Weekly Post, Week of January 1, 2013

Post date: Jan 1, 2013 6:11:12 PM

Happy New Year to Troop 737! With the start of the New Year, comes a whole bunch of troop activities in the month of January. We start with Okpik, court of Honor, Mystery Campout, PLC, and more. Please see below for details.

First, let me again congratulate Ethan Frank on his successful completion of a lifelong goal; becoming an Eagle Scout by passing your Board of Review on December 28^th. For those of you that don’t know it, Ethan has been attending school for the fall semester in the great state of Hawaii! He had to coordinate all his final Eagle Scout activities and requirements long distance. On December 23^rd, he completed his Scoutmaster Conference with me, and then met with the board on the 28^th, to complete his Eagle Rank. Please join me in congratulating Ethan on his achievement!

In addition, I have tried to stay busy getting caught up on scout stuff that I have not been able to work on recently. We have an updated HALO Roster on the web site, please check it out. We are critically short of summer camp HALOs, please consider helping plan these annual trips. I have also posted an expanded HALO Guide that can be used by our HALO’s when organizing activities. If you look at this guide, you will see that the HALO job is not in any way difficult and can be done by any adult, regardless of scout experience.

I have updated and asked Mr. Force to post a new Phone Tree! The phone tree is posted in the member’s area so phone numbers are safe from external people. The tree is a very handy resource for troop phone numbers. All names and phone numbers have been re-pulled from Troopmaster, so they are up to date. The patrol members are also accurate and match the signup sheet. These were verified by the troop scribe at one of the last meetings. If you see something wrong, please let Mr. Riley know at a meeting so he can correct it in the troop database. We will “exercise” the phone tree during the month of January, so plan on scouts getting!

I have also been working on our adult volunteer situation and you will all be hearing much more about this in the coming weeks and months. For the most part, we have fixed our short term adult volunteer situation, but still have our long term problem. The problem is that most of the formal committee jobs in the troop are held by a small and very dedicated group of adult volunteers that have scouts that are getting close to aging out, within the next year or two. These critical positions will have to be filled and preferably with a year overlap so that a complete and comfortable turnover can be accomplished. No one is resigning right now, but if we don’t start addressing this now, we put the whole troop in a real jam when volunteers do start to retire. Please consider one of the many committee jobs that are vacant now, or will be in a year or two. I would also like to add that Mitch is currently 16, 17 in April…

Things left for me to do include updating the ASM page on the web site to give credit to a very strong group of active ASMs in our troop right now. In fact, this is the only area of adult volunteering that is not having difficulties. I thank all of our current ASMs for all they do and will get the page updated so their names are known to all! I will also write up an agenda for our first SM & ASM & HALOs for Upcoming Events and Committee Meetings being held on January 10^th, prior to our first meeting of the year. I would like to invite all troop adults to come to this meeting and see how the troop is run and to pitch in to help.

Finally, Mr. Johnson and I met with our unit commissioner on New Year’s Eve, and signed our Journey to Excellence Award sheet. We have once again achieved the Gold level indicating that our troop is doing the right things for the scouts as far as program and administration. The gold level also entitles us to get badges of rank for free! This accomplishment is in large part due to our great group of current volunteers, and the great scout leadership that our troop enjoys. Let’s all pitch in to keep it going and even improve in 2013!

Activity Level of Interest (please sign up by the first meeting in January if you think you are going to any of these):

· Spring Break Trip: Family Backpacking to Havasu Falls in the Grand Canyon. Five to seven days during Spring Break. Final dates will be agreed on with families that plan to go. We need to understand the level of interest before purchasing our back country permit. This trip will be from Saturday to Saturday during spring break.

· Boundary Waters High Adventure trip: As shown by Mr. Ballantyne, this is an adventure of a lifetime similar to Philmont. This is a high adventure trip for scouts that will be 13 years old and first class scout by the date of the trip. The trip is tentatively scheduling from June 11 through June 20, 2013. We need to know soon if we have enough interest for several crews before we pay our deposit.

