As a current Camp Fire USA leader, I would like to add that Camp Fire USA is very much individual from Council to Council, and National requires very little be adhered to - but the 'Worship God' is still very much a part of the Camp Fire Law. Just as some folks do choose to say the Pledge of Allegiance without the words 'under God' so too do some Councils ignore the 'official' wording of the Camp Fire Law. This does NOT mean that Camp Fire Law does not contain the words, only that those who wish to abstain may do so.

Kitwench (talk) 19:55, 23 March 2009 (UTC)Kitwench

Fair use rationale for Image:Witch wendy comic1.jpg
Image:Witch wendy comic1.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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BetacommandBot (talk) 03:07, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

MfD userbox
A userbox that mentions this org is up for deletion. Dreadstar †  22:00, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Pursue Knowledge
In the Camp Fire USA section it says: "Pursue Knowledge – Be honest, truthful and do the things you say you will do. Be worthy of responsibilities others give you." That is a mistake because the explanation duplicates the next line, "Be Trustworthy", and because that explanation is about being trustworthy, not about pursuing knowledge. Art LaPella (talk) 05:14, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry about that didn't realise I typed it wrong, I changed it to what it should say.--Campzanika (talk) 23:26, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

References tag
Does anyone know how you would go about getting the needs more references box taken off the page or if there are even enough references to get it taken off yet? Thanks --Abebless (talk) 17:34, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I went ahead and removed the tag. When this was tagged by MickMacNee a year ago, it only had one reference and that was to the Camp Fire website: diff. The article does need a bit of clean up, but it's come a long way since then. If there are any statements that still need a reference, at this point it would be better to add fact tags to those sentences. If you're not sure if you should remove a tag, and you have the patience to go through an article's edit history (this one was fairly short so it wasn't too bad) and find who added the tag (the tag should be dated so you can concentrate on the edits from that month and year), you can always ask the editor who added it. Cheers, Katr67 (talk) 20:32, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Unclear Founding Date
The date given in this article for the founding of the organization is March 17, 1910. The citation is an article in the NYT from March 17, 1912 announcing the creation of the organization. This article does not state the date of March 17, 1910. I understand the organization was informally started in 1910 and formally organized in 1912, but when birthdays or organizations change 35 years after the organization is founded, I have to wonder what is going on.

For the first 35 years or so of the Camp Fire Girl's existence, it used the date of March 17, 1912 as its founding date. Around 1949 or 1950, the organization announces its birthday as March 17, 1910.

Here are some articles I found supporting this.

CAMP FIRE GIRLS PLAN NATION-WIDE BIRTHDAY; Monster Celebration New York Times - Feb 4, 1923 The Camp Fire Girls will celebrate their eleventh birthday anniversary on March 17 -- CAMP FIRE GIRLS TO HAVE TREE PLANTING ANNIVERSARY; Fifteenth Year ... New York Times - Mar 13, 1927 THE Camp Fire Girls of America will celebrate on Thursday, March 17, the fifteenth anniversary of their organization. --- Camp Fire Girls Plan Birthday Ceremonies Pittsburgh Press - Mar 11, 1928 About 190,000 young people will celebrate the sixteenth birthday of the Camp Fire Girls of the United States during next week. The anniversary is March 17. ...

--- 150,000 New Camp Fire Girls To Be Welcomed On March 17. Lewiston Morning Tribune Feb 13, 1923 Camp Fire was organized eleven years ago on March 17

-- CAMP FIRE GIRLS WILL OBSERVE THEIR BIRTHDAY Los Angeles Times - Feb 25, 1923 Plans for the nationwide observance of the eleventh birthday of the Camp Fire Girls March 17 are being made

--- Camp Fire Girls Will Celebrate 16th Birthday Atlanta Constitution - Mar 11, 1928 Saturday March 17 will mark the sixteenth year of Camp Fire Girls

--- FIRE CHIEF PERMITTED TO RENT QUARTERS Los Angeles Times - Mar 17, 1933 As a part of the worldwide celebration by Camp Fire Girls of the twentyfirst anniversary of the founding of the organization on March 17 1912

-- CAMP FIRE GIRLS OBSERVE BIRTHDAY Daily Boston Globe - - Mar 15, 1931 Camp Fire Girls of Massachusetts are going to celebrate their 19th birthday this week with a variety of events from a broadcast on March 17 to training

--- Mrs. Roosevelt Greets Girl Mar 17, 1944 Sarasota Herald-Tribune - Google News Archive - Mar 17, 1944 Camp Fire Girls today marked their 32nd anniversary with greetings to the president and Mrs. Roosevelt on the 39th anniversary

-- US Camp Fire Girls And Girl Scouts Celebrate Christian Science Monitor - Mar 13, 1945 The Camp Fire Girls in Greater Boston will formally observe their 33d birthday next Saturday March 17 with 300 Camp Fire Girls and Blue Birds

-- Death Defeats Early Easter Fete Promise Los Angeles Times - Mar 10, 1946 Camp Fire Week marking the 34th anniversary of the founding of their organization will be beginning March 17 by Blue Birds Camp Fire Girls

--- Richmond County Journal - Mar 18, 1946 BIRTHDAY OF CAMP FIRE GIRLS. America's oldest organization for young girls, the Camp Fire Girls, celebrates its 34th birthday, March 17 to The purpose of ...

