Boy Scout Troop 648 Scottsdale, Arizona

The Forrest Service Ranger who spoke at this week’s Troop meeting, Mr Bosworth, wanted to share the information below about the National Public Lands Day Event being held at Phon D Sutton Recreational Area. This is just a short 35 minute drive away for most of us. It certainly sounds like an exciting event for all who attend!

There is a large event/celebration on Saturday, September 28^th for National Public Lands Day. The event will be at Phon D Sutton Recreation Area from 8:00am- 1:00pm. Setup times for partners, volunteers, and those with informational booths will be from 7:00am- 7:45am. There will be many partners & volunteer groups attending including REI, TRAL, Friends of Tonto National Forest, OdySea, No Snow, SRP, AZGFD, NFF, Arizona Wilderness Coalition, Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, and more! There will be lots of activities for families including mountain bike demos, kayaks, paddle boards, fishing opportunities, prevention activities, volunteer information, education, and even Smokey! The purpose is to show the public ways they can enjoy their public lands and give the partners an opportunity to provide information about what they do and ways to get involved. National Public Lands Day is also a fee free day!! Please feel free to come out and help or bring your families and come enjoy the day.

Mr Blair

The Serpents patrol is in charge of meetings this month, and we have several great meetings planned that we want to tell you about! Thanks again to Landon Komar for his awesome meeting this past week!

9/10 â€“ Patrol activity (Chaz Carson)

9/17 â€“ Cyber Chip activity (Mr. Carson)

9/24 â€“ Guest speaker Katey McPherson “The Minds of Boys” Information at meeting tonight (Will Starr)

We hope to see you at all of the meetings this month!

Sincerely,

Will Starr

Serpents Patrol Leader

As stated in the Troop Committee Meeting tonight we are in desperate need of Merit Badge Counselors. The more Troop Counselors we have the easier it is for our Scouts to complete the Badges they are interested in, and complete the mandatory Eagle required Badges that everyone must do on their way to Eagle. I have enclosed an updated list of the Merit Badges offered and which ones have Counselors to cover them. If interested please let me know so that I can set you up with all the info to apply.

Thank you to those who were able to attend the Troop Committee Meeting tonight. We discussed the funds required of the Troop for Friends of Scouting. It’s anticipated that about $1400 would be required of the Troop to be given to Council. We are planning another fundraiser at CPK again, but are looking for donations – personal and any corporate contacts to make up the other $1000 (last year we made just under $400 for the CPK fundraiser). Please let myself of Mr Benyi know if are interested, or know of anyone who is interested. Thanks in advance.

Mark Blair

Troop 648 Scoutmaster

This is a friendly reminder that our Scouts on the PLC Will be meeting at 6:00 PM at the Troop meeting room. Please be sure that your Patrol is being represented at the meeting. Thank you.

Mr Blair

Greetings! I hope you are having a nice Labor Day holiday. This is a reminder that we will be holding our regular September Parent & Committee Meeting this coming Tuesday, 9/3 at 7pm at CCC. We will not be in the usual conference room but will instead be over in Room 10, which is near by the splash pad area, across from the Worship Center.

At this meeting, we will review the calendar for the upcoming year, discuss Summer Camp for next year, and will also go through various other Troop Business. I encourage everyone to attend if you are able.

The meeting will take place at the same time as the regular Troop Meeting.

Thanks!

Jacob R Benyi

At tonight’s Troop meeting Arjun is going to be discussing his Star Wars Trading Cards. If anyone has something they collect, please bring it tonight, and if time permits, you’ll be able to show it to everyone. See you all tonight at 7:00 PM

Mr Blair

A baker’s dozen scouts with four adults along for the ride spent last weekend with 3000 of our closest friends in the ‘wilds’ of Sedona’s Oak Creek canyon, maneuvering the ‘Arjun course’ which included riding the creek rapids, traversing the venerable slide rock, launching off the jumping rock, and finishing in the wading pools, then trooping back up creek to do it over and over again.  The water was cold, the sun hot, and multiple scouts avowed that this was the best outing they had ever attended.  Hard to believe it almost wasn’t to be!  When we arrived at the park entrance in the tight canyon after 9:30AM, the ranger at the road was waving all traffic away shouting that the lot was full, and the wait for a space would be 3-4 hours.  Deflated, but not defeated, we reconnoitered at a spot down canyon, and executed a plan which had the scouts entering the slide rock area from above, and two of the adults waiting the 3+ hours in line to get in to the lot.  With that challenge overcome, other small challenges (one participant’s overnight bag was left in Phoenix, a battery in one vehicle gave up the ghost) were also easily dealt with, since Flagstaff WalMart was a mere 10 miles from our chilly 47 degree campsite.  Nothing dampened the spirits for this bunch of adventurers!  Well, maybe the salsa discotheque still in full swing at midnight at the next campsite down the county dirt road from our camp was a bit much.  But certainly not the huge crowds in Slide Rock Park.  Amazingly enough, with a sea of easy-ups as far as the eye could see, young and old and all ethnicities represented, everyone contributed to making the best of the crowded conditions, and it was almost as pleasant as if we’d had the creek to ourselves (which we usually do in our normal outings).  After 5 hours in the creek, some great requirement sign-offs and even better cooking back in camp, the boys were ready to head down the hill for home early Sunday morning.  After some urging of the adults to finish up our final tasty breakfast, the boys’ site policing and Thorns & Roses were efficiently done, and we hit the road for home by 8:30AM, gaining 50 degrees in the 2 ½ hours it took to get back to the baking church parking lot.   

Just a quick reminder that we will not be holding a TAC meeting tonight. If you don’t know what a TAC meeting is, don’t worry, we’re not having one tonight. We held one last week at the PLC retreat for the month of August.

Scoutmaster Troop 648

Hello Troop 648,

I want to put in one e-mail some updates and information for those not available to receive it this weekend from the PLC Retreat. As you all are aware the next group of leaders have been selected and met this weekend to plan the Troop’s next year (October 2019 – September 2020) of fun and exciting camp outings and meetings ( A huge thanks to Mr. Benyi for planning, organizing and executing the weekend – not to mention the ice cream Saturday Night). Those have already been uploaded to Scoutbook (Thank you Dr Komar). I will have those outings and Meeting Months available tomorrow night on the white board at the meeting.

Since we had a PLC Meeting Sunday Morning, we will not be having one tomorrow night. Also since we had an adult/leader meeting Sunday (Also known as the Troop Activity Committee Meeting – TAC Meeting) we will not be meeting next Tuesday.

A big thanks goes out to the Scouts from last week’s meeting who went above and beyond the call of duty and helped us move all of our Troop Meeting gear to our new and improved meeting place. Which leads me to my next announcement…..we have a new and improved meeting place. Tomorrow’s meeting will be held in “The Forum”. This is the building that our previous meeting place was held (South side of the CCC Campus), but in the “South” room. The meetings will be held there….until we need to move again (which shouldn’t be for a long while).

Here are some quick items that were discussed at the PLC Retreat:

We are going to continue the Patrol method and Meeting assignments (this will be posted all year)

We are going to work on the Chain of Command in the Troop.

We are going to start including time for Patrol competitions and points awarded to the winning patrols, as well as points for attendance at meetings, outings and service events (10 points to Gryffindor!!!!!)

There will be a trial of a “No Cell Phone Policy” for meetings and outings as directed by your leadership Council

Thanks for making it all the way to the end of these updates. Thanks again for everyone that was involved and look forward to seeing everyone soon.

Mr Blair

Troop 648 Scoutmaster