Boy Scout Troop 648 Scottsdale, Arizona

Greetings!

For any who have missed our reprise of the Troop Newsletter, we have placed the January issue here for your convenience!

Please thank Mrs. Traynor, our Newsletter editor, for putting this together for us. If you have content that you would like to add to the upcoming February edition, please send your articles on to Mrs. Traynor by the end of January!

(While I have your attention, please also recall that the next summer camp payment ($100) is due the first week in February. If you haven’t already signed up, there is still time. We would love to have you join as at summer camp 2013!)

Thanks,

Mr. Benyi

Good morning!

Does anybody feel like a duck?  A day like yesterday does give you an appreciation for what our duck-billed friends in the great Northwest deal with on a regular basis.  A little bit of rain never stops them from whatever they need to do (baseball, mowing the lawn, a camping trip, etc.) or they’d never get anything outdoors done.  I am thankful for our Webelos guests and their families that this didn’t happen to be the weekend we were out camping for our annual Webelos Weekend (it IS the weekend we chose back in August, but the McDowell Mountain facility was already taken, so we had to move it two weeks earlier.  This also of course means someone was camping out there in our site yesterday, and I’ll bet their fire wasn’t nearly as big as ours was :-)).  In any case, while it may have negatively impacted our Webelos attendance, I know that our troop would have dealt just fine with the weather.  It was a pretty warm storm – it was raining rather than snowing even above 7,000 feet, and we would have made whatever adjustments needed and have been prepared.  It is what scouts do.  However, I gotta tell ya, I was much happier to be repairing two showers in my home yesterday than huddling under an EZup in a Scoutmaster Conference on a drizzly camping trip!  Sometimes it helps to be schedule-lucky instead of schedule-good!

Getting back into scouting this week, we will have our troop meeting Tuesday night.  The original meeting theme is ‘Can you cook?’ without a stove, but we will also need to spend time preparing for Scout Sunday at Blessed Sacrament, which will be Sunday, February 3^rd.  The boys will finalize the schedule, but we will have shifts on that Sunday from between 7AM and noon timeframe, and will have stations set up in the courtyard as parishioners go into and come out of mass during the morning.  Some of those stations will include a campsite, dutch oven cooking and fire starting.  I know it is a possible impact to your family’s own church schedule, but it is a very important, once a year opportunity for our troop to interface with many of the members of our charter organization, and is an excellent relationship and recruiting occasion for our troop with Blessed Sacrament.  I would ask that that you participate if it is at all possible.

For those of you close to rank advancement, this Tuesday would also be an excellent night to sit for your board of review, as it is the last one before our Court of Honor coming up on the 5^th.   We had three boards and two conferences going last Tuesday night in preparation for it – it is great to see those skills developing, and you so capably demonstrating them for our reviewers.  For the Court of Honor, please bring a dessert or snack to share as part of the celebration.  There is also a rumor that there will be a shed/equipment organization project in the near future (sometime in February – stay tuned for details).  I hope you are also having an opportunity to sell your Scout-O-Rama tickets in your neighborhoods, to family, and in front of our participating stores – for each ticket sold, 35% goes into your scout account, as does 100% of all additional donations to scouting.  For those of you with items for the February newsletter, please finalize them within the next two weeks.  And don’t forget that the weekend of the 8th is our annual trip to Sunrise for the T648 ski/snowboard trip.  Lots going on – please make sure you are participating as fully as possible or you’ll be missing a bunch!

See you at the troop meeting!

Mr. Cole

Good morning,

In the classic ‘One man’s junk is another man’s treasure’ event, scouts provided muscle for Blessed Sacrament on Saturday helping with the Mary’s Knights’ Rummage Sale.  The social hall was filled to overflowing with baubles and door busters old and new, and by the afternoon, much of it had been carried to and loaded in vehicles to now clutter up someone else’s closet.  Continuing the service / servanthood theme this glorious sunny weekend, on Sunday members of the troop were at the finish line of the PF Chang’s Rock n Roll Marathon cheering Team in Training runners in particular, and everyone in general.  It was amazing to watch humanity of all sizes and ages come down the home stretch – some with renewed energy in a virtual sprint, some barely able to make it over the line before the medical teams would come to their aid.  From barefoot Todd, who had now run 300 marathons in 18 months sans shoes, to Brandon’s Team who had wheeled the quadriplegic the entire course, to 80 year old grandparents, to father/daughter or husband/wife pairs coming across hand in hand, it was an amazing afternoon of witnessing the human spirit at its most basic.  Many thanks to all who participated in both events.  For the marathon, this is the 10^th consecutive year we have partnered with Mr. Grisa in this worthy cause.

