Trail Talk 2/10/25

Good Afternoon Troop 244 Scouts, Scouters and Parents!

Happy Monday everyone! What a weekend for Scouting! Saturday was the birthday of Scouting America. In case you did not know, the Boy Scouts of America as an organization, decided on a name change now that we are more inclusive and include females as a part of the Scouts, BSA program. That name change took effect this last Saturday. We are now called Scouting America. Our organization celebrated its 115th birthday on Saturday! That is 115 years of molding young people into responsible citizens who follow the Scout Oath and Law! We celebrated yesterday with Scout Sunday! We had a great turnout of scouts for Scout Sunday to both celebrate the birthday of scouting but to also THANK Pathfinder Church for their support of our troop over the years! We are so very grateful for the physical, emotional and prayerful support that they have given us! See a couple of pictures from Scout Sunday at the end of the Trail Talk!

Here are our Troop announcements for the week.

FEBRUARY CAMPOUT! – February 14 – 16th at Gerber Scout Reservation. Right now, we have about 15 scouts and 7 adults signed up but we want MORE. We want YOU to come to the campout this weekend. Last chance to sign up is tomorrow(Tuesday) night at the scout meeting! We need you to sign up by then so we know how much food to buy! The cost will be $45 per scout and $20 per adult because of the cabin rental. One unique thing about our February campout is that we usually celebrate with a Thanksgiving feast on this campout. We cook a couple of turkeys and have all of the fixings for dinner on Saturday night! I hope to see many of you there!

 JERKY! – Our annual Jerky sale begins January 28th. Each stick sells for $1.00 and for each one sold, the scout earns 24 cents into their individual scout account. You can make payments for jerky at any time here – https://bit.ly/244Jerky

There are 3 ways you can sell . . .

1. Pick up jerky at any scout meeting. Sell it then return the money to get credit.

2. Take pre-orders using the order form here – https://www.facebook.com/…/permalink/10161092202452135/
Turn in the order form to get your pre-orders filled and then deliver to your customers.

3. If you have family and friends out of the local area who would like to purchase jerky to support your scout’s efforts, they can order through this link – https://www.countrymeats.com/fundraiser/troop-244-mi-49024

You can make payments for jerky at any time here – https://bit.ly/244Jerky

If you are interested in helping with this fundraiser, please see Mr. Townsend.

HIGH ADVENTURE 2026 –I sent out an email about the High Adventure trip for summer 2026 last week. I got 1 response. Just 1 response! Folks, we can’t plan properly if we don’t have your input. Basically, here is what I said. I have not gotten a lot of interest in either SwampBase or SeaBase. I have about 10/11 people showing interest in SwampBase right now. That is great but it doesn’t hit a majority of our scouts. We took over 30 people to Philmont last summer! I want to make sure we are doing something that our scouts are interested in doing and that can impact a large amount of scouts. Therefore, I need to know what YOU, as scouts, want to do for high adventure in 2026. I can plan it, but I need to know. Maybe you don’t want to do SwampBase or SeaBase and that is fine. Maybe you want a different kind of trek, backpacking or something else. THAT IS FINE BUT YOU HAVE TO TELL ME! I am open to other options!

CUB SCOUT PACK 235 HELP!! –I am still looking for some of our scouts to step up and be a Den Chief for Cub Scout Pack 235 at Pathfinder. They meet on Mondays at 6:30 for about an hour. This can either earn you leadership requirements or service hours. Please see me or Christy if this is something you can do! Let’s show Pack 235 that they should join Troop 244 when done with cub scouts!  In addition, Pack 235 will be holding their Pinewood Derby on March 22nd. Setup will be Friday night, March 21st and then the actual derby on Saturday, March 22nd. This is the same day as our museum trip but if you don’t think you can go on the museum trip, the Pack is asking for scouts from 244 to help out at the Pinewood Derby! I did this when I was a scout and it was a blast! Please let Christy or I know if this is something you would be willing to do!

