Memorial Day weekend and other stuff

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

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

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???

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.