Troop 131,
I hope everyone is having a great weekend! Another long email, so please bear with me…
RAFTING TRIP UPDATE
While not without it challenges, I think I can safely say, the rafting trip was a lot of fun and a great success. See a few photos I took but I know that there are more from the other adults that came.
Thank you all for the good weather juju dance last week. While we did get a healthy rainstorm Friday night, we largely avoided the rain during the rafting and Saturday afternoon was a near perfect day. We will need to do this dance prior to every outing just to make sure we have good weather.
The dinner planning and execution was a huge improvement. It was higher quality, better executed, and well rounded. With that said, there is still plenty of room of improvement. Patrols were missing some important gear, there were too many people sitting around and letting others do all the work, and communication at times boarded on nonexistent. Thank you all for making a better effort, now let’s build on this success.
Both trips (Class 1/2) and (Class 3/4) had their collective highlights including a boat getting stuck, one boat flipping, a few people tossed, a sing along, decapitation rock, a water jump, etc, etc, etc. Needless to say, all had fun, rose to the challenge and thankfully no one was injured!
My personal highlight was an impromptu volleyball game between the scouts and another group of teenage girls who were also staying at the campground.
The adults all decided to platoon meal preparation, and each take on one meal. All I can say, is that the food quality was excellent and thank you all for “brining it”. We are definitely going to do this again.
Finally, we end all camping trips with Start, Stop and Repeat, I will share with you some the ones that came up today:
· Start
o Communicating better and working as a team
o Taking on more responsibility
o Being a good leader and patrol mate
· Stop
o Using your phones
o Throwing trash on the ground at the campsite
o Making a mess while cooking
o Sitting around waiting for others to solve a problem
· Repeat
o This trip!
o Good Planning & Cooking
o More Class 3 and 4 rapids
o Activities after the main event
Thank you all that came … we will do this again!
GEAR RETURN
Everyone who came on the trip and borrowed gear, please return it tomorrow at the meeting:
· Please air out and dry the tents, then repack (this is critical otherwise they will get moldy)
· Please clean (well) and dry all pots and pans
· Please wipe down the stoves
MISSING FIRST AID KIT
Our troop first aid kit seems to have gone missing. If anyone knows the whereabouts of the kit, please let me know or return on Monday. I took my personal one on the camping trip this weekend, however, the troop is required to have one at all outings.
PARTOL LEADEERS COUNCIL (PLC)
We will have a PLC Monday at 7:00 at Immanuel Church on the Hill. The SPL, ASPL’s, PL’s, APL’s, Troop Guides and Scribe should all plan on attending.
TROOP MEETING
We will have a Troop meeting Monday at 7:30 at Immanuel Church on the Hill.
Following the elections last week, we still have a few positions to confirm including:
· PL/APL for the Nylons:
· APL for the Snapping Turtles
Tuesday June 14th is Flag Day, in honor of that we will have a flag retirement ceremony.
This is an important occasion, please honor yourself and your country by making sure you are in full uniform and that it is clean and tidy. As school is officially out for the summer, then you are no longer required to wear your scarf.
We will also spend time with respect to team/patrol building, including working and mounting patrol flags.
This is the last meeting before we head to Goshen, so please attend if you can!
See below the results of the election and appointed leadership positions:
SPL John Wells
ASPL Ben Moore
ASPL Nathan Wells
Quartermaster Jonathan Nguyen
Historian Luke Irwin
Librarian Matthew Haymes
Bugler Taigh Devlin
Scribe Sean Mulvaney
Troop Guide Jack Jahns
Troop Guide Arthur Dalton
Chaplain’s Aide Jack Nusz
RR Scorpions
PL Theo Ramirez
APL Jack Nusz
MM
PL Myles Jackson
APL Arthur Dalton
Nylons
PL (Gabe Muldoon)*
APL (Jay Setliff)*
Moose
PL Sean Mulvaney
APL Noah Urchek
Trolls
PL Will Jahns
APL Henry Bingman
Snapping Turtles
PL Henry Mills
APL Rylan McDonald*
*Pending confirmation
Thank you to all who volunteered!
ADULT VOLUNTEERS
Parents, we need your help! It takes a lot to keep this troop together and active. Even if you don’t have time to be in one of the more active positions, there some one-off tasks. Please consider volunteering to one of the activities below:
We need a little help with:
· Shed Clean up
o We will soon be moving the shed from First Baptist to Immanuel Church on the Hill
o Mr. Jahns is organizing the actual move, but prior to this we need to have a troop workday to clean out the gear we don’t need and organize and clean what we want to keep.
o The scouts will do the bulk of the labor; however, we are looking for an adult volunteer to organize the workday.
· Service the Camp Stoves
o 75% of the stoves we took camping this weekend failed!
o All had gas, but clearly needed some cleaning and servicing.
o We need an adult or older scout, to take all the stoves, make sure they are cleaned, in good working order and filled with gas for the next camping trip.
· Health Forms
o We need an audit of the troop health forms and reconcile with our current roster.
o The forms need to be updated every year.
o We need to a volunteer to review the box and contact parents if we need an updated form.
We also need adult volunteers:
· To sit on the committee and be available for Board of Reviews
· Additional ASM’s to go on camping trips
GOSHEN
We have 17 scouts registered for Summer Camp so far.
We are going to schedule an adult meeting soon, so please keep and eye out for the invite.
SCHEDULE: One Month(ish) Look Ahead
Monday, June 13h – Troop Meeting (PLC)- 7:30 PM – Immanuel Church on the Hill
Monday, June 20th – No Troop Meeting – Federal Holiday
Sunday, June 26th – Start of Summer Camp- Goshen
Monday, June 27th – Troop Meeting – 7:30 PM – Immanuel Church on the Hill (for those that are not at Goshen)
Saturday, July 2nd – End of Summer Camp- Goshen
Monday, July 4th – No Troop Meeting – Federal Holiday
Monday, July 11th – Troop Meeting- 7:00 PM – Immanuel Church on the Hill
Monday, July 18th – Troop Meeting (BoR)– 7:00 PM – Immanuel Church on the Hill
Monday, July 25th – Troop Meeting – 7:00 PM – Immanuel Church on the Hill
SUMMER ACTIVITY PLANNING
I included the four outdoor activities for this summer and post Goshen. Note that Mr. Mulvaney was able to lock in the Horseback Riding on the weekend of August 12th! Thank you, Mr. Mulvaney!
Saturday July 16th – Architectural Walking Tour DC (Architectural Merit Badge)
Saturday July 30th –Tour (Citizenship in the Nation Merit Badge)
Friday August 12th 14th – Horseback Riding- Red Gate Farm
Monday August 29th – Court of Honor- Family Picnic
GENERAL TROOP MEETING INFO:
Bring your Mask and uniform! Bring your Book, Bring a headlamp! Leave your phone in your pocket! and have a good time!
Blue Cards! Did you know that your Scoutmaster can email you a blue card? Just send me Mr. Ramirez an email (scoutmaster@t131.org)! Note that the SCOUT must request the blue card, not the parent!
See you all at the troop meeting.
