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.

June 22 meeting has been...

canceled!!! It came to my attention at Roundtable last week that we may be quite a few bodies short for the Pioneer District Twilight Camp being held at Camp Pollock all of next week. Since the first day of any twilight camp is always the worst, and since our meeting night of Monday is that same first day, I would like all of the boys (and any of you parents) to come to Camp Pollock instead and offer to help out where you may be needed. I know this is short notice, but it wouldn't be the first you had to make a change to your schedule with little or no notice. I'm not going to ask any of you to volunteer for the rest of the week, but if you can I'm sure it would be greatly appreciated. The main purpose of this is to help make Monday go more smoothly. We will return to our regularily scheduled meetings the following Monday.

June 15 meeting

Only a few of the boys made it to the meeting tonight, so it was a tough pull. They worked on some emergency preparedness items from the merit badge booklet, but I heard they didn't get as far along as I would have liked. I wasn't able to keep a watchful eye over them due to the parents meeting we held to discuss summer camp.

It's a tough transition letting them go it on their own. They are very rudderless right now. Part of that to me still seems to be a lack of respect to the leadership they themselves elected. Part of it is not really wanting or caring to work on 'scout' stuff. I'm trying to work it out in my head how to correct this.

June Court of Honor

A great COH tonight. All of the boys in attendance were able to stand before the audience and receive something. We had a few Merit Badges, a few Rank advancements, some special presentations, and some special guests.

The food as usual was excellent. Who knew hot dogs could taste so good? Maybe it was all of the side dishes.

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.

Fundraising

It has become painfully aware that we need to have fundraising projects (other than the annual popcorn sales) on a regular basis. We discussed this at last nights committee meeting at length. Deborah has brought some great ideas to the table for us to make use of. I ask that all of us keep our eyes and ears open to any other possibilities that we can use.

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.