A Scouting We Will Go

Upcoming activity

2011-10-31T12:24:00.000-07:00

Here is what lies ahead for Troop 22:

November 5th (Saturday) - Scouting for food
November 11th (Friday) - Veterans Day Parade
November 19th (Saturday) - Rock Climbing at Sacramento Pipeworks

Halloween Party

2011-10-31T12:19:00.000-07:00

This past Saturday we held our Halloween Party. Pumpkins were carved, games were played, swimming was swimmed. And a movie was watched (Abbot and Costello meet Frankenstein). Good time was had by all, from what I could tell.

Day hike this Saturday

2011-09-21T08:04:00.000-07:00

We will have our day hike along the Pacific Crest Trail this Saturday. We leave from the parking lot behind Carl's Jr. at the corner of I-80 and Antelope at 8:30 sharp. Be there at 8:00am and bring plenty of water!

Swimming Rescue methods

2011-09-21T08:02:00.000-07:00

Hey scouts! If you need to have requirement 8c from the Second Class Trail signed off, we will be meeting at the Jolly's house on Friday at 7pm to help you get this accomplished. If you need directions to the Jolly's, send me an email.

Community Service

2011-09-17T23:14:00.001-07:00

Troop 22 had a busy day. We started out serving and busing tables at the annual POW-MIA luncheon at the VFW post in Antelope. We followed that up with a flag ceremony for Sac Co. Counselwoman Susan Peters at Pioneer Park. Thanks to all the help from the boys at both events. It was a long a busy day and your efforts are appreciated.

MIA-POW luncheon

2011-09-14T08:27:00.000-07:00

The Troop will be serving lunch at the POW-MIA luncheon on Saturday. The luncheon will be from 11:30 to 1:30 and we would like you to be there by 11:15 to go over the process for serving. I know that you have all done this before, but we will need to figure out the best way to do our job depending on the table layout. See you Saturday.

Quartely Court of Honor

2011-09-13T12:14:00.000-07:00

Held our latest Court of Honor last night. Lots of merit badges handed out and three advancements. Good job to all the boys in the troop! Keep it up. We'll be planning for 2012 beginning with our next meeting, so bring some ideas of things you would like to do and places you would like to visit.

Next outing date moved

2011-09-04T13:19:00.001-07:00

We needed to move the date of our next outing. It WAS on the 10th, NOW it's on the 24th. Update your calendars. More info at the Court of Honor.

Last meeting of the 'Summer'

2011-08-24T12:55:00.000-07:00

The unofficial end of summer arrives with Labor Day. So to celebrate we are contemplating having a movie night at our next meeting. Thinking about showing Scout Camp. Hope to see you Monday.

Dutch Oven donuts...

2011-08-21T08:38:00.001-07:00

Yum!!!

End of a successful day

2011-08-20T20:35:00.001-07:00

What a great day! Beautiful weather. Great dutch oven meals. Lots of fun playing in the creek. Tomorrow will bring our hike out and the close of another outing.

Dutch oven lunch at Gibson Ranch

2011-08-20T13:29:00.001-07:00

We made it to Gibson. Took longer than I hoped it would to get here, but we made it. Good lunch from the boys. Dutch ovens in use. Oh yeah!

Camping at Gibson Ranch this weekend

2011-08-16T12:23:00.000-07:00

We'll be leaving on our backpack style outing to Gibson Ranch this Saturday. We'll hit the trail around 8:00 and hike to Gibson. We're going to play with nature and cook some great meals. And the moon should be about right for a rousing round of capture the flag at night. Gonna be fun!

Correction to price of August outing

2011-08-08T10:00:00.000-07:00

I listed the wrong price on the permission form for the August outing. It should be $11.00. Sorry for the confusion.

Might as well begin with our next outing

2011-08-07T17:54:00.000-07:00

I have not been successful in reconfirming our first choice of camping spots for the August outing, so we will be changing to a backup location. Reservations have been made for Gibson Ranch on the same weekend. We will be camping for only Saturday evening this outing and we will also be hiking into Gibson Ranch. In the past we have done this from the VFW hall, but we are going to lengthen the hike a little bit this time. We will start from Dry Creek Ranch (basically). There is a new bike trail parking lot just to the south side of the Ranch (toward Elkhorn Blvd.). We will gather there on Saturday morning, hike to Gibson, set up camp, do our thing and hike back Sunday.

Because of this, we won't need a bunch of vehicles to drive us to and from Gibson Ranch. We will however need one or two vehicles to transport the large troop gear that we can't carry ourselves. Items like the patrol boxes and storage coolers. We will need this help on both Saturday to get the gear to Gibson and then again on Sunday to get it back to Mr. David's house. I also will need one vehicle to remain at Gibson while we are on site in case we need to transport anyone for medical assistance. If this is one of the gear vehicles, that would probably be easiest.

I'm baaack...

2011-08-07T17:48:00.000-07:00

At least that's the plan. I will be updating this blog like I used to in the beginning. Look here to keep up to date of upcoming happenings with the troop. The useful dates area will be updated soon as well.

2011-02-07T19:53:00.001-08:00

Annual Planning PLC this Saturday

2010-08-05T12:30:00.000-07:00

Saturday at 2pm at the Antelope Library is our planning meeting for 2011. Come with your ideas.

Many updates

2010-08-03T12:58:00.000-07:00

Wow. Didn't realize it had been a couple of weeks since my last post. Lots going on. Summer camp has come and gone. A small group attended but much fun was had. There were some issues as well, but when aren't there? It was good that a few of our newest scouts attneded and earned a couple of merit badges. I'm especially pleased with the performance of our older scouts. They stepped up when needed and made sure stuff was taken care of.

The PLC annual planning meeting is this coming Saturday. Be there to give us your ideas of what you want to do next year.

We've had a couple of regular troop meetings since my last post as well. Seems like things are progressing. It's difficult to see sometimes. Growth takes such little steps and it's much easier to see a stumble. We're getting better, I really believe that we are. It's taking a heck of a lot longer than I thought it would.

