Sept. 29 meeting

Court of Honor. A time to recognize those that have worked hard and earned some merit badges or advanced in rank. We had a fantastic turnout last night. Only a couple of our boys didn't make it to the meeting. Everyone that did show up, brought most if not all of their families. And that's what it's all about, sharing your accomplishments with those closest to you.

We had ice cream with many different toppings, and the boys (with my help) performed a couple of skits. Sounded to me like it went well and everyone had fun.

Because this is the first court of honor following summer camp, we had a bunch of merit badges to hand out. We also had three boys advance in rank. G and S earned their 2nd Class rank, while D advanced to 1st Class. Congrats boys, you are doing great!

Coming up... refresh our orienteering skills and finish up the pottery merit badge from summer camp and emergency preparedness from this past weekend.

Are you prepared for an emergency?

Fall Camporee has come and gone. We spent the weekend in Ione with our brothers from the Amador District that put together an excellent Camporee. There were every imaginable emergency unit available to visit with. From the police and sheriff to Cal Fire and everything in between. They even had an evacuation helicopter land and the boys were able to climb on and look at all of the gadgets available in the cockpit.

Each of the visiting teams took charge of teaching the boys a specific item toward earning their Emergency Preparedness Merit Badge. Everybody seemed to have a good time. The only complaint was that there was some confusion and time constraints at a couple of the stations and all of the needed information wasn't passed along. Due to this we only had one boy actually earn the badge at this event. But the others are most of the way along the path to earning this badge. We will work on finishing it during the month of October.

We also did some dutch oven cooking for dinner on Saturday. We made a beef stew that everybody seemed to enjoy. After dinner we had some ice cream. It was a very hot weekend, and a hot day followed by a hot dinner deserved something cold and refreshing.

Sept. 22 meeting

Tonight the boys discussed the competitions for this weekends camporee some more. We will have 11 boys and 3 adults attending. Good turnout. We also had a visitor to our troop this evening. A young man that is involved in Cub Scouts looking for a troop to join. He seemed to get along with our guys pretty well. Hopefully we will have another scout added to our unit. Hopefully I'll get to write after I get home from camporee. If not, after our next meeting.

I didn't fall!

That would have been a bad thing, trust me. I have returned from my rock climbing training class. It was a lot of fun. I learned a lot. Mostly that I don't know very much about it. But, I am confident that with the help of an experienced climber, or another troop that has experience, we will be hitting the rocks really soon. I am hopeful that sometime after our Spring Camporee we will make our first foray up an inclined slope using rope to protect us. Good times, good times.

Another training class

I leave today to take another training class. This one is to learn how to set up a safe environment for rock climbing. I was inspired to do this after earning my Joe Climber knot at summer camp this year. The knot is for doing the items required to earn the Climbing Merit Badge, but since I'm an adult and can't earn the badge, they give you a knot to show you did too! Pretty cool. Anyway, I had a lot of fun doing it. It is very challenging and can teach you something about yourself. I want our boys to be able to have this opportunity, so here I go. Troop 22 can look forward to venturing out and climbing some real rocks shortly.

Sept. 15 meeting

An easy going meeting last night. We talked about the upcoming games that will be played at camporee and how important it is for the boys to take it seriously and work together. After this some of the boys worked on their patrol flags and shirts, while others worked on duty rosters.

A short entry for today. I'll have a couple more entries next week I'm sure.

Sept. 8 meeting

Good meeting tonight. Some of the boys finished going through the new tents and selected the ones they would like to use at our next outing while the rest worked on their patrol flags for the new patrol that was formed a couple months back. We have a camp menu and a plan for the next couple of meetings to work on things for Camporee. Excellent work.

We also had our monthly committee meeting. I was unable to attend, but I didn't hear anything negative, so we'll let it go at that. I missed the committee meeting because I was at the committee meeting for our Chartered Organization, the Retired Sergeants Association. The Chartered Organization is the group that allows our Troop to exist.

I went over there to introduce myself and ask them to help us out with donations for new gear. They agreed to help and I will be putting together a list of items we would like to have to deliver to them.

I also informed them that we are available to help out at any functions they may have. Similar to the things we do with the VFW post. Look forward to some more opportunities for community service down the road.

That's all for now. See you next week.

Gibson Ranch campout

We had a great time at Gibson Ranch. It was a tad on the hot side, but thankfully we had a nice shady area (see post below). The boys worked on a scale version of the gateway we are going to build at our next outing, the Fall Camporee. It's a simple gateway, but one that our young Troop can easily handle. Small steps before you try to take big ones. I see a grandiose gateway somewhere in our future.

Our Troop received a generous donation of some tents and other items from another Troop that folded a few years back. I brought the tents with me and had the boys set them up after our gateway practice to see what kind of shape they were in. To our surprise, there were about 12 tents, and a few of them had never been used before! We now have new tents for our boys to use at our many upcoming outings. A BIG thanks to Troop 562. Your spirit will live on in us.

Dinner was excellent and the boys worked together pretty well in preparing the food. After dinner was time for the real reason for the outing, capture the flag under the light of the moon. The boys were off and we could hear them trying to keep quiet so the other team wouldn't hear them. It sounded like they had a great time.

One of the benefits to camping at Gibson Ranch is that once the park closes, there's nobody else there. You are by yourself.

We finally settled down to get some sleep. I had challenged the boys to sleep the really old fashioned way when we arrived, no tents. Even though we had all of these nice brand new tents, each of the boys took my challenge and slept under the stars. I think they enjoyed it.

Another reason for those permits...

...is so that when you arrive at your campsite, and there is somebody laying claim to your site because they have been sitting there reserving it since dawn and tell you that you will just have to find another spot, and then tell you to call the Park Ranger because you disagree with them, you can show your permit to the Park Ranger and he will ask THEM to leave. Sweet.

2010 Scout Jamboree

Are you planning on attending the 2010 National Scout Jamboree? Are you not sure if it is for you? The kickoff meeting September 20 will answer your questions. This Jamboree is the celebration of the 100 year anniversary of Scouting in the United States. The meeting is at Edwards Harris, Jr. Middle School, 8691 Power Inn Road, Elk Grove, 95624. I have linked a map to this location in the Useful Scout Links section of this site. See below and to the right. The meeting starts at 9am. Stop in and see what all the excitement is about!

Camping this weekend

We have an outing this weekend at Gibson Ranch. We're going to work on gateways, cooking and stargazing. But the real reason for this outing is to play capture the flag under the light of the moon! I'll let you know how it went next week.