Boy Scout Troop 648 Scottsdale, Arizona

At 7:30 AM this coming Saturday morning, scouts and scouters from T648 will be gathering in the Blessed Sacrament parking lot to begin our weeklong adventure to Camp Alexander Summer Camp near  Colorado Springs.  That means we will not be having a troop meeting in Phoenix this coming Tuesday night.  We’ll review camp experiences and host another special speaker, this one who was in Special Forces, as the culmination of our career month at our next troop meeting Tuesday, July 30th.  Have a great week – we certainly will!

Mr. Cole

Last Tuesday was yet another mesmerizing night at scouts.  A Vietnam War POW spoke to the troop about his experiences – from the battle where he was gravely wounded, including a ‘sucking’ wound which punctured his lung, another which tore up his knee, another which broke his shoulder, his days in the jungle, hiding among the bushes with dead bodies everywhere – trying to keep the VC from finding him.  His descriptions were stunning – how the volume of the war would dial back and all he could hear was his pounding heart, the fear he felt as the full-sized tiger stalked straight toward the bush he was hiding in, the focus on remaining calm as the communist captors would hit him in the face with AK47 butts when he wouldn’t cave in to their demands, living a year underground in a cage with log stocks imprisoning his legs, the 40 day summer hike from Laos to the Hanoi Hilton in 120 degree heat with only a ball of rice a day, losing 25% of his fellow captives along the way.  From the descriptions he gave, the way he stayed alive was his first aid skills from scouting, and his focus on his faith, his country and his God.  For two long years and a month – in the most extreme conditions imaginable.  Years later, here is Dave Alwine spending time calmly looking back over this unbelievable period of his life in the context of teaching the scouts the importance of the scouting and leadership skills they are developing.  Incredibly uplifting!

This Tuesday we will have another speaker, this time Z. Parizek, a former SPL from our troop, provide background and insight from his fantastic trip years ago to Camp Alexander in the Colorado Rockies, where we will be in just a few short days.  We will also be doing some trailer loading and final patrol prep, so come join your patrol-mates in adding to your Honor Patrol lead (you are in the lead, right?), and preparing for an awesome trip to summer camp this weekend.  For those of you needing more Class B red t-shirts, remember that they are $4 each, on sale this month only from Mr. Murphy!!

We have final confirmation that our Patrol Leaders’ Council retreat will be August 16-18 at the Scottsdale Conference resort.  Scouts in the upper leadership tiers will be receiving their invitations to the weekend the end of July, and can begin preparing their ideas for next year’s outings and service projects anytime!

For those of you looking forward to our next weekend outings, they include a backpacking trip through the Sycamore Canyon Wilderness south of Williams, and the annual family camp the weekend of September 30 at Ft. Tuthill south of Flagstaff.  Please plan on bringing the whole family – it is the one time a year that the whole family can come on a campout and enjoy the outdoors (cool pines anyone?) and troop meals and activities as part of the T648 family.  Hope to see many of you there!

In the meantime, see you at the troop meeting tomorrow night!

Mr. Cole

Good evening,

This has been a heart-breaking week, as we have joined with our nation in sending thoughts and prayers for Prescott’s grieving families as details continued to become known surrounding the tragedy involving the Granite Mountain hotshots.  Coincidently, as this is career theme month for our troop meetings, we were blessed to have had the uncle of one of our scouts who is a retired Mesa firefighter speak with us Tuesday night.  His descriptions of the process of becoming a firefighter, and the satisfaction and challenges of the job were riveting, and somewhat eerie in the context of the news from up north.  Please continue to join us in upcoming July meetings, as additional interesting people will be joining us to share their career experiences.

In less than two weeks, we will be on the road to summer camp outside of Colorado Springs.  The way that we are configured as attendees this year, we will have three patrols at summer camp – the Pirates, the Royals, and a combined patrol of the Yetis and the Phoenix.  As it also works out, we will have none of the current patrol leaders attending camp, so we will have to identify leads for each of the patrols in the next two weeks.  As discussed in PLC last week, each of the three patrols will also need to have a patrol flag and a patrol yell, so during patrol time in the upcoming weeks, those items will need to be finalized.  The evening of 7/16 will contain extended patrol time to be focus on final preparation for camp.  Please see your doctor to complete your medicals, and ensure you have your merit badge books and are working on your prereqs so you can come home with badges for all the courses you take at camp.

As mentioned by Mr. Murphy Tuesday night, the troop is having a fire sale on our Class B t-shirts.  Our red field uniforms can be obtained during the month of July for a mere $4.  Stock up now in preparation for summer camp, or for upcoming outings (the August outing is going to be a fabulous trek through the coolness of Sycamore Canyon up by Williams).  You can also obtain a troop hat for $15 if yours has gone missing – that will be a part of our complete uniform, as well.