Hopefully all of you who have Scout O Rama tickets are having success in trading them for money!  If you have need of tickets, please see Mr. Jeorling during tomorrow night’s meeting.  There are also a few slots remaining at specified times at grocery stores if you would like to supplement your friends, family & neighborhood efforts.  For those of you close to your next rank, keep in mind this week and next are your remaining opportunities for scout skills boards of review prior to our Court of Honor on the 5^th.  We also have an outing coming up right after that on February  8-10 in the White Mountains.  Get yourself psyched up for blasting downhill on skis or snowboards during the annual snow sports outing to Sunrise.  Please see Mr. Harness for details and reservations.

Finally, I hope that you will consider spending part of the morning of February 2^nd with us.  We have the unique opportunity to demonstrate to members of our charter organization who we are, and what we do during national Scout Sunday.  We are planning to be involved in morning services at Blessed Sacrament – primarily to greet the parishioners as they enter and exit services.  We will be all set up in the courtyard, and will have tents, dutch oven cooking, fire starting, and other activities for the children, and pamphlets and other information on scouting for the adults.  Please make it a point to participate in this opportunity to communicate and relate to this partnering religious organization, which kindly hosts us every week for our meetings and events, and gives us room for our volumes of equipment.

I hope that you all have a happy Martin Luther King holiday – enjoying in your own way the freedom that he and countless others have tirelessly worked to preserve for all of us.  See you tomorrow night at the troop meeting!

Mr. Cole

Good morning,

Many thanks to the at least 44 scouts and adult leaders who participated in this weekend’s Webelos weekend.  It was held under a clear (and crisp!) sky, and was again an outstanding tribute to our troop’s strengths.  The scouts were prepared with excellent skills events, and involved our 12 guests in activities and scenarios that were both practical and fun.  The boys welcomed the attendees, were engaging, informative, funny, and utilized every one of the scout laws throughout the afternoon.  Adult leaders received extremely positive feedback from the parents throughout the day and in emails afterwards, and the cub scouts were uniformly impressed and excited about their afternoon (and in one case, evening).  From being actually encouraged to safely start fires (for example with 9V’s and steel wool), to swinging on the T648 monkey bridge, to three kinds of delicious cobbler, to a starry exploration of the constellations, to hysterical skits (‘Yah, it is me, Hans!’) they saw how much fun scouting can be as you progress into Boy Scouts.  Where we really shine is with the parents who truly understand about boy leadership.  We had a retired military grandfather, and an Army Colonel dad at the event, and they were the most outspoken of all about the exceptional poise, skills, pride in uniform, and patrol method execution that our youth exhibited.  I am always proud to be a member of T648, but never more so than after one of these weekends where we demonstrate to younger children what it means to be a boy scout.  And from a recruiting standpoint, a couple have already expressed an interest in our troop post – Arrows of Light, and one is hoping to meet up with us to snow board in the White Mountains during our February outing.  Nicely done, gentlemen!

Tonight is an adult leader meeting at Scottsdale Worship Center beginning at 7PM. This week also marked the publishing of our first troop monthly newsletter, thanks to Mrs. Traynor.  We handed them out to our Webelos guests as part of their welcome packages, and we will have hardcopies available at tomorrow night’s meeting before putting the softcopy on the website.  This will be another avenue for our boys, leaders and committee to communicate with the entire troop – begin thinking of how you might be able to utilize it.  Next Sunday the 20th is our service project at the Rock n Roll Marathon, assisting Team in Training with their efforts against blood diseases.  We will be helping at the finish line and will need to meet at Noon at the church in order to fight traffic to make our shift from 1:30-4:30.  Stay tuned for further details at the troop meeting.  Now is also the time to be selling, selling, selling!  Mr. Jeorling made Scout-O-Rama tickets available on Tuesday night, and we have some store opportunities coming up.  Please check with him tomorrow night if you have not yet received your desired packets.  Scout-O-Rama is coming up on February 23^rd at University of Phoenix stadium.