We have a new committee chairman now. Thanks so much to Dennis Ledbetter for his years of service to the troop. Dennis will remain active in scouting, but with the Eagle board. Much success to you in the future.

Also congratulations to Mike Donlon for being selected as the new committee chairman.

Our next outing is fast approaching. Scotts Flat Reservior and water sports. This is gonna be fun! Deadline to sign up and get your payment in is this coming Monday's meeting. You're not gonna want to miss this one, I promise! We are hoping to hold one of our next couple of meetings at a pool to get the swimming requirements out of the way. Wish us luck!!!

Lastly, we have had three boys advance in the last month. Greg O. is now a Life Scout while Steven W. and Jaughn F. are now Star Scouts. Great work guys (and about time to a couple of you).

Weekly meetings

2010-07-13T12:43:00.000-07:00

We have our regularily scheduled meeting this week, which is not normal. We usually don't because it's summer camp week, but there are plenty of boys that didn't make the trip that we felt having a meeting was worthwhile. Sadly, only a handful of boys showed up. We couldn't work as patrols because of it, so we gave them an easy evening and watched a movie.

Summer Campers are there

2010-07-13T12:39:00.000-07:00

9 youth and 3 adults ended up making the trip to Camp Fleischmann. They got camp set up really quickly. Temperature was nice, not too hot. I guess it's been a little cooler this year when compared to the recent past. Hopefully it will stay that way.

We are occupying a new campsite this year. It's lakeside and looks to be well shaded in the afternoons. That will be a nice respite from any heat that may come up.

I hope the week goes well for all attending and can't wait to hear the stories.

Weekly Meeting

2010-07-06T12:48:00.000-07:00

We didn't have a regular meeting, but those boys attending summer camp had a get together. Only a few of them showed up, but hopefully therir questions were answered. They leave Sunday morning at 8:30. If you would like to come by and wish them well, I know they would be excited to see you!

Summer Camp

2010-06-29T12:43:00.000-07:00

Last night during a meeting of the adult leadership, it was decided that we would leave on Sunday rather than Saturday as previously talked about. This will make it easier for those driving due to conflicts with other things. Those attending summer camp will meet briefly next Monday, July 5th at the VFW hall to finalize the trip. Look in your email inbox for more info.

Monthly PLC

2010-06-29T12:33:00.000-07:00

After not having one of these for a couple of months we're going to start them up again. Tomorrow night (June 30th) everything changes (I hope). If you have a position of leadership in the troop (or if you don't but would like to learn about this process), please be at the Antelope-North Highlands Library (Antelope Rd. & Walerga Rd.) no later than 6:20. Meeting starts at 6:30 and will be over no later than 8:00 (that's when the library closes). A map link to the library is in the Useful Links section of this blog at the bottom right of the page.

Weekly meeting & meeting changes

2010-06-29T12:29:00.000-07:00

I heard that the meeting went extremely well. The boys were working together nicely and getting things accomplished. Nice to hear.

--- ALERT ---

The Troop & Committee meeting scheduled for next Monday (July 5th) have been canceled. We will meet again on July 12th.

Summer camp fees

2010-06-23T12:57:00.000-07:00

If you signed up to attend summer camp, the remainder of fees is due this coming Monday.

Weekly meeting

2010-06-22T10:09:00.000-07:00

Very good meeting last night. All of our newest scouts worked on their Fireman Chit while the older scouts worked on flag ceremonies. Even though they have done many of these in the past, we want to give them a refresher and come up with a troop standard that they will then teach to our younger boys.

Future meetings will take us back to some basics of not just scouting, but comfort and survival in the outdoors. We're planning some patrol competitions as well. I'm hoping to get them to be creative in these competitions and use their imaginations.

I'm really excited about what is happening in the troop right now. Things feel different. Things feel good.

Twilight Camp redux

2010-06-21T12:57:00.000-07:00

Twilight Camp was a success. The Friday Webelos overnighter was also a huge success. Ryan did a fantastic job and received quite a few compliments (we even received our very first comment to the blog concerning his handling of the campfire program). There were around 40 Webelos scouts and their guardians that camped overnight. We were able to have the BB gun range open on Saturday morning so these boys were able to have it all to themselves. If you were there, thanks.

To meet or not to meet???

2010-06-21T12:52:00.000-07:00

In the past we have not had a troop meeting the week of summer camp. Of course we only had 12 boys and 10 of them went to camp, so it was pointless. Now we have 32, but only 8 are attending camp. Should we hold the meeting or give everyone a week off? Hmmm...

District Twilight Camp

2010-06-18T12:48:00.000-07:00

I have been working(?) at Twilight Camp all week. Working is really a stretch. I've handled the MC chores and smiled alot as I tell various adults you can't park there, or park like that, or you need to wear this to prove you're supposed to be here. Tonight is the Webelos overnighter and Ryan is in charge of the campfire. He's been working on skits with the dens and also compiling a list of filler skits/songs so we have a good campfire program. We'll be retiring a flag at the close of the program, so that will hopefully prove to be a special moment for the Webelos in attendance.

Roundtable cancelled!!

2010-06-15T12:37:00.000-07:00

In case you weren't aware, Roundtable has been canceled this month due to Twilight Camp. It will resume at the same time/location next month. Don't forget that at the August Roundtable is when the adults Pinewood Derby cars are to be collected. We'll race them at the September Roundtable.

Court of Honor

2010-06-15T12:29:00.000-07:00

What a turnout!!! The room was filled to (almost) capacity! We added a fourth row of tables for the anticipated crowd and it's a good thing we did. For a simple, basic meal of hot dogs and picnic sides, that was a fabulous meal. Maybe I was just in need of a chili dog.

Lots of rank advancement, a few merit badges and some special awards were handed out. A couple of nice presentations were shown. The first one was to help a scout finish up the Citizenship in the Community merit badge and the second was from the troop historian. It covered our participation in the VFW Memorial Day Parade. Good job to both of you!

Lots of talk concerning summer camp also. We're under a month until we leave. Hopefully you'll be able to attend. Too much fun to miss. Trust me on that one!

