Full house!!!!

Well, last night was far different than the week before. We had 10 scouts. Wow! I thought how great this was. Until I started in on the photography merit badge. Everyone of those scouts couldn't sit still, couldn't be quite, couldn't listen to me talk. It was a little frustrating and brought back memories what a pain in the butt I use to be. I guess turn-about is fair play. I decided to repeat some of the things I discussed the previous week and one of the scouts asked if he could leave because he had learned this last week. This is the challenge I get with scouts earning the required merit badges ahead of the troop's schedule. It's all a challenge!

As part of the merit badge, I gave two groups cameras to take pictures. I thought they would go about the church and take some pictures. One group took 8 pictures while the other group took 4. Far less than I had hoped for. I wish I'd had some beautiful pictures I'd taken over the years to get them interested. Maybe next time.

Then, a great opportunity for a scout master minute and I didn't have one. Dang!

PS. The boys had the most fun of the night playing steal-the-bacon. Merit badges are a pain to these young carpet-rats!

April troop meeting - small group

Well, last week at our troop meeting, only 3 scouts showed up. We discussed the photography merit badge. I brought several cameras and we went over the various parts of a camera and how the parts all work. It was really great. Eric did a stretcher with two sticks and a blanket. That was really great learning experience too. We concluded with a scout master minute. What a great time to sit down Indian style, around a fake campfire, and listen to a thought from the Scout Master. This one was particularly good, in that a roll of film was used to describe what happens in our lives. We can be exposed to the right things properly and we'll turn out good. Otherwise, we may be overexposed and ruined. To my frustration, someone barged in during the best part of this minute and took away from the moment. Nonetheless, I'll keep trying.

April Newsletter

Well, spring is here and summer around the corner. We look forward to getting scOUT and doing some activities. We've tried to do some indoor troop merit badges and hopefully some of the scouts will finish up those requirements and receive those merit badges.

We'll be camping in the future and would like each campout to include at least one father of a scout. If you haven't taken the opportunity to join us on a campout, please watch for an opportunity this year. The following fathers have participated so far: Norm Young, Daren Felix and Mike Hodson.

Activities:

Thanks to the five scouts who were able to pick up food for Scouting For Food. Our ward had over 35 bags of groceries contributed to this cause. It also taught our sons that people will give to those in need and this is another way for them to learn this valuable trait.

Calendar:

Scouting For Food - March 29, 2008, 9:00 a.m. (5 scouts participated for 30 minutes of service.)
April - Bi-monthly campout being planned.
Scout-O-Rama - May 15, 16.
Summer Camp - July 28 - August 2

Summer Camp:

We will be registering scouts for summer camp this coming week. For those of you new to scouting, Camp Loll is a premier summer camp with a fantastic primitive setting and a camp staff unequaled. Camp will cost $155 for each scout. This includes the camp fee and food for the week. The ward will be paying $40 toward this cost. Scouts and parents will need to pay for the remainder $115. We are required to pay $45 this coming week for each Scout desiring to attend camp. This fee is non-refundable. Please make checks payable to the Cedar Bench Ward. Please have your sons bring a personal check to our scout meeting on Tuesday night.

Scouting Spirit Merit Badge Contest:

Some scouts are really taking the merit badge method of scouting seriously the last couple months. The current status is as follows:

Landon Young: Swimming, Life Saving, Personal Management, Family Life, Citizenship In The World, Citizenship In The Nation
Connor Wright: Swimming, Life Saving, Energy
Moab Shiers: Swimming, Life Saving, Reading
Noah Shiers: Swimming, Life Saving, Reading
Cory Felix: Swimming, Life Saving
Austin Hodson: Swimming, Life Saving
Tyson Banner: Swimming, Life Saving
Todd Ecton:
Brendan Coombs:
Rhett Harris: Swimming, Life Saving, Energy

There are several ways to earn a merit badge:

• Enroll scout in a class conducted by an expert in the area.
  
• Enroll scout in summer camp and provide a structured program.
• Attend weekly scout meetings and participate in merit badge classes conducted by scout leaders and merit badge counselors.
• Scout and parents work together as a team in learning and achieving merit badge skills.
• Scout show personal interest and determination to earn merit badge.
  