In the meantime we have Scout Sunday on February 3rd at Blessed Sacrament, where we will have an opportunity to show scout skills and spirit at our host charter organization before and after mass.  On February 5^th, we have our Winter Court of Honor, and on February 8^th will be our annual ski trip to the White Mountains.  What excellent opportunities await – please make sure you are taking advantage of as many as possible!

Stay warm – and we’ll see you at the troop meeting!

Mr. Cole

In the words of our fearless leader, young Mr. Dahlmann, he says: “please remind the boys that they should wear gloves, and bring a warm smile for our Webelos guests”.  It’s going to be bright and sunny and cool all day Saturday, and maybe hit the mid – 20’s overnights, so please bring a stocking cap to sleep in, wool socks and/or long johns if you have them, and an extra blanket to wrap around your sleeping bag.  A Thermarest or pad between you and the ground is also advisable.   You’ll be nice and toasty.  Also think layering for the afternoon, and around the campfire.  Remember your materials for the skills events, and your scripts for the skits.  We’ll see you tomorrow night at 5PM at the church.  We have 8 guest boys and counting coming to partake in the weekend.  Let’s give them the warm T648 welcome!

Mr. Cole

This weekend we had the nostalgic opportunity to review the historic journey young Mr. Finnegan traversed to his Eagle rank; through white water strainers, jumping cholla traps, Usery Pass hurricanes, invasive species – all the while never losing possession of his ever-present briefcase, and of course all to the soundtrack of ‘Dancing Queen’ by his beloved band Abba.  We have been honored to have had an exceptional class of Eagle Scouts who have also led our troop as Senior Patrol Leaders, and young Mr. Finnegan is now officially added to that distinguished class.  Many thanks to all of you within the troop who contribute on a daily basis to cultivating an environment which produces moments such as these.  Many thanks, as well, to the Finnegan family for the opportunity to celebrate this momentous occasion.  Congratulations!

This weekend we also had a number of our scouts again assist the Knights of Columbus in serving and cleaning up after their monthly social dinner.  This is yet another way that we provide support to our host charter organization, while they in turn provide ways for our more senior youth to gain additional marketable skills (and receive a fabulous meal!).  We once again heard very complimentary feedback on the work our scouts provided, and I look forward to many additional opportunities to continue to foster an excellent relationship between ourselves and Blessed Sacrament.

This coming week is a fun one on our calendar.  Tuesday night is the first troop meeting after the Christmas and New Years holidays, and will include PLC at 6PM for the youth leadership.  We will be focusing on preparation for the upcoming Webelos weekend, and finalizing first aid, search & rescue, fire starting and monkey bridge stations and materials / scenario planning by the appropriate patrols.  We also should have a half dozen or so skits planned per patrol, with some final casting and props details to finish up.  If you have any questions or need anything, this is the week to leverage your senior or adult leadership to give you the help or support you need.  It’ll be a bit on the crisp side this weekend, but as always, a glorious time of year to be able to demonstrate many of T648’s skills and capabilities. The entire troop is encouraged to attend this key event for team training and recruitment.

Looking ahead, we will have an adult leader meeting at 7PM on January 14^th, and we will be assisting the runners as they cross the finish line at the Rock n Roll Marathon on January 20^th.  Our shift will begin early in the afternoon down by Tempe Town Lake for this worthy annual service project supporting Team in Training.  Stay tuned for further details.  January also marks the month where we will begin our inaugural Troop Newsletter (Extra Extra – read all about it from someone other than your Scoutmaster!), and the month during which we receive our Scout-O-Rama tickets.  We will have most of January and much of February to sell tickets in order to raise funds for our individual scout accounts, before the annual Scout-O-Rama, which will be held at University of Phoenix Stadium on 2/23/13.

As we head into the new year, I am reenergized by the opportunities we have in our schedule to have fun, learn a bunch, and make a difference in 2013 – and also by the quality of the young men in our troop that will be doing it.  We truly have an exceptional troop of individuals, who function very well as a team and groups within that team.   My hope is that you will use this year to optimize your abilities to leverage all that T648 has to offer, and by doing so, contribute to making those offerings even better.