June 12 Day Hike

2010-06-15T12:22:00.000-07:00

Really pretty trail. The first really hot day of the summer had to hit this day??? We had 13 total attend. 4 adults, 8 boys and 1 sibling. Didn't make the entire loop. Took too much out of my respirtory system. The boys... no big deal. Even with the elevation gain of around 1500 feet in about 2 miles. We're going to plan many more hikes in the future but they'll be a little less challenging. We'll (and by we I really mean me) work our way up to those.

The part that pleased me the most was listening to the boys singing as we were heading back down the trail to our cars. That and the one scout that had a questionable view of another scout at the beginning of the hike and by the middle had changed his view 180deg.

Summer Camp

2010-06-09T13:02:00.000-07:00

For the last 8 years or so we have camped at Camp Fleischmann for our long term summer camping. Should we be visiting other camps periodically? I worry that the boys may be missing out on different experiences. Each camp offers their own brand of lunacy along with different merit badges and opportunities. I love Camp Fleischmann and would be very happy to go back there each and every year, but I have very fond memories of camping at Camp Winton as a boy. Your thoughts?

UPDATED 6/10!! Start thinking about next year

2010-06-09T12:55:00.000-07:00

August will bring us two additional meetings that are necessary to plan for 2011. The first one will be August 7th. This will be the PLC's annual planning meeting. The PLC will come together to plan their outings and goals for 2011.

The second one will be August 14th. This one will be to plan the finances for 2011. We need to know how much we anticipate spending on things like badges, replacement gear, outings and how much fundraising we need to help the boys accomplish their goals and attend all the outings being planned.

Both of these meetings are scheduled to begin at 2pm and take as long as they take to complete. I will let you know the location when I solidify it.

**UPDATED 6/10**
We are confirmed to meet for the finances meeting (Aug. 14th) at the North Highlands-Antelope Library beginning at 2pm. This library is located on Antelope Road just west of Walerga Road.

The library was booked for the 7th so I am still looking for a meeting location. I will try to get Mountain Mikes at Walerga and Elverta.

UPDATED 6/10!! Change to our PLC meetings

2010-06-09T12:48:00.001-07:00

We've held our PLC's at a couple of different times, with varying success. Let's try it again. PLC's will now be held on the last Wednesday of each month. I will notify as to location and times when I solidify it.

**UPDATE 6/10**
We are confirmed to meet from 6:30 to 8:00pm at the North Highlands-Antelope Library. This library is on Antelope Road just west of Walerga Road.

Court of Honor

2010-06-09T12:46:00.000-07:00

Our meeting this coming Monday is our Court of Honor. If you didn't sign up to bring something, expect a phone call from our COH organizer. Make sure you're in attendance to cheer on our boys (and adults).

Weekly meetings

2010-06-09T12:44:00.000-07:00

Good meeting this past Monday. The boys learned how to make their own Gatorade and held Patrol elections. Afterward they played some baseball. Is there a better game to watch boys play?

Memorial Weekend - a look back

2010-06-01T12:30:00.000-07:00

Placing crosses went very well. Troop 22 was well represented. Other scout units were present, along with various military units and individuals. A very large crowd (the largest I have seen) showed up. Thank you to all that showed up and helped to honor the fallen.

Later in the day we worked on our float for the parade that took place on Memorial Day. Lots of boys showed up to help. The parade was fun (I think the boys would agree). They took turns riding in the push car we built last year. Lots of hoots and hollars for the Boy Scouts from the crowd. Nice to hear the encouragement.

Memorial Day weekend and other stuff

2010-05-28T12:57:00.000-07:00

Relatively busy weekend. Everyone should know by now what is happening so I'm not going to to rehash it here. I've heard from a couple of families that will not be able to attend to our events this weekend, but I expect to see everyone else. So, I'll see you this weekend.

I have only heard from two families about the Scout Night at the River Cats. Does anyone want to take advantage of this? Let me know.

Summer Camp paperwork has arrived

2010-05-27T13:06:00.000-07:00

The leader guide and all the merit badge paperwork has been posted to the Camp Fleischmann web site. I have downlaoded it and will be reading it over soon. We'll put together a session to go over summer camp for everyone to answer any questions you may have.

Weekly meeting

2010-05-25T12:39:00.000-07:00

Worked on some more of the Citizenship in the Community merit badge. A few of the boys won't be getting those items signed off however, unless they were able to hear everything over their talking to each other.

After that we learned how to lash a square lashing. Overall a good meeting.

Canoe Trek postponed???

2010-05-24T12:47:00.000-07:00

It looks like we will need to postpone the canoe outing currently scheduled for June 12-13. Trouble finding a camp ground among other items.

Our weekend

2010-05-24T10:20:00.000-07:00

Two events on Saturday. The first was a flag ceremony for the Relay for Life. This is an annual fundraiser the the American Cancer Society. This took place at San Juan High School on their football field. Participants were to walk around the track portion for 24 hours to raise money. This is apparently the largest fundraiser in the world. Pretty neat to see all the tents set up for participants to use. The flag ceremony went well. We had 9 boys show up and that made me very happy.

Second was the day hike. Seven of the boys at the ceremony joined us for the day hike. I was a little disappointed that more didn't join us. The surprising thing to me was that I figured the hike would be made up of mostly our young scouts, but only two of the seven were from the Vikings or Flaming Monkeys. Those of us that did the hike had a good time. We hiked from Camp Pollock into Old Sacramento. This is roughly 4 1/2 miles. Then we participated in a scavenger hunt that took us to all corners of Old Sac. This scavenger hunt was designed by one the stores in Old Sac (trailmex.net - yes, that is the name of the store) and after completing it we were able to pick up a small gift item from their treasure chest.

After this the boys enjoyed one of the many candy stores down there and even purchased a couple of pieces. After hiking back to Camp Pollock we put roughly 10 miles on our shoes. Not a bad day.

I plan on doing this hike again in the near future so that everyone else can have the same opportunity. Next up though is another day hike. This one will be at Lake Berryessa. Come join me and lets see what we're made of.

