Adopt the pace of nature...

Troop 22 Frozen Yogurt Fundraiser

Yogurt Time Cafe (Antelope, CA) has kindly offered to help our Scouts with their fundraising efforts, just mention "Boy Scout Troop 22"! The fundraiser is set to happen on Wednesday, May 17th from 10:00 AM to 10:00 PM. All proceeds for this fundraiser will be used to help get Troop 22 new camping gear. Treat yourself to a delicious smoothie, frozen yogurt, fruit sorbet, or shaved ice. Who knew helping the community could be so tasty?

If you'd like more information, please follow this link:

Troop 22 Frozen Yogurt Fundraiser

Upcoming activity

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

Day hike this Saturday

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!

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.

I'm baaack...

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.

Annual Planning PLC this Saturday

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

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.

June 12 Day Hike

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

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

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.

Memorial Weekend - a look back

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

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.

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.