Upcoming Signup Deadlines (see below for details):

· Signup deadline, January 14: Mystery Campout – January 25 – 26^th

· Signup deadline TBD: Summer Camps, see below for details. We will need to start making payments for summer camps in the early part of 2013. While we don’t have a deadline yet, we need to get all scouts signed up ASAP so planning and arrangements can be made. More to come soon, and see below for more details.

o Summer Camp, in State: Camp Ben Delatour

o Summer Camp, out of State: Island Park.

Service Patrol:

The service patrol for December is the TBD!! All members of the TBD Patrol should be inside our meeting room no later than 6:15 to help set up for the meeting.

Please read below for details on upcoming events, and always stay current with our Troop Calendar on the web site. This is the best way to have the most current information.

Upcoming Activities:

Okpik – Friday, January 4^th to Sunday, January 6^th at Tahosa High Adventure Base:

· HALO: Mr. Riley and Mrs. Wilkinson

· This event is all set for departure, good luck and happy camping!

Possible Special Scoutmaster Conferences and Boards of Review Meeting: Monday, January 7 @ 6:30PM at ELC:

· Mr. Sperry and I are only considering trying this again. Last time we did one of these we had only one scout take advantage. I will send out a separate email asking for an RSVP. If we don’t have enough participation, we will not hold this special meeting.

· If you need a SMC or BOR prior to the first Court of Honor on February 4^th, this meeting can guarantee that you will make it in time. If you do not come to this meeting, I will not guarantee that you will have time prior to February 4^th to get your SMC and BOR for rank advancement.

SM & ASM & HALOs for Upcoming Events Meeting/Committee Meeting – January 10, @ 6:30 PM at ELC:

· The ASM meeting starts at 6:30 PM and the committee meeting starts at 7:15 PM.

· Agenda will be coming shortly, however here are a few items I already know we need to discuss:

o FEMA Training

o Mystery Campout

o Court of Honor

o Skiing Day Trip

o Troop Elections

o Klondike

o New Scout Orientation and Campout – Initial details

o Summer Camps

Possible FEMA Training Meeting for SPL/ASPL and two ASMs: Monday, January 14 @ 6:30PM at DAC Headquarters:

· This is a reschedule of the meeting that we tried to attend in December but was canceled without notification. We only found out when we arrived and there was no meeting. I will await official word on this.

· I will not be able to go to the FEMA training, I need to stay with the troop for WEBELOS and Scout SMCs. We will need two ASMs to attend.

Troop Meeting: TBD – Monday, January 14 @ 6:30PM at ELC:

· The PLC has planned this and I will publish the details as soon as I get them.

· WEBELOS & Scout Scoutmaster Conferences

· Boards of Review

Troop Meeting: TBD & Mystery Campout Prep – Monday, January 21 @ 6:30PM at ELC:

· The PLC has planned this and I will publish the details as soon as I get them.

· Campout Prep for Mystery Campout.

Mystery Campout – Friday, January 25^th to Saturday January 26^th at… it’s a mystery…:

· HALO: Mr. McCabe

· Winter Campout Training is not required!

· Cost and details are still TBD, but ask anyone that went last year; this was a lot of fun!!!!!

· We will post more as details become available. Oh, I forgot, this is a mystery…

PLC Meeting – Plan December & January Meetings and Activities – Monday, January 28^th @ 6:30 to 7:30 PM at ELC:

· Plan the next month of meetings and several months of activities.

· All PLC members are expected to be present, or send their assistants.

Camp Ben Delatour Summer Camp, in state, July 14-20:

· HALO: TBD

· Camp Ben Delatour is in the Red Feather Lakes region west of Fort Collins. This camp is for first and second year scouts and any other older scouts that will be working on Trail to First Class and/or Merit Badges.

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Island Park Summer Camp, out of state, July 6-14:

· HALO: TBD

· This out of state adventure is mostly for mostly older scouts, year three and up. This camp is outside the west entrance of Yellowstone and is a two day trip to and from camp. The troop leaves on Saturday, July 6, and arrives back on Sunday, July 14. It is a full 12 hour drive so we need parents to drive and stay for the week.

As always, please read the troop web site, especially the calendar, for the most current information on all upcoming and scheduled events.

Mr. Hoffman

Scoutmaster

Troop 737