Memorial Day weekend

2010-05-19T10:20:00.000-07:00

A couple of big items taking place on Memorial Day weekend. First is the placing of crosses on the veterans gravesites at East Lawn Memorial. Second is the VFW parade on Memorial Day. Make sure you have these items on your calendars.

Outings changed and added

2010-05-19T10:17:00.000-07:00

Our campout this weekend had to be canceled unfortunately. In its place we will be taking a day hike and doing a scanvenger hunt. Should be fun.

It looks like we will add an outing in June. We already have a canoe trek being planned, but not everyone in the troop will want or be able to attend. I am planning another day hike in the Lake Berryessa area for the same weekend as the canoe outing. A challenging hike that will have us on the trail for most of the day.

Weekly meeting notes

2010-05-11T10:13:00.000-07:00

The Vikings and Flaming Monkeys worked on some Citizenship items last night. I have a DVD that was created as an Eagle project a few years back and we watched this last night. It covers flag etiquette and ceremonies. Afterward the boys folded some flags that are ready to be retired. We also started an Honor Guard and will rotate all the boys through it so they can learn proper methods for a flag ceremony.

The older boys held a PLC and made some decisions for the Troop while the younger boys were watching the DVD. We have a new SPL in Trevor and his ASPL will be Brandon M. Good luck to both of you. We will seat these and other boys into their positions at the next Court of Honor in June.

Leadership can and does happen

2010-05-04T12:58:00.000-07:00

At the recently completed Scout Expo our SPL was unable to attend due an illness. Our ASPL was also absent so I appointed Trevor to be our SPL for this event. Trevor recently earned his Life rank and he did a fantastic job. He had never even help a Patrol Leader position before. This is what I was hoping for.

Also, Greg took charge of the kitchen as head cook for the outing. He divided the kitchen in two since we had basically two patrols going. Greg was wonderful in his duties as head cook. We had some excellent food over the weekend.

Both of these young men were singled out for attention at our committee meeting last night, and deservedly so. Congratulations to both of you for an outstanding job! Our troop is in good hands as it heads into the future.

Weekly meeting notes

2010-05-04T12:50:00.000-07:00

We had our weekly meeting last night and for the third time in the last 4 weeks we are having issues with bullying. I had a circle up discussion about this very topic three weeks ago and it doesn't seem to have had any impact. I've let the boys know that if it happens again they will asked to leave the meeting. Once more after that and they will be asked to leave the Troop. We have a young man that will be sporting a black eye due to last evenings activities. I won't tolerate it any more.

Scout Expo has come and gone

2010-05-04T12:44:00.000-07:00

6300 scouts and scouters. 28 of them from Troop 22. No rain this time, that was good. We did get some wind. Made for interesting moments. I believe that everyone had a good time. There were a few occasions where we were provided with teaching moments. I hope we made the most of them.

Would we do this event again in the future? I would say yes, but with some changes to our participation in certain events. I don't feel that the Arena Show is worth it. Too far to travel and too late in the day after such a long day of nothing but more walking. We'll know the answer to this question in another 3 years.

Leave a comment and let us know what you thought of Scout Expo.

One more month of craziness, then we slow down and can breathe.

2010-04-27T10:00:00.000-07:00

The month of May is the last of the craziness. Things will settle down after that. We do have something planned on all but one weekend for the month of May. Our outing is a campout to Yuba Gap the weekend of May 21-23 and a decision on your attendance is needed pretty quickly. The deadline to sign up is May 10th.

We have community service projects on May 13, 14 and 15 (Rio Linda Farm Days), another one on May 14th (help out at an Eagle project to paint crosses) and May 29th (place those crosses). There is the parade on May 31st. These will only last a few hours each, but we do need your help to make them successful.

There is actually something planned on that lone weekend, but it isn't a troop activity. The Pioneer District is having their annual District Awards dinner on May 8th. I hope that you can be available to attend this. It will be fun and will allow you to show your thanks for all of those adults that volunteer their time to our kids.

Can you cook eggs?

2010-04-27T09:26:00.000-07:00

At last nights meeting we discussed how to set up a kitchen area and what will take place when we go camping. I put on a little demonstration of how to cook eggs. It may have gone a little long as I lost the boys toward the end of it.

We also welcomed two new boys to our fold last night. Please join me in welcoming our latest scouts and helping them on their way to Eagle.

We also passed out the gear list for Scout Expo this weekend. Make sure to read it as some of the items on it have changed. Don't let its familiar look fool you.

Another new Life Scout

2010-04-21T07:03:00.000-07:00

Ryan has attained this rank. Congrats!! We now have two scouts one step away from the rarified air of Eagle. Could we have both get there this year?

Upcoming events

2010-04-21T06:56:00.000-07:00

These are also listed in our calendar to the lower right of these posts, but here they are in another form. I'm only going to mention those a couple weeks out:

Scout Expo, April 30 to May 2 - lots of talk about this one. Shouldn't come as a surprise now.
District Dinner, May 8 - Everyone is strongly encouraged to attend and celebrate the adult leadership in our District. Sign up online by May 1.
Yuba Gap camping, May 21 to 23 - Outing to the high sierra. Deadline to sign up is May 10.

Finally, an update

2010-04-21T06:40:00.000-07:00

At Monday's meeting the two new patrols took a small hike to a shopping center to work as patrols. Successful outing I was told.

Our two older patrols had a fun evening after selecting youth leadership for the remaining outings and projects for this year.

Our next meeting is the deadline for turning in summer camp fees to receive the lower price.

The sporadic nature continues

2010-03-23T09:21:00.000-07:00

Some updates. We have a new Life Scout in Trevor. Congratulations!! We should have another similar announcement in a couple of weeks.

Our troop expanded greatly over the last month. We welcomed an entire new patrol of nine boys. They are the Vikings and we are very glad to have them. We will be growing further shortly as another den of seven boys will be joining us. We've gone from 12 to almost 30 in about a month. Lots to deal with.

We have added two weekend meetings in April. Check out the dates and put them on your calendar.

Updates and info

2010-02-12T09:46:00.000-08:00

I have added a link in the "Useful Scout Links" section to view a promotional video for Camp Fleischmann. Pretty nice actually.