We have recently participated in a swimming/life-saving class, which achieved 100% success in earning merit badges. We have seen success in private merit badges classes parents have enrolled scouts in. Both of these methods required additional costs. We have not been nearly as successful in achieving merit badges in weekly scout meetings. We'll keep trying, but without the help of parents, scouts will not automatically 'earn' troop merit badges. It will take personal interest and initiative to earn a troop merit badge. May we encourage the parents to know what skills we discuss each week and take the opportunity to be personally involved with your sons. The bonding and experiences a boy has with his parents in achieving merit badge skills will be a reward in your lives.

Current Merit Badges we'll be working on in April:

Emergency Preparedness
Photography
Personal Fitness

Past Troop Merit Badges:

Cycling
Hiking
Personal Management
Coin Collecting

Recent Advancements:

Moab Shiers - Star
Noah Shiers - Star
Rhett Harris - Star

http://cbtroop933.blogspot.com

Recently I sent out an e-mail wondering why the scouts haven't seen the troop blog. A parent reminded me that her son wasn't allowed to access the Internet. Having not had a son during the formative years and the Internet being available, I was awakened to the fact that the troop blog may not be available to our young sons. This is absolutely fine. The troop blog will be for parents to be informed primarily. This makes perfect sense and I appreciate all of the parents and their support and especially their feedback. Keep viewing the blog and we'll keep it updated with the latest news and achievements.

March 2008 Newsletter

Wow! We made it through the deep dark winter of January and February, with snow like some of us have never seen. Finally, a normal winter. The month ended with 9 scouts participating and earning their Swimming and Life Saving merit badges. Thanks to the many parents who carpooled the scouts to this event at the Clearfield Aquatic Center. I know the scouts made some great memories and learned many swimming techniques that will last a life time. Thanks to all of the parents who saw the value in this skill and for helping your sons achieve these skills.

We also survived the District Klondike Derby. As I reflect back on the experience, I know the scouts will have great memories of camping in the deep snow, cooking around our troop fire barrel, Klondiking on the ice of Causey and having fun with snowball fights! Thanks to all of the scouts who participated in this camp out.

Camp outs:

The troop's goal is to have 6 camp outs a year, along with summer camp. With the 3 camp outs the 11-year-old scouts should get during their first year, and the 12 camp outs during their 12/13 years and the 5 day summer camp out, they should have 20 official scouting camps by the time they turn 14. This will qualify them for the camping merit badge, which is required for Eagle. Because of this, scouts need to understand the importance of participating in every camp out. That's a big demand and that's why the rank of Eagle Scout is tough to get by the time you turn 14!

Troop Web Page (Blog): http://cbtroop933.blogspot.com

The Cedar Bench Blog continues to grow with information. Hopefully, you've bookmarked the link and visit it occasionally. If scouts or parents are interested in receiving digital pictures of camp outs, please let me know so we can e-mail you them.

Upcoming events:

March will see us continue to work on various scouting activities. We'll be finishing up the Emergency Preparedness merit badge, a carryover from summer camp. We'll be introducing the Photography merit badge this month also. Hopefully scouts have access to digital cameras, which are a really inexpensive way to learn photo taking skills compared to the old days when you had to develop your pictures for money to see the results!

Also, hopefully, some of the scouts have been inspired to do a coin collection or some other kind of collection. We've had a lot of discussion on the coin collecting merit badge and it would be sad not to have had or started this kind of activity while in their youth.

Merit Badges:

There are 12 required merit badges, with 3 alternates (cycling, hiking, emergency preparedness). The troop will provide opportunities through instruction and activities for the required merit badges. These 12/3 badges will be spread over 2 years, thus 6 badges a year. Here's the schedule:

2007/2008 - Personal Management, Swimming, Life Saving
2008 first half - Emergency Preparedness, Personal Fitness, Family Life
2008/2009 - Communication, Citizenship in the Community, Citizenship in the Country
2009 first half - Citizenship in the World, First Aid, Environmental Science
Ongoing - Camping, Cycling, Hiking
Start over in the winter/spring of 2008/2009

Merit Badge Update

Well, in the last month, we've had two merit badge counselors come and introduce themselves to the scouts so they can move forward with earning two merit badges; Personal Management and Coin Collecting. Bob Shaffer and Todd Banner, both residence of our Ward's troop boundaries spoke to the scouts and invited them to make appointments to pass off these merit badges.