For adult leaders, we will be having an adult leader meeting at SWC on 7/15 at 7PM with a focus on summer camp, honor patrol, boy leadership, and PLC retreat planning.  See you there!

And I’ll see you Tuesday night at the troop meeting!

Mr. Cole

Wow – what fireworks this weekend!  119 degrees, the fourth hottest temperature of all time in Phoenix, assisted our family in determining the celebration agenda for the anniversary of my birth.  Suddenly such things as air-conditioned meals and movies after the requisite early morning yard work sounded like a much better Saturday alternative than any outdoor-centric schedule for a birthday.  Later this week on the 4th all of you hopefully will also be able to celebrate our national independence day in a manner to which we have become accustomed without additional concern of fainting or setting the valley on fire.

A little known fact is that President John Adams wanted to have a ‘great anniversary festival’ every year, but wanted to have it on July 2^nd, the day that Continental Congress voted for independence.  He got his festival almost 100 years later when Congress made it official, but our celebration was instead of course on the day that the Declaration of Independence was signed by then Congress president John Hancock.  Speaking of John Adams, another little known fact is that three of the first five presidents died on July 4^th.  Since it wasn’t yet an official holiday, I suppose it must be a coincidence, but why would it have been such a prime day to die for Adams, Jefferson and Monroe?  In a bizarre modern twist to the theme, in 2011 some hackers broke into Fox News’ Twitter account, and fired off a number of tweets indicating that President Obama had been shot and killed in Iowa, becoming yet another July 4th presidential casualty.  Thankfully, after regaining control of their Twitter account, Fox of course declared that news of Obama’s demise was malicious and false.   So, while I wouldn’t recommend a Colorado mining town’s method of celebrating (when the miners discovered there would be no fireworks on the 4^th in 1884, they blew up the Post Office), I wish for you a happy time of celebrating the land of the free and the home of the brave with family and friends in whatever coolness you can find.

One cool thing to do would be to join us for Scouts this week.  We will have the Patrol Leaders Council at 6PM on Tuesday, followed by our regularly scheduled Troop meeting at 7PM.  This month is a combination arts & crafts and careers month, and a number of scouts have lined up individuals with truly amazing and interesting careers to come and share with our troop.  Please join us as we learn about unusual jobs that scouts are uniquely prepared to do, and as we also begin our final preparations for our annual summer camp trip.

As far as camp prep, I would like to thank Mr. Benyi for his detailed information packets sent to all attendees.  I would also like to emphasize that we will need full uniforms and patrol gear for the week.  That includes a complete Class A uniform with scout pants or shorts, and scout socks.  These can all be obtained at a local scout shop.  Please also ensure that you have your patrol patch – check with your patrol leader if you do not have one.  Class B (red) t-shirts will be the base uniform for the remainder of the week (other than travel days or flag ceremonies).  Ensure that you have multiple Class B shirts, so that you can be wearing one while washing the other(s).  You can layer over that with jackets, sweatshirts or flannels to ward off the coolness, but we all need to have one flavor of T648 shirt or the other on at all times during the week (other than while in the water).   A troop hat is also a must to keep the high altitude sun off your head.  Shirts and hats can be purchased from Mr. Murphy throughout July.  During the month, he has suggested a 20% discount of $4 per shirt (get them while they are hot!).   Monogrammed troop hats remain a value priced $15.  Also – please keep working on your doctor-signed health forms and a copy of your insurance card (front and back).  Also for your patrols, you will need your troop flag and troop yell, if you are still working on those.

Fire up – coolness ahead!  See you Tuesday at the troop meetings!

Mr. Cole

Good evening,

Please note the following request from the Blessed Sacrament office, received late this afternoon.

FYI – due to the renovation and Church being in the Social Hall,  we are using the Youth Room for Vacation Bible School this year.

The Boy Scout troop will need to meet in Parish Life Center Rooms 7 & 8 (next door to the Youth Room) on Tuesday, June 25^th.  Sorry for the short notice.

See you tomorrow night (next door)!

Mr. Cole

Good evening,

Many thanks to all of you who joined us this week for our summer Court of Honor at Scottsdale Worship Center.  Congratulations to those awarded advancements or badges in advance of summer camp.   It was an added bonus for all of us to sample the many culinary treats brought by the attendees at the evening’s conclusion.  For those of you still working on your next rank, keep up the good work!  We will have an opportunity during the week of 7/20-28 in Colorado Springs to work on scout skills and/or complete additional boards of review.  Our next Court of Honor will be in the early fall to award summer advancements, and the many merit badges which will be earned at camp.