Remember those historic merit badges I mentioned a month or so ago? They're on hold for now. It seems that national couldn't determine the requirements in time. I mean, it's not like they knew this year was coming, right?

For those that may be wondering, we will be having our normally scheduled troop meetings during the weeks that school districts take off for spring break. Each school district seems to take off a different week so if you will be traveling and can't make it to a meeting, that happens sometimes. We understand.

PLC's have been held on the Sunday prior to our monthly committee meeting. This meeting has been moved and will now be held on the same Monday as the committee meeting (the first Monday of each month) from 5:30 to 6:30. The troop and committee meetings will then begin at their normal time of 7:00.

There are other changes to the structure to our troop that will be coming and those will be announced when appropriate.

How did/are you celebrating?

2010-02-10T07:29:00.000-08:00

February 8th, 2010. Happy birthday to the Boy Scouts of America. It was incorporated on this day 100 years ago. Our Troop, as I am sure is the case with most Troops typically celebrate with Courts of Honor and don't do anything special to commemorate this date. Cub Scouts have always had their Blue & Gold banquet. So this year I thought it was appropriate to hold a Tan & Green pot luck. Our current boys all prepared a main course of either Chili or Spaghetti. A strange combo yes (at least to me), but that's what was decided on. We also greeted our newest scouts that crossed over the previous Saturday. Nine new scouts. Welcome to all of you.

All of the food was delicious. Thanks to all of the boys for their efforts in preparing their dishes and to the families for bring side dishes and desserts. Their was a home/hand made yellow cake with actual butter cream chocolate frosting that one of our families made. Man those store bought ... things ... just can't compare.

Wanna earn some retired merit badges?

2010-01-13T10:01:00.000-08:00

During this year of celebration, the BSA is offering Scouts a chance to earn up to four merit badges that have been "retired". Some for quite a few years. Here are the four that have been brought back:

The requirements for earning these badges haven't been posted yet, but I will get them as soon as they become available.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I think that would be pretty cool to have a merit badge on my sash that hasn't been available for years. Maybe all four?

If you would like to read a little more about them visit this site. You will probably need to do a copy/paste of the entire link into your web browser address bar :

http://blog.scoutingmagazine.org

Changes to meeting dates

2009-12-26T21:11:00.000-08:00

We were planning on building our snow shoes this Monday, the 28th, and also the following Sunday, Jan. 3rd. We have decided to cancel these meetings altogether. We will now be building our snow shoes on the weekend of January 16th & 17th (if needed). More information will be forthcoming at our upcoming troop meetings. See you all there.

Pumpkin Carving

2009-10-29T06:50:00.000-07:00

We will jump into the gooey mess that is the inside of a pumpkin. I love to carve pumpkins and I hope that I can show the boys it's fun too. We'll see you all Saturday!!!

PLC this Sunday

2009-10-29T06:47:00.000-07:00

Just like the title says... We'll be meeting at the VFW hall from 4 to 5 pm.

Halloween Parrrtaayyy

2009-10-29T06:44:00.000-07:00

Took a break from our normal type meetings and the boys had a party night. Lots of games this evening. They even surprised me with a birthday cake. Thanks everyone. I appreciate it.

10-19 Meeting

2009-10-20T07:16:00.000-07:00

Productive evening. The boys began work on two Eagle required merit badges, all by themselves. They plan on finishing them up before Thanksgiving.

Can't figure it out

2009-10-16T13:55:00.000-07:00

why I haven't been updating the blog lately. I don't mean not to. Just keep finding other things to do I guess. I'm just going to have to make sure and set aside, what, 10 minutes a day, maybe, to keep it updated.

August 17 meeting

2009-08-24T09:59:00.000-07:00

Finished our push car. Looks good. We'll see how it performs this Saturday.

Popcorn sales

2009-08-09T11:33:00.000-07:00

This weekend launched our efforts to sell popcorn in what is called a 'show and sell'. Think of when Girl Scouts show up in front of a store and sell cookies. The same thing, but as Boy Scouts we sell popcorn. This is the first time our troop has done the show and sell since I've been with the troop. We are selling all this weekend and also next weekend (August 14 thru 16) at the Wal-Mart on the corner of Antelope Road and Roseville Road.

So far it seems to be going very well for us. The nicest surprise has been the straight donations we have received. People wanting to help us out without purchasing the popcorn. That's obviously best for us as we get to keep all of that for our use. So, if you have any friends, and I know for a fact that some of you do, tell them to stop by and see us and buy some popcorn. Or not.

Push Car Derby build day - take 2

2009-08-09T11:28:00.000-07:00

Actually, take 1. A few of the boys showed up to begin building their car for the race. Quite a bit of progress was made I believe. We're going to have the car at our next meeting so it can be worked on some more. And we will more than likely need to have a second Saturday build to complete it. I think the boys had fun working on it and that's the whole point. Not only teaching them something that they can use for the rest of their lives, but having a good time doing it. It's also a nice break from the usual type of meetings.

Push Car Derby build day

2009-08-05T08:48:00.000-07:00

If you haven't seen it, Mr. Powers sent out an email to announce a build day for our derby entry. This Saturday, August 8th at Mr. Powers' house from 9 to 2. If that isn't enough time to complete the car, we will try again the following Saturday.

Annual Planning meeting

2009-08-05T08:43:00.000-07:00

We held our annual planning meeting and it went very well I think. The boys gave input as to what they wanted to do next year and then we had discussions on where we should visit to do those things. I think we have a good year planned. The next step in this process is to select a boy to be in charge of each event and an adult to help guide them through the leadership of that outing.

September committee meeting date changed

2009-08-05T08:37:00.000-07:00

The first Monday of September is Labor day. The troop will take that Monday off from meeting so we moved our committee meeting to the last Monday of August, which is the 31st. Make sure to update your calendars.