Klondike Derby

Our troop participated in the district Klondike Derby for the first time in several years. There was plenty of snow at Camp Kiesel, where the Snowhorse District has been Klondiking for several year
s. Eric Tuttle and John Sorensen headed up the troop, while Patrik, Cory, Moab, Noah, Connor, Landon and Tyson enjoyed increasing their winter survival skills. We met at the church at 3:30 and were off by 4:00. We were setting up camp immediately. The challenge was that one of the scouts had a tent which wouldn't stand on its own. Therefore, we had the 7 scouts bunk in 2 tents. The leaders dug snow trenches, which were covered with boards and tarps and snow. Scouts had fun that evening eating chili and hotdogs, along with lots of hot chocolate. Morning brought pancakes, scrambled eggs, hot chocolate (again) and bacon. Nobody went hungry! We packed up some of our gear before we headed out for the Klondike Games. We headed down the road with our new sled, which was built by our scout master :) . Then, down to the lake, which frozen with 14" of ice. The problem was that we've had so much snow that there was a slush and snow on top of the ice. We would be walking and we would sink 10" into the slush. Thank goodness everyone had waterproof boots. In the sled race, it looked like our sled took second place. The 1st place sled had mush dogs with snow shoes!

We participated in a compass course, first aid, fire building, cooking and ice rescue.

Back at camp we had great submarine sandwiches, soda and chips. When it was time to leave, none of the scouts were ready to go! The leaders had to threaten the boys to pack up and go, but they were having too much fun throwing snowballs and having fun. To the amazement of all, our troop was one of the last troops to leave Camp Kiesel.

Next year, maybe some of the scouts will build snow caves so they can be as warm as the leaders were!

February 2008 Newsletter

Cedar Bench Troop 933 Blog - We have created a Troop 933 web page using Google Blogger. This is a web badge where scouts, parents and leaders can view different things going on in the troop. We're starting simple with past newsletters, a few pictures and web links to fun scout pages. You are welcome to visit the site and leave comments regarding different items posted. See http://cbtroop933.blogspot.com

Swimming and Life Saving Merit badges - Almost all of the scouts in our troop are ready to earn the swimming and life saving merit badges. Good luck to all the scouts in their desire to sharpen their skills, especially these life-long skills that we all need. Lauri Drean has coordinated the car-pooling to this activity. Please coordinate issues with driving conflicts with the parents of the scouts participating in this event.

Troop Meetings - We'll continue to have troop meetings during February from 7:00 until 8:30. Parents, please bring and pickup your scouts at this time. Opening exercises for Mutual begin promptly at 7:00 p.m. Your help in getting the scouts to troop meetings on time would be appreciated. This Tuesday we'll be discussing the Klondike.

Merit Badges - reminder for scouts working on Personal Management; It's been 13 weeks since we started discussing this merit badge, which is also the required amount of time to keep track of income and expenses. We'll be having a counselor from the ward come in to talk to our troop next week. We'll hand out blue cards to the boys who would like to move forward with this merit badge.

Winter Klondike Derby – Camp Kiesel - Snowhorse District Klondike Derby
February 8 - 9, 2008

The second winter camp out will be Friday, February 8th. We'll be meeting at the church at 3:30 p.m. and final packing there. We'll be eating supper and setting up camp Friday night. Saturday, we'll be participating in various Klondike events, eating breakfast and lunch and coming home in the early afternoon. Fathers are welcome to come with us. Please let us know if you are interested in coming. If you have some lumber or wood you can donate to keep the boys warm, please let me know.

Staying warm - Boys should have multiple layers when dressing. A coat, sweatshirt, heavy shirt and t-shirt should be worn on top. Long thermal underwear, sweatpants, pants and snow-pants may be worn below. Boys may be building snow caves to sleep in. If so, extra clothes, gloves and socks may be required. Snow bennie caps or various head gear must be worn too. Check your scout books for winter camping ideas. Also, check the scout field book in preparation for this event.

Pre-pack – We'll pre-pack Thursday at 7:00 p.m. at John Sorensen's home.

Camp Out - Meet at church at on Friday at 3:30 for final packing and travel.

Packing List:

Heavy duty winter sleeping bag
Extra blanket for inside of sleeping bag – It's winter. Temperatures could be in the single digits.
Bed pad
Small pillow
Flash light
Fold up chair
Bennie cap
Winter Coat
Sweatshirt
Winter snow gloves
Extra work gloves for building snow cave
Long pants
Snow pants, long underwear
Tent for 2 scouts, ground tarp
Waterproof tarp to wrap sleeping bag in (Burrito)
Snow shovel
Snow cave building supplies: water proof tarp, 10' x 10', etc.
Extra gloves
Extra socks
Extra pants
Hand warmers

Troop will provide food for supper, breakfast and lunch.