As we prepare for school’s start in the next couple of months, we are reaching the other key time of year when we have new scouts join us.  Our primary recruitment focus is in the spring when Webelos cub scouts finish their Arrow of Light and bridge over to Boy Scouts.  But we have also had a traditional pipeline of new scouts join us in the early fall, usually through individual recruitment.  An excellent way to make your own scouting experience even more fun is to do it with people you like, so if you’ve been thinking of inviting a good friend of yours to join you in scouting, there is no time like the back-to-school timeframe.  You don’t have to have been a cub scout to join Boy Scouts – so just go ahead and ask, and then bring them along to try out a meeting or an outing.  It is looking like we will already be having three new scouts join us in August, so the more the merrier!  We’ll have a whole new set of roles for our boy leadership after the late summer Patrol Leaders Council retreat, so having a number of new scouts to train in basic scout skills would make for great leadership development opportunities for existing scouts, too!

We are less than a month away from summer camp.  All attendees have received an initial status update (merit badge confirmation, prereqs, funding requirements, etc.) email from Mr. Benyi, and will also be receiving additional logistical information within the next few weeks.  We will continue to meet weekly on Tuesday nights up until the week of camp, and then will of course not meet in Phoenix on the night of 7/23.  This coming Tuesday at 7PM the scouts will finish up their theme for June, which has been Wilderness Survival Skills.  The boys have planned a creative patrol contest combining the various skills reviewed earlier in the month – come support your patrol-mates in showing how it is done.

See you at the troop meeting!

Mr. Cole

We have a saying in Troop 648 that there are no dads on outings.  While that, of course, is not a completely true statement, what it means is that we are looking for the boys to function within their patrols, and for the boys to figure things out themselves rather than run to dad to solve every little problem.  While the adult leaders provide a safety net, and the final solution to a sticky problem that can’t be solved by the boys or boy leadership, it is amazing how innovative they can become if they have no other simple option.  But even so, there is a ton of counseling & mentoring that goes on during every outing with other people’s dads.  On this Fathers’ Day, I am so very thankful for the couple dozen fathers of scouts active in our troop – both those whose sons have long ago gone though, and those who still have scouts in the troop.  They freely give of their time and talents to provide incredible support and guidance for our scouts.  Without the dynamic combination of our dads, our Eagle Scouts, and the mothers in our troop family, we could not hope to accomplish all the amazing things that we do as a troop.  Three cheers for the T648 Dads! – we hope today has been as special for you, as you are to us.

We have a couple of activities going on this week.  Tomorrow night is the adult leader meeting at 7PM at the Scottsdale Worship Center at 65^th Street and Cactus.  Come and participate in planning discussions centering on outings, summer camp, and boy leadership.  Then Tuesday night the 18th is our summer Court of Honor at 7PM – also at Scottsdale Worship Center.  Please remember to bring a desert to share – something like brownies, cookies and fruit would be wonderful!  We’ll have an opportunity to award final rank patches, merit badges, and service stars before summer camp, and spend some quality time with those of us in the T648 family not fortunate enough to be vacationing out of the Arizona heat this week.

This weekend Mr. Benyi has notified all scouts of their current status regarding payment for summer camp, current merit badge details and prerequisites, and reminded all of the need to finalize medicals before the trip.  Summer camp is July 20-28 – just about 4 ½ weeks away!  That is officially close enough to begin to start getting excited about it – a week in the Colorado Rockies is sounding absolutely exquisite to me right about now.

See you at the Court of Honor!

Mr. Cole

Good evening,

The T648 fleet successfully returned this afternoon from yet another triumphant  trip to a local desert lake, as Roosevelt was conquered despite hot gale force winds which occasionally took our intrepid paddlers a wee bit off course.  A positive outcome was that we did get to know a local herd of cows and calves considerably better, and even learned that a mother can be rather protective of its young.  We also had an opportunity for much more exercise than is typically expended on a lake outing, through manfully oaring back into the breeze after being forcefully pushed down-lake.  Whenever it became a bit too tiring, or a tad warmish, a quick jump into the water was incredibly refreshing, and ultimately the majority of the day was spent swimming and towing canoes around the cove.  Later in the evening, scout advancement and fine cuisine finished the day in excellent fashion in our camp on a bluff overlooking the blue-green water of Roosevelt.

In addition to the 13 troop members at the lake, we have others in summer camp counseling roles at BSA camps, taking National Youth Leadership Training, or on high adventure treks.  Later this summer, we will have scouts attending National Advanced Youth Leadership Experience, attending an incredible three week long trip to the National Jamboree including tours of our nation’s capital and New York, and our troop summer camp trip to Camp Alexander, not far from Pike’s Peak in Colorado.  Thank you for taking advantage of these tremendous opportunities available to you through Boy Scouts of America and your membership in T648.