Monthly PLC & Annual planning meeting

2009-07-29T11:33:00.000-07:00

This coming Sunday, August 2nd, will be the next PLC. This will be immediately followed by our annual planning meeting. We will meet at our normal weekly meeting place, the VFW hall. The PLC is from 4 to 5pm and the annual planning meeting will go from 5 to appoximately 7 pm. For the annual planning session, have your ideas for outings that you would like to see the Troop do for the upcoming year. All ideas are welcome. This is when we pick what and when we want to those fun things we enjoy doing during the year. See you Sunday!!!

Been absent awhile

2009-07-29T11:09:00.000-07:00

Haven't updated the blog recently, don't know why. So lets get us up to date.

Since I wrote last, the big event was summer camp. Other than that, we have had our normal weekly meetings. So lets talk about summer camp.

Six of our boys and five adults went with us to Camp Fleischmann in Chester. This is our seventh or eighth year of attending this camp and the boys still love it and want to come back. While there, each of the boys earned at least 4 merit badges each. Only a couple of partials were brought back, so that's a good thing.

Best of all was that each of them took and earned the Citizenship in the World badge. This is an Eagle required badge. And when I say 'earned', I mean it. The counselor for this badge tested each boy at the end of the session before signing off the blue card. A couple of Troop 22's adults were recruited to help with the teaching of this badge and I was asked to help out with the testing at the end of the session. There were 4 or 5 out of 52 that signed up for the class that he wouldn't sign off on. This is a good thing because those boys that he didn't sign off weren't ready for this badge. They were too young to understand what it meant.

We didn't earn any special awards while at camp, but we did get many compliments on the cleanliness of our campsite. We also got many comments of one of our camp gadgets that one of our boys put together. One of the pet peeves I and other adults have while at camp is having day packs left wherever they get put down. So Steven built a day pack hanging station. It is the second one he has built for us and I think it needs to become a Troop 22 camp site fixture from here on out. Job well done!!

This years summer camp was different than years past because we left a day early. We broke for camp on Saturday so we could get our site up and running and not have to worry about it on Sunday, the actual start of the session. It worked out great and we plan on doing this in future years.

During the week we had some guests visit us as well. Mr. David and his son Andrew stopped by as well as Mr. Fox and his daughter Katie. That was a nice surprise to have some visitors. Remember, just because you may not be able to join us for the week, it doesn't mean that you can't come up and join us for a day or two. You are always welcome! Just make sure you bring snacks!!!

I'll end this entry here. Others will follow concerning specific topics. So keep a look out for more frequent updates.

June 22 meeting has been...

2009-06-20T21:04:00.000-07:00

canceled!!! It came to my attention at Roundtable last week that we may be quite a few bodies short for the Pioneer District Twilight Camp being held at Camp Pollock all of next week. Since the first day of any twilight camp is always the worst, and since our meeting night of Monday is that same first day, I would like all of the boys (and any of you parents) to come to Camp Pollock instead and offer to help out where you may be needed. I know this is short notice, but it wouldn't be the first you had to make a change to your schedule with little or no notice. I'm not going to ask any of you to volunteer for the rest of the week, but if you can I'm sure it would be greatly appreciated. The main purpose of this is to help make Monday go more smoothly. We will return to our regularily scheduled meetings the following Monday.

June 15 meeting

2009-06-17T14:06:00.000-07:00

Only a few of the boys made it to the meeting tonight, so it was a tough pull. They worked on some emergency preparedness items from the merit badge booklet, but I heard they didn't get as far along as I would have liked. I wasn't able to keep a watchful eye over them due to the parents meeting we held to discuss summer camp.

It's a tough transition letting them go it on their own. They are very rudderless right now. Part of that to me still seems to be a lack of respect to the leadership they themselves elected. Part of it is not really wanting or caring to work on 'scout' stuff. I'm trying to work it out in my head how to correct this.

June Court of Honor

2009-06-17T14:00:00.000-07:00

A great COH tonight. All of the boys in attendance were able to stand before the audience and receive something. We had a few Merit Badges, a few Rank advancements, some special presentations, and some special guests.

The food as usual was excellent. Who knew hot dogs could taste so good? Maybe it was all of the side dishes.

Scotts Flat camping

2009-06-08T11:38:00.000-07:00

That was a long weekend. At least it seemed like it to me. I haven't felt that tired after an outing since I was in the Cub Scout program with R. It was probably the excellent parenting going on in the campsite right next to us. If you were there you know what I mean, if you weren't any one of us can explain at length later.

All of our boys went to this event at Scotts Flat Reservoir which is located just Northeast of Nevada City. I had initially thought we were in for some very nasty weather, but it was quite nice really. It didn't get sunny until Sunday morning, but it was never really cold and we didn't get any rain.

A special thanks go out to the Mr. Powers for putting this event together. He signed up to be a Merit Badge councilor for both fishing and canoeing, so the boys had a chance to earn 2 merit badges this weekend. He put in a lot of effort to see that all of the boys had work books and spent a lot of time signing blue cards. When you see him next time make sure you say thanks.

Fishing was very difficult from what I heard, so none of them were able to complete it. Canoeing on the other hand came off quite nicely. Seven boys signed up to take the badge and six of them earned it! The seventh came this close, but wasn't ready to take that final plunge as it were. That's okay. He'll finish it at summer camp (hopefully).

We even had a boy earn a rank advancement at camp! B was able to have his Board of Review while at camp and was promoted to the rank of Second Class! Congratulations!!! An extra special thanks go out to Jeff Rogers. Jeff was at the campground with his church group. I had initially thought it was another scout group (not many other groups fly an American Flag while camping) and approached them to see if one of them would be willing to help us out. Turned out he is an Eagle Scout and was more than happy to be helpful.

Fundraising

2009-06-02T07:13:00.000-07:00

It has become painfully aware that we need to have fundraising projects (other than the annual popcorn sales) on a regular basis. We discussed this at last nights committee meeting at length. Deborah has brought some great ideas to the table for us to make use of. I ask that all of us keep our eyes and ears open to any other possibilities that we can use.

June 1 meeting

2009-06-02T07:06:00.000-07:00

While the adults had their monthly committee meeting the boys were visited by the Webelos of Pack 22. After discovering a problem with the water rocket launcher they had built, plan b was put into action. They still launched rockets, it was an air version. I didn't get to see any of this myself, but I heard that a good time was had by all.

