Boy Scout Troop 648 Scottsdale, Arizona

Good morning,

This week we are thrilled to announce that T648 added our fortieth scout to our Eagle’s Nest.  Young Mr. McFetters developed, planned, executed, and followed-up on one of the most memorable Eagle projects with his Board of Review this past week, and has joined the ranks of the Eagle Scout.  Of all the wonderful benefits of the BSA program that I witness weekly – from social, to skill, to leadership, to service, to fun – it remains a highlight for me to witness select young men reaching the pinnacle of scouting.  Congratulations on a job extremely well done, and we look forward with anticipation to his Court of Honor in the spring.

This week begins the home stretch of our race toward finals, Christmas, New Years and Webelos weekend.  In between studying and Christmas shopping, please try to attend tomorrow night’s meeting.  All patrols should be working on pulling together the materials needed for their Webelos weekend activities, as this will be the final meeting of 2012.  That will give us only one more meeting on January 8^th to finalize the scout skills events and skits, which will be delivered during the weekend on January 11-13.  Each patrol will be responsible for taking a group of the 15-20 cub scouts attending for 45 minutes, and working with them on a chosen scout skill (fire building, search & rescue, first aid).  Troop Guides and Assistant Senior Patrol Leaders are needed tomorrow to lend their guidance and experience on ways to make the skills event more fun / exciting for the cubbies.  There are also 237 million (or so) campfire skits available online – search ