Trail Talk – 3/3/25

It’s March! This year is flying by! I hope you all enjoyed last week’s Court of Honor and Dinner! I always love that annual event. I love the fellowship and of course handing out awards to our scouts! I know it may have been a little weird to hand out some things to those of you who had already earned and received them. It just helps us to make sure we have everything cleaned up and are on the right track with your awards and advancements. I have not heard anything from anyone but if we somehow missed something, please let me know so that we can make sure to get it recorded correctly and get it taken care of!

I also know that there were A LOT of announcements last week. Believe it or not, that is a GOOD thing! It means that we are the troop that DOES MORE!! It is good to have a lot going on so that we remain a very active organization and provide opportunities for all scouts! I have some updated announcements below and some of the regular ones as well!  For those of you interested in SwampBase, please pay particular attention to that announcement. The information is mostly new.

Here are our Troop announcements for the week.

PATROL LEADER’S COUNCIL(PLC) MEETING – THIS Tuesday, March 4th at 6:15 p.m. before the regular troop meeting. All Senior Patrol Leaders(SPL), Assistant Senior Patrol Leaders(ASPL), Troop Guides, and Patrol Leaders need to be at this meeting. If you are a patrol leader and you can’t make it, contact your Assistant Patrol Leader to take your place! If you want to run the troop, you must be present to do so!

LIFE SCOUT MEETING – I would like to meet with ALL LIFE Scouts THIS Tuesday after “class” time at 7:45 p.m. The location will be either in the Community Room or in the Sanctuary depending on availability! I will figure it out before the meeting starts so I can announce it during opening. I would like to walk everyone through the last steps toward your Eagle and clear up ANY confusion you might have on the process.

HIGH ADVENTURE 2026 UPDATE! PLEASE READ! SWAMPBASE. Ok, so I have some updated information with this one that I need EVERYONE to pay attention to. After last week’s court of honor, we have 9 people who have signed up, 7 of whom put down the $50 deposit that we asked for. One crew at SwampBase has an upper limit of 11 people. This is a first come, first serve basis on who puts down the deposit. That means that currently, 7 people are locked in. If we go beyond 11, I will have to create a wait list, unless we can get it up to 16 and then I can try for 2 crews. One thing I need, that I don’t have, right now is a FEMALE leader to sign up.  Of the 7 people signed up right now, 2 are female scouts. THEY CANNOT GO WITHOUT A FEMALE LEADER! One of the remaining spots must be reserved for a female adult leader. Let all this sink in. If you are still interested in this trip, there are certain things that must happen. I need deposits to be paid. I can take up to 11 people, however, 1 spot is reserved for a FEMALE LEADER. IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN THIS TRIP, I NEED ACTION TO HAPPEN BY TOMORROW NIGHT, TUESDAY MARCH 4TH! PLEASE ACT!

 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.

CUB SCOUT INVOLVEMENT – We have several Cub Scout packs that send scouts to Troop 244! That is a great thing. Last month, we had a scout(Myles Schmidt) come over from Pack 161. This month we have a scout who will officially join us from Pack 290, Mason Clapp! We have another scout who will officially join us from Pack 251. This scout is the son of a very good personal friend of mine and Eagle Scout from Troop 244! We, as a troop, need to celebrate these scouts when they join us! Right now, we have lots of people signed up to come to the Pack 290 crossover for Mason on March 20th at Centerpoint Church on 10th St. at 6:00 p.m. However, we do not have scouts for the Pack 251 crossover. Their crossover is on a Tuesday night so you would have to miss our own troop meeting. It is August 25th at 6:30 p.m. at Vicksburg Bible Church. I will be attending this crossover. I would love to have a scout or two from the boy troop especially attend as well! Right now, we have Den Chiefs for Pack 290 in Andrew Willoughby, Will Thornton, and Morgan Clapp.

In addition to these packs, we have our very own pack right at Pathfinder Church! Pack 235! We want scouts from Pack 235 to crossover over into 244! For them to choose us though, they have to get to know us! I need your help. I need scouts who would be willing to step up as Den Chiefs. Right now, Silas Shell is our only den chief for Pack 235. They meet on Monday nights at 6:30 p.m. for an hour! I need scouts who would be willing to come to the church on Friday, March 21 at 6:00 p.m. to help them setup for their Pinewood Derby or on Saturday morning, March 22nd at 9:00 a.m. to help them run the Pinewood Derby! Let’s get to know these cubs so that they join the best troop out there! Troop 244!