Another scout reached First Class last night. Congrats to G!

B and I held his Scoutmaster Conference for Second Class. Hopefully we'll get the BOR done this weekend while camping.

Scott's Flat is this weekend. Looks like we're going to be getting wet, and I don't mean because we plan on canoeing and swimming.

Some upcoming events

2009-05-26T06:58:00.000-07:00

Sunday, May 31

Orienteering. Not an official troop event, but a few of the boys did sign up to work on the Orienteering Merit Badge and this would be another item to check off for its completion. Of course, even if you didn't sign up for the badge, you could. Or show up any way and learn how to do it. I think it's a fun event. See the link for Gold Country Orienteers below right to learn more.

Sunday, May 31 (again)

Patrol Leaders Council. R will be making calls to those that need to be in attendance.

Monday, June 1

Troop Meeting and Committee Meeting. We will be visited by Pack 22 tonight. A joint activity is planned while the committee meeting is going on. If you haven't attended a committe meeting recently, or maybe at all, we could use your help. We have positions of our committee that need to be filled.

Friday, June 5

Scotts Flat canoeing/fishing outing. The plan is to have all of the boys that attend earn their canoeing and fishing merit badges. Lets hope that's possible.

Monday, June 8

Court of Honor. Need I say more? Seriously, come and see what's been going on with our boys. This will be totally(?) planned by the boys. At least as much as they can. Come and give them your support.

VFW Memorial Day Parade

2009-05-26T06:47:00.000-07:00

A beautiful day! The weather was great, and the boys did an outstanding job on their float! We took part in the annual parade that works its way down Watt Ave in North Highlands. There were lots of scouting units out. Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, Girl Scouts. It was great to see all of them. Our boys did a fantastic job of passing out fliers and Boys Life mini-mags to drum up membership for the Scouting program.

Our float was a thing to see. A flat bed trailer with an old style canvas tent. In front of that was a fire pit with a fake fire (nicely created by T by the way) and a 7-foot tall tripod. Attached to the tripod was our Fleur de lis insignia. Streamers and flags were hanging over the vehicle pulling the trailer as well as the trailer itself.

At the awards ceremony later in the day, Troop 22 took 2nd place for their float! I have the trophy and will present it at our next Court of Honor.

Cross/Flag placement

2009-05-26T06:43:00.000-07:00

A few of our boys showed up to our annual tribute at East Lawn Memorial to those that made this Nation of ours a continuing possibility. Thank you to those that took part. And thank you to those that gave the ultimate sacrifice so I could write this.

May 18 meeting

2009-05-20T07:42:00.000-07:00

The boys held troop elections tonight. We have a new SPL in D, his ASPL is our current SPL R, the Dragonslayers have a new PL in C, and the Rabid Monkeymen (or is it Krew now?) have a new PL in J. Congratulations to all of you! I look forward to working with you to help make this a great experience for yourselves, but for the troop as well.

We also had a visitor. L came to pay us a visit and decided that he wanted to stay. So now our ranks have swelled to 11 boys. Growth is positive.

Some of our adults held a meeting also. They are concerned about the lack of direction from the boys and wanted to discuss ideas for networking among themselves to help encourage the boys to advance. It was a very positive step in my opinion and I can't wait to see what it brings to the table.

TLT

2009-05-17T00:01:00.000-07:00

Held our first TLT in... not sure when the last one was held. All of the boys except one attended. I decided that since we hadn't run this training in a while that we would pretend that all of our boys were going to be patrol leaders. That way they would all have the concept of how it is suppose to work.

Elections are Monday night. A new SPL and two new PL's. Here's to the next six months.

May 11 meeting

2009-05-13T00:00:00.000-07:00

Talked about the upcoming elections next week. Basically performed module 3 of Troop Leadership Training. Next up, the elections.

May 4 meeting

2009-05-05T22:52:00.000-07:00

The boys started working on a scale model of a trebuchet. We hope to build a full sized one at some point down the road. Elections are coming in two weeks, so we will be discussing leadership positions and how the troop will be planned/run at next weeks meeting.

April 20 meeting

2009-04-24T09:40:00.000-07:00

Post camporee (or any camping outing for that matter) stuff. Tonight we opened up, aired out, and stenciled our tents. Boring stuff that needs to be done in order to enjoy them in the future.

Camporee...

2009-04-24T09:28:00.000-07:00

has come and gone. The boys had a good time. One of our patrols, The Rabid Monkey Men, won the semaphore event and the other, The Dragonslayers, took second place for their patrol flag.

The top prize is this really cool powder horn. It was hand made by one of the adults from another unit. Very talented he is. Really beautiful work. It was very nice for us to win an event. I had some trouble getting the boys motivated to work on the events that were being played at camporee and it showed in their struggling. Hopefully it will show them that they must work at this in order to perform better.

Three of our boys and one adult was called out (or tapped) to become Order of the Arrow members. Lets hope that they all will be able to attend the Ordeal and complete the process.

While at camporee, we were visited by the Webelos from Pack 22. They had their own campsite, which is how it should be, but they joined us for meals. They had a really good time and preformed pretty well at the games. They picked up two awards as well. There are some really good kids in that pack and it will be a pleasure to work with them should they choose us as their troop when they cross over next year.

April 13 meeting

2009-04-14T10:49:00.000-07:00

Our last meeting until camporee. Some things were accomplished that will help at camporee by a couple of the boys. Some of the other boys just don't seem interested in anything other than everything that isn't scout related. Hopefully it's just me.

Two boys had their Scoutmasters conferences for Tenderfoot. Congrats to C and B. All they need to get past is the Board of Review.

Changes to how our meetings work/run is on the horizon. I hope they are prepared.

April 6 meeting

2009-04-08T08:01:00.000-07:00

Probably should have canceled the meeting. Spring break for most of the boys. They weren't able to get much accomplished. That's going to change real fast however. I hope. As they say, it's always darkest before the dawn. I think that's where we are right now. Waiting for the dawn.

