Trail Talk – 3/24/25

Here are our Troop announcements for the week:

NO TROOP MEETING – Tuesday, APRIL 1ST. There will be no Troop meeting NEXT week during Spring Break. This is Tuesday April 1st. Please do not plan to show up to a troop meeting that night. If you do, you will be all alone! 😊

APRIL CAMPOUT CAMP TAMARACK – April 25 – 27th we will be going to Camp Tamarack for our April campout. We will be tenting on this campout. There will not be a cabin. We will be staying in one of their campsites rather than in a cabin! We are looking to make this a high adventure themed campout. The goal is that we will teach everyone what it is like to go on and “survive” a high adventure trip. Mostly this means teaching the skills that are needed when you are in the backcountry. This is also a TRAINING FOR THOSE GOING ON THE BOUNDARY WATERS TRIP! I hope to have lots of older, experienced scouts helping with this! I had not realized this was in Zeffy already, but it is. The cost is $40 per scout. The permission form is attached to this email! I will try to have a signup ready for this either this Tuesday or Tuesday, April 8th.

SUMMER CAMP 2025 –Pioneer Scout Reservation the week of June 15 – 21st! The cost for Summer Camp this year is $430 per scout and $215 per adult. That cost goes up by $21 per scout and adult leader if we don’t get the fees paid by the end of AprilI hope you realize that we have deadlines that we have to meet and so waiting to sign up for Summer Camp is not a thing we can do. We need you to sign up NOW! Please go to Zeffy(click here) or see Sherry and sign your scout up now. Lord Baden-Powell, the founder of the Scouting movement, fully believed that “A week at camp is worth 6 months of theoretical teaching in a classroom”. I agree with him on that AND I am a teacher! Every scout NEEDS to go to camp! If there is an issue or something keeping you from signing up, please let me know and we will address it.

SUMMER CAMP MEETING – Tuesday, April 8th after we return from Spring Break. Our Troop meeting on April 8th will be solely dedicated to summer camp. We will all gather in the Fellowship Hall. You will get to hear about the activities at camp, the things YOU need to know to be prepared for camp and you will get to select YOUR MERIT BADGES! If you are still undecided about camp, this is the night to come to and sign up for camp!

TAX EXEMPT DONATIONS – Now that we are back under the charter of Pathfinder Church, we once again have a 501c 3 status which means that we have an EIN number that allows for tax free donations! If you have been wanting to donate money to the troop for such things as our Campership Fund(help, send a scout to camp) or for other areas of troop need but haven’t wanted to be taxed on it, NOW is the time! Please talk to Sherry about donations to the troop!

 JERKY! – Our annual Jerky sale began on 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 and 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.

GIRL TROOP LOCK-IN – May 2nd, 2025, at Pathfinder Church. This event is for the girl troop only! Sorry boys! We will be having a lock-in at Pathfinder Church starting at 6:00 p.m. on Friday May 2nd and ending at about 10:00 a.m. on Saturday May 3rd. We will have the use of the Fellowship Hall, the gym, the community room and the firepit out back! Scouts in the Girl Troop, let’s get together and have a good time! We will get pizza, and we will ask you all to bring snacks and drinks! I will get a sign up for this out and a cost to you once I confer with that darn SPL! Please put this on your calendar girl troop! It should be fun! Girls, there will be a slight cost and a permission slip to fill out soon! I will also have a signup available soon!

 ADOPT-A-HIGHWAY – April 12th at the car wash next to the Speedway gas station on the south side of Schoolcraft at 9:00 a.m. Jim Gluys will be leading this one last time for Troop 244 and then Sean Harrigan will be taking over when we do this again in the fall. To get this done quickly and efficiently though, we need scouts to show up. This typically only takes about 3 hours if we have enough scouts. This counts as service hours towards your rank advancements! Please wear long pants and a long-sleeved shirt. Boots and hats. Bring gloves and a water bottle. We need everyone to attend. We DO need ADULT help to drive and escort the scouts for safety reasons.

WILDERNESS FIRST AID TRAINING – May 3 and 4th we will be offering a Wilderness First Aid Training. To attend the National High Adventure bases such as Philmont, Seabase and Northern Tier, each crew that goes must have at least 3 adults trained in Wilderness First Aid. For years my dad offered these courses each spring because he had taken the course to become an instructor in Wilderness First Aid. Now that my dad, sadly, is no longer with us I asked Matt Carr to investigate becoming certified as a Wilderness First Aid instructor and he very enthusiastically agreed. This means that we can continue to make sure our leaders are certified in Wilderness First Aid so that we can go on high adventure trips. This year’s course is on May 3 and 4 and will be held at 2723 Vanderbilt Ave. Portage  MI  49024, the Brake’s residence as we have been doing for years now. It will be two full days starting at 8:00 a.m. each day. I have contacted the leaders going on Boundary Waters already. If you are interested in this training, please let me know as soon as possible!

