BSA Scout Troop 22 At Klondike Derby 2018!

Several of our Troop 22 Scouts attended Klondike Derby 2018 in Cisco Grove, CA. Thankfully our Scouts were well prepared and were able to keep warm-n-toasty! For a few of them, this marked their first Klondike Derby. Awesome adventures for the win!

Many thanks go to our leadership and our parent volunteers, who left the comforts of home to help guide our Scouts. You are the best!

To follow our further adventures, drop by and like our Facebook Page:

Boy Scout Troop 22 on Facebook

Find us on Instagram:

boyscouttroop22antelope

Or send us an email...we're happy to help!

Join BSA Scout Troop 22!

Welcome to Boy Scout Troop 22 in Antelope, CA!

Troop 22 is chartered by the Air Force Sergeant's Association and meets at VFW Post 4647 in Antelope, CA.

We are an active group of Scouts that plans monthly outings, bicycle treks, community service events and more. While we'll occasionally update this page, you'll be better able to keep up with our adeventures by visiting us on Facebook. You're welcome to visit Troop 22 on Monday nights, 7PM at VFW Post 4647 or contact the Troop leadership via our Facebook page or email -

Troop 22 Facebook Page scouttroop22@gmail.com

Instagram

Adopt the pace of nature...

Camping at Gibson Ranch this weekend

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

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

Many updates

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).

Summer Campers are there

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

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.

To meet or not to meet???

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

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.

Summer Camp

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?

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.

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.

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

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?

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.

Upcoming events

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.

Been absent awhile

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.

Scotts Flat camping

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.

June 1 meeting

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

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.