April 4 to 5 campout

2009-04-06T15:29:00.000-07:00

We had our second pre-camporee outing this past weekend. While the camping was fun, the progress of the boys toward even wanting to compete was disappointing. We may have a less than stellar camporee again this year.

We were joined on our outing by Pack 22's Webelos Den 10. Four of their members came and camped with us. They worked on their Outdoorsman and Citizenship Activity Badges. I believe they even earned a belt loop. They helped with preparing meals and cleaning up afterward. They learned how to work a compass and tie some lashings. I think they all had a good time.

We also had our latest PLC while at camp. It was decided that we need to follow the themes more closely if only for the games and activities listed for each meeting during the month. It was felt that this would get us out of the doldrums our meetings seem to be turning into.

Camporee is next. Wish us well.

March 30 meeting

2009-03-31T15:44:00.000-07:00

Practiced our compass work some more. A couple of the boys got better. Still needs work however. We'll see if we can't improve this weekend while camping. They also did a little (very little) tree height estimating. We'll work on that as well.

We had a visitor tonight also. A Webelos Scout from Pack 22 paid us a visit. He also did some compass work, and did pretty well. They are going to be hanging out with us at Camporee to get an idea of how our troop works together.

Speaking of that, I'm beginning to worry that a few of the boys are really only at the meetings for the social aspect of it. That's fine and all, but I'm wondering if I should reorganize the patrols so that those boys who are there to learn the scouting stuff don't get left out and drop out.

March 23 meeting

2009-03-24T12:11:00.000-07:00

Planning for our next camping outing on the first weekend of April took place tonight. Menus were planned and duty rosters made. T had his board of review and was granted the rank of First Class Scout. Congrats T! Other than not knowing when to keep quiet, the boys are making some great progress.

Mr. P (T's dad) asked about putting together a 2 nighter canoe trek. We discussed what kinds of things we could do as far as activities and merit badge work. Sounds like it will be fun. I look forward to learning more about it.

March Camping at Gibson Ranch

2009-03-16T13:59:00.000-07:00

This outing was different. We met at the VFW post, which is pretty normal. But this time we hiked to Gibson Ranch with our gear. It's only about a 2 mile hike, and as flat as can be. Nothing could be easier, other than not hiking at all. This was a new experience for many of our boys. Some liked it, others didn't. Those that didn't had better get used to it however. This is how we are going to be doing things from here out, if practical.

While we were hiking, there was a little wind. Nothing too bad. When we got to the campsite it was really blowing. It seemed as though it was being funneled through the trees leading right to where we were setting up. The boys had an experience setting up tents in a good wind. Quite a few laughs to be heard. Along with some screams when a tent would go rolling away, or various bags would take flight. I think they had fun with it, which what were supposed to be doing anyway isn't it?

After lunch, they worked on gateways. Each patrol set up similar ones, but the Dragonslayers took it a step further. The troop agreed to use the Dragonslayers version for Camporee. I think it will be a very good gateway. Lets hope the judges agree!

We then worked on campass reading and pacing. We need to keep working on it!

The evening was pleasant. The boys played capture the flag while the adults gathered around the fire and talked. Some smores followed and then bed. It rained on us in the middle of the night, but only for about 20 minutes, and not enough to make you wish you had stayed home.

The next morning during breakfast we learned a few things about how our set up works (or doesn't). The boys will need to come up with a plan to fix these issues for our next camping adventure.

Then we hiked back. I had a really good time. I think the boys had a really good time as well. I look forward to our next trek. Join us, won't you?

March 9 meeting

2009-03-16T13:56:00.000-07:00

I was not at tonight's meeting due to an unexpected trip out of town. I heard that the boys worked on some semaphore and other games for the upcoming Camporee. From what I heard they had a good meeting.

March 2 meeting

2009-03-06T15:43:00.000-08:00

Tough meeting tonight for the boys. The leaders weren't getting much cooperation from a couple of them. I'm not sure how effectice the meeting was seeing as I was involved the committee meeting. One of those days I suppose.

We have a campout coming up at Gibson Ranch. Our first of the year. We are using this as a practice session for the upcoming Camporee. We are going to work on some of the games that we will be competing in. I also plan on having the boys practice some basic compass work, along with some map work if I can pull it together. I would really like to see them build a gateway, so we'll see how that goes.

Should be a good time, even if it is wet.

Feb. 23 meeting

2009-02-24T09:38:00.000-08:00

The boys took apart, dried out, and repacked our tents from over the weekend. We also emptied, cleaned and rebuilt the patrol box. There were some other mundane items going on, which is a good thing. The leadership is getting there.

We went!

2009-02-23T09:40:00.000-08:00

but didn't get to stay the night. We had been hearing about this massive stormfront moving in and how much rain it was going to dump and how windy it was going to get. The adults had coversed a few times about whether to pull the plug.

After setting up camp, which took far longer than it should have (many, many thanks to Mr. F for tamping down much of the campsite), we were having dinner. One of the boys had some very cold feet and wasn't doing so well. The other boys were great about saying they had this or that item of clothing they would be able to share to help this boy out, but after about 15 minutes of soul searching it was decided that it would be more prudent to break camp and head back home.

So we did. We got back into town around 11 pm. Even though it wasn't a complete outing, it was still successful. We learned plenty of things to better prepare us for the next time, which there will be.

We're going!

2009-02-20T09:55:00.001-08:00

The weather took a turn for the better. I had decided to go up and have a day in the snow at least. Now it looks like we won't have any issues with too much snow bearing down on our tents. Some rain maybe, but that we can handle. I look forward to expanding not only my knowledge, but the boys as well to this new experience.

To cancel or not to cancel

2009-02-18T12:40:00.000-08:00

I'm debating cancelling the snow camping this weekend. All the news reports say that another big storm is moving into the area and will dump a lot of wet on us. However, the NOAA web page says that it will snow, but I can't tell how much. Our tents can handle a light snow, but not anything over 1 inch or so (at least that's my guess, their 3 season tents). I don't want to put anybody into a bad situation. I also don't want to think we can do it and then have to abandon in the middle of the night. I'm leaning toward canceling.