FEBRUARY COURT OF HONOR AND DINNER – February 25 – AT 6:00 p.m. We do charge a cost of $8/person for this dinner to cover the costs of food and such. We will be having our annual winter court of honor and dinner coming up in February. It is scheduled for Tuesday, February 25th. This is a time of fellowship but also of awards!! Scouts and Counselors, any rank advancements and/or merit badge completions need to be submitted by Tuesday, February 18th in order to be awarded at the court of honor on February 25th. That means you have 1 week finish things up!

March Museum Trip – I just wanted to put this on everyone’s radar. Our March activity will be a museum trip to Gerald R. Ford Museum in Grand Rapids! It will be on March 22nd and will be a day trip. More information will be coming out about this activity from Christy Szekely after the campout this coming weekend.

BOUNDARY WATERS – Boundary Waters is now full at the current time. I am hoping to hold an informational meeting for those going to Boundary Waters in March or April, at a troop meeting and then I am thinking of doing a “training/shakedown” type of meeting on the April Campout! The April Campout is scheduled for April 25 – 27th at Camp Tamarack. Please plan on going on this campout so that you can be trained in some backcountry skills necessary for the Boundary Waters trip! In the meantime, please continue to make your payments of $200/month.

SUMMER CAMP 2025 – Sign up is happening NOW! Please sign up with SHERRY for Summer Camp 2025!! We will be attending Pioneer Scout Reservation once again the week of June 15 – 21st! The cost for Summer Camp this year is $430 per scout and $215 per adult. This is considered the “early” bird fee. If we don’t have all of the fees for summer camp turned in by the end of April, the fee that Pioneer charges actually goes up. Please start signing your scout up now and paying for summer camp. We would like to have you signed up and the first $150 paid by the troop meeting on February 18th!  Physical must be completed and turned in by May 1st!

We are often one of the biggest scout units out at summer camp and I want that tradition to continue! I want as many scouts as possible from Troop 244 to come to summer camp! It is such an amazing and great time! You will work on merit badges, rank advancements, plus do so many other amazing activities like WATERBALL, ROOT BEER CANTINA, POOL BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT, OPEN SWIM, OPEN BOAT, OPEN SHOOT and I could go on and on!

PHYSICAL FORMS! – Every Scout and Leader that goes to summer camp, boundary waters or the mini-high adventure MUST have an up-to-date BSA PHYSICAL FORM with all parts of the form filled out, Part A, B1, B2 and C. You must get a new one for this year. No Form, No Trip. WE NEED ALL PHYSICAL FORMS TURNED IN BY MAY 1ST.

Scoutmaster Minute – REVERENT – The 12th Scout Law is the law of “Reverent” and this can be such a hot topic in today’s society. I thought about this law quite a bit this last Sunday during Scout Sunday. I know that there are a lot of differing feelings about religion amongst our people today and even amongst our scout troop. I, for one, am a Christian. I have been a Christian all my life. My dad was a Christian and had a very deep faith towards God. I learned a lot from dad, probably more than I ever learned from a pastor at a church. Right now, I am convinced that my dad is with Jesus in Heaven and that one day I will meet him again there. But the hard fact is that this is my belief and not everyone believes along the same lines. There are many who believe in other religions than I do. I am proud to have learned a lot about the Jewish faith when we had a couple of Jewish scouts in the troop a few years ago. I know that there are people who practice other faiths such as Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism. That is great! I even know that there are people who don’t practice a faith at all and don’t believe in religion. That is fine! One thing you all have to understand is that Scouting was founded on Christian principles and so our duty to God and Country and to be Reverent were naturally a part of our Oath and Law. But have you ever really sat back and thought about how that can apply in your life, especially if you don’t “believe” in the same God as I do or you don’t believe at all. In the Cambridge Dictionary, the definition of Reverent is the following “feeling or showing deep and solemn respect” or “showing great respect and admiration”. I think we can all agree that showing respect and admiration is something that ALL of us can do and we can do it pretty easily. I wrote to you guys on Saturday in an email that Jesus was also a teacher and that many of his teachings were “moral” teachings. Just because we don’t believe in the same things doesn’t mean that we can’t all promise to be moral people and to show respect and admiration. Every single Scout can fulfill the Scout Law of Reverent.

 “What Troop Does More!!” – 244