Saturday, September 15, 2007


Malen's Peak - A rough looking bunch of scouts enjoyed the view of Ogden.

Saturday, September 1, 2007

September 2007 Newsletter

Dear Parents and Scouts,

Thank you to all the parents who were able to attend our court of honor this past week. This turned out to be a great event because you were there. I'm sure the boys appreciated your support and recognition.

Summer Camp 2008 has been scheduled for the end of July at Camp Loll. This is a great camp located between Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. Mark your calendars today so your scouts can participate in this once in a life time event.

The troop purchased blue binders for each scout to place merit badge worksheets. This will help organize the merit badge effort. If your son didn't get one, let him know he can get one at the next troop meeting, along with the camping and cycling merit badge worksheets.

Merit badge worksheets can be printed from http://www.meritbadges.com/. This is a great web site.

Well, September is here! Our car wash fund raiser is in the works. We'll be selling tickets Tuesday for our Troop activity this week. The scouts will meet at the church as usual and Craig Ecton will be heading up the ward sales drive. Scouts will go in pairs to designated neighborhoods, selling tickets or leaving fliers announcing the activity. Scouts will be instructed to 'sell' a ticket for $5.00 in cash or check. They will advise purchasers that in the event of inclement weather, the car wash will be re-scheduled for a different date. You can help your scout by supplying old soft cotton towels to assist with drying off the cars. The car wash will be from 11-3 on Saturday. Some scouts and parents have other Saturday activities, so come when you can. Boys participating in 3 of the 4 anniversary events will receive a Baden Powell commemorative coin later this year.

A week later, we'll be having our Fall Camporee at Antelope Island. This will be a great camp out and on Saturday, boys will be participating in a bicycling ride of 10, 15 or 25 miles. This will be a safe place to ride along the shores of Antelope Island. They'll be antelope and bison along the way, plus a beautiful view of the Wasatch Front. This will be a chance in a life time experience. We'll be working on several merit badges on this camp out (cycling, camping, cooking, astronomy). For scouts who didn't participate in our summer camp, please print the attached medical form and fill it out and return it to me. We must have this form in order to know the medical conditions that may exist with your son.

On October 13, we'll be hiking to Lewis Peak in North Ogden. This is a 12 mile hike and will qualify for a 10-miler for the hiking merit badge. This is another great outing for the scouts. Scouts will bring a sack lunch and drinks for the hike (low budget).

We'll be camping the first of November at Promontory Point. Another great outing and history trip. We'll participage in a 2-hours service project, visit the visitors center and get to see the replicas of the locomotive engines.

Welcome to Noah and Moab Schiers! It's great to have two new scouts. We look forward to a great scouting experience.

Also, welcome to Connor Wright (Sep. 28) and Brendan Coombs (Sep. 20), who will be joining the Boy Scouts this month.

Finally, please respond to this e-mail to verify that I can contact you with the e-mail address I have. Thanks.

Here's why we do scouting, and it's not just to get the Eagle rank:

Aims of Scouting:

1. To build character (Our troop certainly has some characters!)
2. To foster citizenship
3. To develop fitness (Cycling and outdoor stuff help with physical fitness as well as social fitness.)

Methods of Scouting:

1. Ideals - Scout Law, Scout Oath, etc.
2. Patrols - Team work
3. Outdoors - Camping, Cycling, etc.
4. Advancement - .... Star, Life, Eagle and Palms. (Merit badges are necessary subset of this.)
5. Personal Growth - because of the others
6. Adult Association - This may be a stretch for some of the leaders - we're just boys in old bodies!
7. Leadership Development - A challenge we need to work on; sometimes its easier to do it ourselves instead of getting the boy to do it.
8. Uniform - As the scout wears his Sunday 'uniform' each Sunday, so we expect him to wear his Scout uniform to scouts each week.