Trail Talk – 3/31/25

Here are our Troop announcements for the week:

NO TROOP MEETING – Tuesday, APRIL 1ST. There will be no Troop meeting TOMORROW night! Please do not plan to show up to a troop meeting that night. If you do, you will be all alone!

NEW MERIT BADGES AFTER SPRING BREAK – After we come back from spring break, we will be entering our third and final session of merit badges for the scout/school year. This will start on Tuesday, April 15th and NOT Tuesday, April 8th due to the summer camp meeting. We try to hold three sessions during the year, so scouts have the chance to earn up to 3 Eagle Required merit badges. After hearing from the merit badge counselors right before spring break, we are at a point where we can plan our next merit badge session. For this next session, let me make this clear: YOUR FIRST RESPONSIBILITY WILL BE TO FINISH ANY PARTIAL BADGES THAT YOU HAVE NOT COMPLETED YET. In other words, if you have not finished that merit badge that you were in during the last session, you will continue to be in that merit badge until you finish it(UNLESS THERE ARE CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES THAT YOU HAVE SPOKEN DIRECTLY WITH ME ABOUT). If you need a new merit badge for the remainder of the school year, I will have merit badge lists ready on April 15th.  This merit badge session will last until Summer Camp. After Summer Camp, our summer merit badge session will focus on finishing partial merit badges and hopefully a few non-required merit badges that we can offer as well.

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. This will be a combination training for those going to Boundary Waters as well as a time for younger scouts to learn about what it often means to go on a high adventure trip. IF YOU ARE GOING TO BOUNDARY WATERS, I ASK THAT YOU TRY TO COME OUT FOR AT LEAST THE DAY ON SATURDAY! The permission form is attached to this email! You can sign up at Zeffy or you can sign up at the next Troop meeting on Tuesday, April 8th.

SUMMER CAMP MEETING –TUESDAY, APRIL 8TH! This meeting is for PARENTS and SCOUTS! Our troop meeting on Tuesday, April 8th will be solely dedicated to Summer Camp. We will NOT be holding merit badge classes or game time or any of that. This is for scouts who are going to summer camp or might want to sign up for summer camp. If PARENTS or SCOUTS who are not signed up want to come and hear more about camp to make a final decision, this is the night to do it! We will gather in the fellowship hall. We will have tons of information to be handed out as well as FORMS that need to be filled out. You can finish making payments to Sherry that night. If you haven’t signed up yet, you can sign your scout up at this meeting! One of the most important things we will do is to have the scouts PICK THEIR MERIT BADGES FOR SUMMER CAMP. To pick merit badges, you must be signed up for CAMP! This MUST BE DONE AT THIS SCOUT MEETING. We must register you into those merit badges shortly thereafter. Even if you aren’t sure about summer camp at this point, plan to attend this meeting. You may very well change your mind after we talk about camp and what to expect!

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 35 scouts, and 5 adults signed up for Summer Camp. I KNOW WE CAN GET MORE THAN THAT! We have 1 month until the price of summer camp goes up. We, as a troop, must make a payment to camp by the end of April. If you are waiting to sign your scout up or holding back on payments, it is going to hurt us, as a troop. Please go to Zeffy(click here) or see Sherry and sign your scout up now.   “A week at camp is worth 6 months of theoretical teaching in a classroom” – Lord Baden-Powell, the founder of the Scouting movement.

 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

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 BUT NOT GOING ON BOUNDARY WATERS, LET ME KNOW AS SOON AS POSSIBLE SO I CAN GET FINAL NUMBERS!

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 help other people at all times” – This simple line tells us of the second duty to be found in the Scout Oath. Not only do we have a duty to ourselves as I talked about in last week’s Trail Talk, but we have a duty to other people. We don’t often think of helping other people as a “duty”. Often, when we think of helping other people, we think of it as giving service or charity. I think that often, people think of helping others as something that someone else will do. We don’t always reach out to help others because we think “if I don’t do it, someone else will take care of it” and we go about our lives solely absorbed in that last duty in the scout oath to ourselves. There is a reason the Scout Oath uses the word duty in its opening sentences, and it is to describe the fact that we, as scouts, have a moral obligation to act. We have a responsibility to help fellow people out. This doesn’t just include people you know, it includes all of those around you. Often the word “duty” is tagged along with the military. You often hear a line like “He was just doing his duty” in reference to someone that is a member of our armed forces. I think those in the armed forces exemplify what the word “duty” means. I found this definition of the word “duty” online “a moral force that binds you to accomplishing your assigned responsibilities without regard to your own preferences, your own desires, or your own well-being”. Wow! I think this definition automatically comes to mind when I think of a veteran who has “done their duty” but at the same time, why can’t this definition apply to all of us and in regard to helping other people “at all times”. Thinking of last night’s storm, do you have a neighbor who maybe has a downed tree in their yard and could use some help cleaning it up? Do you see debris out there on the street in front of your house that you could move out of the way so cars could safely get up and down the street? We are surrounded, daily, by people that need help in some way shape or form. Often the situations where people need help are presented right to our faces but more often, we need to go out and seek them! I challenge all of you, while you are on spring break this week, to find a way to help another person in need!

 “What Troop Does More!!” – 244