Good evening Troop 648!
I finished my Scoutmaster Minute on Tuesday night with a quote from Yogi Berra: ‘If you don’t know where you ‘re going, you’ll end up someplace else.’ As Yogi has not always been accused of being the brightest brainiac, I’d like to add a couple more quotes from two of my favorite smart people. Abe Lincoln said the following about preparation – ‘Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I’ll spend the first four sharpening the axe.’ And Warren Buffet has this to say about thinking ahead: “Someone’s sitting in the shade today because somebody planted a tree a long time ago.’ This week our older scouts are sharpening their axes, and planting seeds so that next weekend we will have a very productive Patrol Leaders’ Council session Friday through Sunday at the Scottsdale Conference Resort. It is always one of the highlights of my year to watch the new troop leadership gel as they bring their carefully thought out ideas for outings, fundraising and service projects, and through animated negotiations, build our activity calendar for the upcoming year.   Please ensure that your outing ideas have been previewed by Mr. Benyi this week, and if you are in the PLC, confirm your attendance by responding to the email invitation you received a couple of weeks ago. This will be a particularly important weekend in our troop year, and in the words of Ben Franklin: ‘If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!’
We had some preliminary preview information last week on our August outing, which is a backpack in Sycamore Canyon. It will be about a 6 miler, but for those boys who would like to turn it into a bit more challenging of a hike, there is an option to come in the other side of the canyon and make it a longer hike, while meeting up at the same campsite. This canyon is the second longest canyon in Arizona (I’m hoping most of our scouts would be able to name the longest), and is northwest of beautiful Sedona. Make plans to join us August 23-25, the weekend following our PLC planning session.
A correction from last week’s post is due. I note that I put an incorrect date down for the September family camp at Fort Tuthill south of Flagstaff. The correct weekend is 9/20 through 9/22. My apologies, and I hope this still allows for the majority of you to plan to attend. A weekend in the pines is always welcome, but especially since the average high temperature in Phoenix in mid-September is still over 100 degrees (and the record in 2000 was 110 degrees)!
I provide a friendly reminder as well to please get your newsletter items to Mrs. Traynor so she can publish. Today is the deadline, so get ‘er in!  Also, let us know by Tuesday night if you will be able to help us man the T648 table on 8/15 at Cocopah Middle School’s Open House. We’ve had four new boys take home applications with plans to join us this month – let’s keep the momentum going with a focus on 6th-8th grader recruitment from right in our neighborhood this Thursday night.
See you Tuesday night at the troop meeting!
Mr. Cole