OA UNIT ELECTIONS – we will be doing unit elections for both troops for the Order of the Arrow on March 18th. You must be 1st Class and have 15 nights in a tent(including 1 long term camp like Summer Camp) to be eligible. This will take place at the beginning of the meeting!

March GERALD R. FORD Museum Trip –March 22nd 8:30 am – 3:00 pm. Meet at the church to leave. SCOUTS MUST WEAR THEIR CLASS A UNIFORM!  Lunch Provided. Permission slip is attached. The cost is $10, please sign up, pay and turn in permission slip to Sherry. If you have questions, please see Christy Szekely.

ADOPT-A-HIGHWAY – April 12th in Schoolcraft. Jim Gluys has been leading this for years but now that he is stepping back from the troop, Sean Harrigan will start leading our Adopt-A-Highway program. Jim is willing to lead the one in April but is hoping to show Sean the ropes at that time. We need scouts to come out and do the highway cleanup! April 12th at 9:00 a.m. in Schoolcraft.

BOUNDARY WATERS – I meant to send an email out last week and never got a chance to do so. My apologies. I am looking to have a general meeting for Boundary Waters, just to go over information, etc. on April 15th during the regular troop meeting. I am looking to hold a shakedown during the campout in April. The campout is April 25 – 27 at Camp Tamarack, which is only about 45 minutes away. I will be asking the PLC for permission to do so at the PLC meeting tomorrow. If you can’t make the whole weekend, you could come out during the day on Saturday, April 26th to get trained in backcountry methods in the Boundary Waters and to go over gear.

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. Right now, we have 20 scouts signed up, 8 from the girl troop and 12 from the boy troop! Klewer campsite can hold 100 scouts and leaders! Please make sure that you sign your scout up for Summer Camp today. Summer Camp is not like a weekend campout where we can be flexible when people wait to sign up at the last minute. We need to know NOW if your scout is going to camp. We were asking for a $250 deposit to be paid two weeks ago. We need to have all the monies paid by the end of April if we want to get the early bird price and the hat that comes along with summer camp. THIS IS NOT SOMETHING YOU CAN JUST WAIT ON!

Mini-High Adventure – In case you didn’t know, President Lincoln himself stopped by the troop meeting a couple of weeks ago to talk about this trip. This year we are going to Gettysburg! 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.

Scoutmaster Minute – CHEERFUL – On the way to the last campout, my daughters and I were doing a requirement for Rebekah for Family Life merit badge. It involved talking about how the scout oath and law are a part of your family life. During this discussion, I asked the girls a question I often ask in board of reviews. I asked them “Which law is hardest for you to follow”. They gave me their answers and then of course, in turn, asked me the same question. I should have known better! 😊 After a moment’s thought I knew that “Cheerful” was one of the hardest laws for me to follow. To be cheerful means to be “noticeably” happy or spirited. Often, I find myself acting cheerful but not really feeling it. As a person who suffers from depression and anxiety and has, probably, for a lot of years, I have learned a lot about “faking it”. I can often fake being cheerful with the best of them, even when I am not feeling it. To understand this better you must understand someone who has depression and anxiety better. The best way to explain this to everyone is this “everything worries and stresses me out, like everything”. When you get worried and stressed out about something or everything, you get anxious. When you fear that something is not going well or is not going to go well, you get depressed. It is a vicious cycle. I don’t tell you this to bum you out or anything, I tell you this because even if “cheerful” is the law that is hardest for me, I KEEP TRYING! When we are not good at something, we keep trying. Here is the truth guys, I WANT TO BE CHEERFUL ALL THE TIME. I truly do. The only way that is going to happen is if I make the choice to be cheerful. In our discussion in the car about the scout law I went on to talk to the girls about how does one work at being better at something like being cheerful? I told them, it is all about how people treat me and how I treat them. When people treat me according to the scout law, I am more likely to feel cheerful. However, it goes both ways as I must give people that same kind of treatment. More often than not, when I am at scouts, I choose to be cheerful. That has A LOT to do with all of you! When I come to scouts, I feed off your energy. I love being there because of YOU. As I feed off your energy, being cheerful is so much easier! However, if your energy is negative in some way, then I make the choice not to feed off that. We all must do our best to follow the scout law which includes being cheerful to ourselves and to others!

Fun fact: When I was a senior in high school I got voted “Class Worry Wart” so now you know how long I have been dealing with this! I was also voted “Teacher’s Pet” if that says anything?!!

 “What Troop Does More!!” – 244