Trail Talk 12/9/24
MERIT BADGES – This Tuesday, December 11th is the last Tuesday for the current round of merit badges that you are taking at troop meetings! If you do not finish your current merit badges, you will return to that Merit Badge class in January when we start our new session up and stay there until that Merit Badge is as complete as it can be at a Troop meeting! NO PARTIALS!! We will start our new Merit Badge session on January 7th.
REGISTRATION – If you have not reregistered your scout, the clock is ticking! Please get this done by this Tuesday! You can see Sherry at the Troop Meeting on Tuesday night. Cost is $200 per scout and $100 per adult leader. Adult leaders must be up to date in YPT! You can also pay your registration online. If you do not take care of this detail, your scout is no longer a scout and cannot attend troop meetings or events. You must do the paperwork all over again. If you are planning to Not REREGISTER, please do the courteous thing and let us know that.
HOLIDAY FOOD DRIVE – URGENT!! URGENT!! URGENT!! Only 2 more Tuesdays that you can bring items for the holiday food drive! This past Thanksgiving, Twelve Baskets helped over 500 families who did not have enough food. Right now, we have 1 family in our troop that is generously donating $500 worth of food to the food drive. That is about 600 lbs of food! Can we, as the rest of the troop, match that?!! We are donating all of this to Twelve Baskets so that they can help families in need this Holiday Season! The last Tuesday we will take donations is December 17th at the Holiday Party! See the flyer below for the needs that Twelve Baskets it asking for!
TROOP HOLIDAY PARTY – Tuesday, December 17th at 7:00 p.m. Our Patrol Leaders Council (PLC), made up of our senior youth leaders in the troop met last Tuesday both before the meeting and during game time to devise a plan for the Holiday Party! They have games that they will set up, crafts to do, board and card games and we will end the night with some snacks, desserts, refreshments and pizza.
Please see the list below for which patrol should bring what item to the holiday party:
- Desserts: Mockingjays, Flying Fish and Squirrels Patrols
- Salty Snacks: Wolves and Panther 2 Patrols
- Fruits and Veggies: Hatching Dragons and Panther Patrols
- Drinks: Dolphins and Platypus Patrols
If you are not sure which patrol, you are in, make sure you ask on Tuesday night. We can figure it out. If you aren’t sure what to bring, just bring something! We won’t be picky!
Girl Troop – don’t forget about your White Elephant gift exchange! We will do that after opening on Tuesday night!
JANUARY CAMPOUT PIONEER SCOUT RESERVATION JANUARY 17 – 19TH. Our next campout will be in January! Permission slip is attached. The cost will be $40 per person. I am going to be reaching out in separate emails for help with preparation for this campout. I will need some volunteers to go grocery shopping and organize the food for the campout. I will need to know that we have enough transportation. I will also need to make sure that we have SOMEONE who can pull the yellow trailer! If you fit any of these things, please let me know as soon as possible! For those of you that are new, this is the same place that we go for summer camp. We will have 2 cabins that scouts and scouters can stay in! Of course, if you have the right equipment, you are more than welcome to stay outside in a tent and earn your Polar Bear Award (if it is cold enough). I would encourage some of you to try to sleep outside in the winter! If you get cold, you can always go into the cabin! The PLC also discussed some activities for this campout. They have some pretty good ideas that I think will be a lot of fun. They include possibilities of knots and lashings so that you can build a TRUE winter shelter (either in snow or without snow), possible search and rescue. Of course we will definitely play capture the flag at night! I even bought new glo sticks for it!
PHYSICAL FORMS! – Every Scout and Leader that goes to summer camp MUST have an up-to-date BSA PHYSICAL FORM filled out! No, this can’t be your athletic physical from school. It must be the BSA Form and must be all parts of the form, Part A, B1, B2 and C. “But I got this done last year” …well those forms are only good for 1 year so guess what, you must get it done again this year and the sooner the better! We will NOT be offering physical at the troop level this year. Due to some circumstances that occurred last summer, we are asking that every scout and leader get their form filled out by their primary physician. Start thinking about this NOW. As soon as you go to the doctor, get it filled out and turn it into Sherry! Start doing this in January! The sooner you get it done, the sooner you don’t have to worry about it!
BOUNDARY WATERS – I currently am working on the “numbers” situation with whether we are full at this point with people who can go or whether I can add more space. More to come on that. You do need to have a completed PHYSICAL FORM to go on this trip! However, for those of you that are certainly planning to go, you should have already paid your $100 deposit. We are now going to have to start collecting the rest of the fees for this trip. The total cost is $900. You can pay for this all at once, or you can pay in suggested increments of $200/month starting in January and going through April. I would like all fees to be paid by April 30th. Of course, you could pay more than $200/month and be done sooner but that is up to you! I am hoping to hold an information meeting for Boundary Waters at one of the upcoming troop meetings in January or February. I just still have a few more details to hash out so that I have all the information to present to you.
SUMMER CAMP 2025 – I know, you are thinking, why is Brian bringing this up now when it isn’t until summer. That is so far off! Well, a scout is committed to “be prepared”. We will start with signups and payments for summer camp after Winter Break, in January! More details on cost are to come. We will need all physicals turned in and all costs paid by April. YOU WILL NEED A PHYSICAL FORM FILLED OUT BY YOUR DOCTOR FOR SUMMER CAMP. NO FORM, MEANS YOU CANNOT GO TO CAMP! It is as simple as that. Please start thinking ahead!
NO MEETINGS – Just a reminder that there will be NO MEETINGS over Winter Break. We will not meet on Tuesday, December 24th or Tuesday, January 31. We will resume meetings after Winter Break on January 7th.
Scoutmaster Minute – We are all different people. We all carry with us our own strengths and our own weaknesses and personally, I think it is important that each of us can identify our strengths and weaknesses. For instance, I know my weaknesses very well. I hold grudges for far too long. I “react” to things instead of acting or taking the time to ponder. I get overly stressed about things that typically work themselves out in the end. I do not rely well on others for help or support. I am often quick to anger. However, I also know that I have been working on these weaknesses for some time. Some strengths that I have developed include telling people that I need time to “process” things before I can act or make a decision. I have become much more reflective in my life so that if I am quick to anger, I can realize what I did and go back later to fix it. I try more and more to let the Scout Oath and Law be my guide when I get stressed, and I get stressed a lot! A realization I had last week is that I know that I am really NOT OK right now because of my dad’s passing and so I have no choice but to rely on the support of others. I can’t get better by myself. It is just not possible.
I say all of this to all of you not only to give you a glimpse into me but also to encourage you to identify your strengths and weaknesses. I encourage you in turn to find ways to use your strengths to cope with your weaknesses. Let the Scout Oath and Law be your guide ever onward because there is much wisdom to be found there. I am still working on myself as a person and that is OK! We are all a work in progress!
“What Troop Does More!!” – 244