BOUNDARY WATERS –July 11 – 20th. The cost is $900, and we have been asking you to pay $200/month since January. Please be keeping up with those payments! We will be having an informational meeting during the regular troop meeting on April 15th at 7:00 p.m. Location at the church is still TBD. We will do a training/shakedown for those going on this trip on the Saturday of the April Campout. April Campout is April 25 – 27th. Come on the campout or come out for the day on Saturday!

Mini-High Adventure –The trip will take us to the historic battlefield of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. This trip is taking place August 2 – 6th. A day of travel, 3 days in Gettysburg and a day of travel home! The mini-high adventure sounds like it is going to be loaded with fun and some awesome things to see. Sign up now! The final cost is to be determined but could be somewhere around $150. That is a STEAL for a trip like this. We are going to ask for a $50 deposit currently to secure your spot. Sign up for this and pay the deposit with Sherry in the office.

PHYSICAL FORMS! – Every Scout and Leader MUST have an up-to-date BSA PHYSICAL FORM with all parts of the form filled out, Part A, B1, B2 and C if you plan to go to Summer Camp, Boundary Waters or the Mini-High Adventure. You must get a new one for this year. No Form, No Trip. WE NEED ALL PHYSICAL FORMS TURNED IN BY MAY 1ST.

HIGH ADVENTURE 2026 SWAMPBASE! – July 9 – 18, 2026. I have reserved our Troop 1 crew at SwampBase for the Summer of 2026. Our start date at SwampBase will be July 10th. Most likely this means leaving on July 9th, staying somewhere overnight and then arriving by 2:00 p.m. on July 10th. We will stay at their base camp on July 10th and then head out into the backcountry. We will come out of the backcountry on July 16th, stay at their basecamp and then leave SwampBase on July 17th. Most likely this means getting home on July 18th. We have asked for a $50 deposit currently to hold your spot. Once I talk to SwampBase and have this reserved I will let you know more about dates, payments and such. IF WE CAN GET 5 MORE PEOPLE TO SIGN UP, THERE IS AN OPEN SLOT FOR A 2ND CREW THAT WE COULD TAKE ON JULY 10TH. However, that slot is open to any troop! If you are further interested in this adventure, please talk to me As soon as possible!

Scoutmaster Minute – “to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight”. Now that we have gone through the 12 Scout laws, I would like to take a moment and have each of us look at the 3 parts to the Scout Oath. Duty to God and Country, duty to others and duty to self. Today I would like to take a minute and look at Duty to Self. It has been on my mind over the last several years that I have not been following this part of the Scout Oath very well at all. I have tried, there is no doubt about that, but I always seem to fall short in some ways. For instance, being physically strong means keeping oneself healthy and in shape. It doesn’t mean being strong, but it means being healthy. I can tell you that years ago, I used to exercise every day after work almost without fail. Frankly, ever since my divorce a few years ago, this has fallen by the wayside. Now I exercise when I “get the time. I don’t eat very healthily either. The life of a bachelor is sometimes like that but that is no excuse! Last summer, I lost nearly 15 pounds at Philmont. Granted about 5 pounds of that was water weight that I got back within a few days. However, I had lost a good amount of weight in a short time. Unfortunately, since my dad’s passing and with the business of a school year, the weight has not only come back but increased ever so slightly. IN MY MIND I HAVE NOT BEEN FOLLOWING THE SCOUT OATH. It isn’t just physically strong either. I don’t believe that I have been keeping myself mentally awake either. Have I been trying to learn new things or just been stuck where I always have been. Morally straight is sometimes even a difficult one that I think all of us struggle with. There are always things to “question”. Now, I could look at all of this and say to myself that it is things like my dad’s passing, work, busy schedules, even scouts, that has kept me from being able to follow the Scout Oath in this case OR I could look and say that I have just been making excuses. Valid excuses, but excuses none the less. There is too much stuff, and it overwhelms me. Why is it that I could do this a few years ago but I can’t do it now. More recently I have decided to rededicate myself to the third duty in the Scout Oath and to work on the duty to myself. This means that I will exercise and try to eat healthier, I will make time for myself and not let other things consume me, I will make sure that I am being as morally straight as I know how to be. WE CAN ALL DO THIS! It is so much easier to make an excuse rather than a commitment. We know that we are not all perfect. I often ask scouts “Do you follow the Scout Oath and Law ALL THE TIME?” and if they are answer “yes”, I tell them they are lying to me. We are not perfect, we make mistakes. We try our best to follow these principles, but we do stumble. What we can do is not LIVE with those mistakes. We can move forward and try to do better for ourselves. Let me ask each of you this…are you keeping yourself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight or are you making excuses? I challenge each of you to rededicate yourself to this point of the Scout Oath

“What Troop Does More!!” – 244