Closer to home, we will have our weekly troop meeting on this coming Tuesday night.  We will need a goodly number of adult leaders to attend, as it is the final one before our summer court of honor on the 18^th, and there are a number of boards of review shaping up.  Please note that our June adult leader meeting has been moved out by a week, and will be at 7PM at Scottsdale Worship Center on the 17^th.   The older boys (14+ and first class+) are still finalizing a possible high adventure backpacking trip into the Wet Beaver Wilderness Area to swim in the amazing diving holes the weekend of June 21^st.  Please contact young Mr. Martin if you are interested.

As your family travels this summer, we hope that you relax, unwind, and have experience quality time with friends and relatives, and explore both familiar and exotic locales.  When you are here in the valley, please continue to join us on Tuesday nights, as we prepare for summer camp and develop such essentials as new patrol flags, yells, songs and other planning for the camp and into the next year.  Also, it is not too early to begin thinking about the outings you will want to propose that we attend in upcoming months – it is time to begin planning for the 2013-2014 year, and the Patrol Leaders Council retreat in August which will solidify our troop calendar.

See you Tuesday night at the troop meeting!

Mr. Cole

Good morning….

Wow!  School is over, the flurry of programs, tests, graduations and parties is completed, and the long road of endless summer days of opportunity stretches out before us.  And then the inevitable – Have you already reached the point in your house (as we have in ours) that the – ‘Moooom, I’m bored, there’s nothing to do!!’ – has begun to resound from various locations in front of computers or from within bedrooms?  Well, the good news is, T648 does not slow down, and scouting continues all summer long with whatever members continue to brave the escalating temperatures of the Valley.  This past week we celebrated as a troop family the Eagle Court of Honor for young Mr. Williams, who became the 41^st Eagle in T648’s history.  What an outstanding accomplishment, and how much fun to remember and roast events from his 8 years with the troop.  Every one of these events are as unique as the scouts themselves, and yet the tradition of the ceremony shines brightly in each, giving younger scouts a view of Eagle Scout as an individual tangible goal for themselves.  Congratulations, Mr. Williams!

This week we begin with Patrol Leader’s Council on Tuesday night at 6PM, and both the troop and parent and committee meetings at 7PM.  There are multiple key agenda items this month for the parent and committee meeting, so if at all possible, please join us in the room next door to the troop meeting.  This week Mrs. Traynor has put together another monthly troop letter packed with news and information from our scouts and scouters – please let us know if you have not received an electronic copy.  This coming weekend is a base camp at Roosevelt Lake, where we will have the opportunity to get up out of the hot Valley a little bit, but remain in temperatures warm enough that it will feel great to be splashing around and getting wet for those who want to do canoeing without the canoe.  Patrol and menu planning for the weekend will be completed Tuesday night, so come and get your input included.  We will also be beginning a monthly theme of wilderness survival skills, so join us Tuesday night to learn about such things as a variety of ways to purify water from young Mr. Hart.

Looking ahead, please add two important dates to your calendars.  The adult leader meeting will be a week later this month, and will be held at 7PM on Monday, June 17^th at Scottsdale Worship Center.  This month is also the Summer Court of Honor, which will also be held at Scottsdale Worship Center at 7PM on Tuesday, June 18^th.  This weekend’s outing will be an optimal time for scouts on the verge of a rank advancement to finish up their requirements or boards to receive those achievements this month.  Please also contact your troop counselors on any merit badges you have been working on to complete any remaining requirements in the next week or so.  Cutoff on requirements for the COH is June 11^th.

If you are attending summer camp, both scouts and leaders must have an updated BSA health form on file with the troop.  These will be presented to Camp Alexander, and without them, the individual will not be able to participate.  Please schedule time with your physician between now and our departure on July 20^th to complete the medical form – available under ‘Documents’ on our troop website.

See you Tuesday at the PLC, Troop and Committee meetings!

Mr. Cole

Greetings!

Please mark your calendar; we will hold our quarterly Troop Committee and Parent Meeting next week on Tuesday, June 4, 2013 at 7pm in the small classroom adjacent to the usual troop meeting room. I hope that each family will make an effort to attend; we will have a few very important agenda items to discuss:

1)      We will begin  with a presentation of the Scoutmaster nominating committee’s proposed selection to take over for Mr. Cole when he steps down this fall. This will be our opportunity to discuss, ratify, and welcome our candidate to become the sixth Scoutmaster of Troop 648.

2)      We will review troop needs and resources for the upcoming year.

3)      We will reflect on our recently completed (and highly successful) pancake breakfast fundraiser, including updating parents on the status of the Scout accounts.

4)      We will close with a discussion regarding Summer Camp. If your son is signed up to attend camp, please plan to attend. (We will have an opportunity to dismiss parents who do not have sons attending camp, if desired.)

I will hope to see everyone there!

Mr. Benyi – Troop Committee Chair