See you at the troop meeting!

Mr. Cole

A quick reminder of our Eagle Court of Honor scheduled for 2PM tomorrow at Mountain View Presbyterian, 8050 E. Mountain View Road (just west of Hayden).  These are rare (we’ve only had 40 in the long and storied history of T648).  And they are fun (an opportunity to visualize yourself in a few years, as well as listen to funny stories of young Mr. Finnegan before he became a distinguished (?) SPL and Eagle). All troop members and families are cordially invited and encouraged to attend.

See you there!

While we didn’t quite have the white-knuckled concerns of the end of the last century, with its pending end of the world technology crashes that many anticipated, we did have the end of the world Mayan calendar predications, not to mention the dreaded looming fiscal cliff and debt ceiling disasters.  Thus, T648 took a page from Prince’s 1980’s era song this week, and held a yearend troop family party at the Turner home.  Trampolines, Black Ops video games, and endless supplies of scrumptious Christmas cookies took the scouts’ mind off these impending troubles, while the few sibling middle school girls even had a room of their own to play ‘Just Dance’ until the clock struck the appointed hour.  I’ll be finishing off our endless cookie exchange plate of chocolate, sprinkles and sugar until sometime next year, while basking in the glow of happy 2012 memories of time spent with our entire troop family.  Many thanks for taking some time during your holiday season to close out the year with us, and party like it was 2013!

Please remember that we will not have scouts tomorrow night, as the church facility is closed.  Our next troop-wide get-together will be young Mr. Finnegan’s Eagle Court of Honor on Saturday, January 5^th at 2PM at Mountain View Presbyterian Church (8050 E. Mountain View Road, just west of Hayden).  All T648 and their families and friends are invited, with all scouts requested to wear their class A uniforms.  We look forward with anticipation this opportunity to celebrate (and roast?) our former Senior Patrol Leader.

This means our next Patrol Leaders’ Council will be at 6PM on January 8^th, followed by our last troop meeting before the Webelos weekend.  Our three main patrols will be performing skills events for the Webelos on January 12^th, so if additional practice and preparation is needed for any of the Search & Rescue, Fire Starting, and First Aid events, individual patrol get-togethers on your own are encouraged during this final week off before 2013.  We will also have some time on the 8^th to finalize your planning.  Keep in mind that campfire skits and/or song preparation should also be completed by the 8^th.  We are looking for this to be another wonderful opportunity for T648 to show interested cub scouts how much fun being a Boy Scout can be.

Please also remember that if you are planning to attend summer camp in 2013, the first installment of $50 is due in December.  We will also be holding a service event in support of Team in Training (who fundraise for Leukemia and Lymphoma research) the afternoon of the 20^th.  We will be at the finish line in Tempe, cheering and helping the runners after the Rock n Roll Marathon to refreshments and/or medical attention as needed.  Also stay tuned for upcoming opportunities to add to your scout accounts – in January we will begin having opportunities to sell Scout-O-Rama tickets, and shortly thereafter, we will begin planning for selling tickets, and obtaining auction items for our spring Pancake Breakfast and Silent Auction.

Happy New Year!  See you Saturday!

Mr. Cole

As the day of celebration comes to a close, and the year winds down, I wish you a blessed holiday season with your families and those you hold dear.  After the rush to purchase, package, and wrap – clean and cook -  play and sing – stay up late and get up early; hopefully the time together spent together has been worth every bit of the extra planning and effort, sleep depravation, and blown diets.  Today and the days that follow are now the time to relax, rejuvenate, and realize that the best things in life are not actual things, but our investments in and blessings of faith and relationships.

A reminder that while we did not meet this evening, and will not next Tuesday, we have a troop after-Christmas party scheduled at the Turners’ in the evening of the 27^th from 7-9PM.  Please RSVP using the email sent out last week, bring a family favorite dessert to share, and the Turner family will provide the soft drinks and hot tea and coffee as well as a warm host location for the party.

If you aren’t able to join us at the party, have a wonderful New Year, and we will look to dive back into scouting with high energy beginning January 5th for the Eagle Court of Honor for Mr. Finnegan, and the PLC and Troop Meeting on the 8^th.

Mr. Cole