--- CAMP FIRE GIRLS FETE; 35th Anniversary Celebration to Begin Next Week New York Times - Mar 11, 1947

--- Special Events In City Pulpits Spokesman-Review - Mar 13, 1948 He will fill the pulpit at Central church Marking the beginning of Camp Fire Girls birthday week, commemorating the organization's 36th anniversary, ...

---

Around this time, the date of the founding and birthday/anniverary number starts changing.

--- Area Grand Council Fire Has Democracy For Theme. Tri City Herald Mar 27, 1949 Celebrating the thirty-ninth anniversary of the founding of Camp Fire..

--- Birthday Council To Hold Special Camp Fire Girls. St. Petersburg Times Mar 5, 1950 The Wonachee Camp Fire Girls will celebrate the 39th Camp Fire Birthday March 17.

--- Mayor's Proclamation Bonham Daily Favorite Mar 12, 1950 On this their fortieth Birthday Camp Fire Girls have chosen for their theme discovery Unlimited An Adventure In Creative Living The program for world ...

--- Camp Fire Girls Map Observance March 17 will be the 43rd birthday of Camp Fire Girls nationally Spokesman-Review - Feb 26, 1953

Founding citation
It was my understanding that Juliette Gordon Low founded the Girl Scouts as a companion organization to the Boy Scouts; while it's entirely possible that both organizations were founded at the same time for the same reason, a citation with a page number saying so (rather than a Google Books link) would be helpful.--Miniapolis (talk) 20:42, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Page 50 in Children Nature: the rise of summer camps (the google books link) explains how Luther Gulick brought together a group of girls as a conterpart to the boy scouts for a local pageant and then created Camp Fire Girls from that. Both organizations where started as a counterpart to the boy scouts. The fourth reference for the page also explains how it was started as a boy scout counterpart and it was published in 1912. Camp Fire didn't officialy have a name until 1912 which also explains why there is some confusion with the birthdate, but last year Camp Fire national celebrated 100 years. --A.Bless75.139.169.0 (talk) 03:43, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

The Blaze is not a reliable source
Because The Blaze is not considered to be a reliable source because it is considered to be biased propaganda, the citation was changed to one directly from the Camp Fire organization. Steelbeard1 (talk) 20:36, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Ceremonial attire?
Why does tHis section discuss rather exclusively a gown when the organization has been coed since 1975? I doubt the males in this organization wish to wear gowns, so what do they wear? Wschart (talk) 17:19, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 11 November 2018

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: moved (page mover nac) Flooded  with them hundreds  09:52, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

Camp Fire → Camp Fire (organization) – DAB from the various things listed in the hatnote and Camp Fire Club.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 10:59, 11 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Neutral Not a bad idea, but at least two of the redirects (Camp Fire Girls and Campfire Girls) will stay, necessitating hatnotes anyway. So it doesn't really shrink things.
 * I assume that Camp Fire will become a redirect to Campfire (disambiguation). (Camp Fire Club needs to be deleted per proposal. I could put all the information in that article into a redlink entry on the dab page and Wikipedia would be improved.) 209.209.238.189 (talk) 11:49, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes Camp Fire should redirect to Campfire (disambiguation).  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 14:13, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Per above, I have AFDd Camp Fire Club--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 16:21, 12 November 2018 (UTC)


 *  Oppose  no long term page views yet for Camp Fire vs the recent wildfire In ictu oculi (talk) 22:21, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Do you still oppose, considering the arguments about Campfire?  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 21:29, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Let us say neutral. In ictu oculi (talk) 18:06, 15 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Support and "camp fire" should redirect to disambiguous page, as suggested above. --Woofboy (talk) 03:33, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Support - absolutely. We're close to a consensus that WP:DIFFCAPS is dead anyway, so Campfire is very much under consideration as a possible meaning of this term. Taking that alongside the terrible fire in California, it doesn't seem like this organization enjoys WP:PRIMARYTOPIC status for this term. Suggest redirecting it to the dab. Thanks &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 14:52, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Note that Camp fire is a redirect to Campfire. All the links, including Baden-Powell's Scout training scheme are correct, although if there were just these to uses, then I might say it was fine, but considering we have multiple uses, I'd say not.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 15:51, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Support I agree with the others and think that Campfire and Camp Fire should redirect to Campfire (disambiguation); this organization is a member of that list. SCC California (talk) 23:14, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Campfire (1 word with no caps) should surely be about the fire, not be a DAB though, Camp fire (no caps for "fire") should probably even remain a redirect to the fire, however Camp Fire (cap for "Fire") should probably however redirect to Campfire (disambiguation).  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 22:11, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Agreed Campfire should remain where it is, with a hatnote pointing to the disambiguation page.  That is clearly the primary meaning of the word, with other usages being derived from it.  209.209.238.189 (talk) 10:06, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Agreed Sorry, that is more like what I meant. I agree that Campfire should stay where it is with all others going to a disambiguation page. SCC California (talk) 15:41, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Support Camp Fire (2018) is shaping up to be a major, historic disaster. With all due respect to this scouting organization—and they do seem to mean well, fire-wise–it's not what people are expecting to find at this page, in the short term and probably in the long term. Frankly, I think even Camp Fire (space, capital F) should redirect to Camp Fire (2018), which should have a hatnote to Camp Fire (organization) and campfire (disambiguation). —BLZ · talk 04:22, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Strong support Since the Camp Fire is burning with deaths that is approaching 100 people as of now and 1,000+ missing. We don't need this page for the organisation here, since it will garner negative views due to that fire in California. Felicia (talk) 17:44, 17 November 2018 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.