Geocaching canceled

Due to lack of sign ups, the geocaching event for this Saturday has been canceled. The organizers are looking at late January, early February for a reschedule date.

Halloween Party

Much pizza was consumed. Many sodas were drunk. Apples were bobbed. Donuts on a string were chased. A lot of Guitar Hero was played. It was fun.

Eagle Court of High Honor

William Fox, Eagle Scout. Congratulations!

Oct. 20 meeting

The boys planned more of the Halloween party for next week. Sounds like we will have a good time. They also did some more work on the merit badges we have been working on. That is going a lot slower than I thought it would. We'll keep working on it until we get them completed.

Don't forget this coming Sunday, October 26 at Spinelli Elementary School (see link below for a map) is William Fox's Eagle Court. Be there no later than 1pm. The festivities begin at 1:30.

Oct. 12 Orienteering

4 boys and 3 adults traveled to Martinez for the 'Scout-O' that is put on by the Bay Area Orienteering Club (see a link to their web site in the Useful Links section) each year. This is an annual event that is scout focused and also a scout orienteering championship of sorts. There were a few hundred people at the event, everything from Tiger Cubs to Venture Scouts.

It all started after an initial hike up, up, up, and up some more to the starting point. It must have been an elevation gain of 400 to 500 feet in a span of the same distance. That was a workout. The boys split into two groups of two and set out to try and follow their maps. The adults had a separate course that we took. For me, it reminded my of being a boy again. I used to set out on a summer day or weekend and just wander through the hills and woods behind the house I grew up in. We trapsed over fences, under tree roots, over hill tops covered with prickly bush, down steep embankments, under other fences, across streams...

The boys successfully completed their courses. We did too. After it was all done, lunch at In & Out was very tasty!!!

Oct. 6 meeting

We started the process to have everyone in our Troop earn their First Aid and Emergency Preparedness Merit Badges. Only a couple of the boys currently don't have the First Aid MB and as stated in previous posts, we had a few boys come short of earning the Emer. Prep. MB. Counselors have been located that will allow us to earn the badges in a similar way to the camporee we attended. So, the boys that failed to earn the badge at said camporee, or any other boys that didn't attend, but would like to earn it, now can. Hopefull we'll have that done by the end of the month, early next at the latest.

The boys also picked a date for our annual Halloween Party. It will be at the October 27 meeting. You are all invited to join us in the fun.

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.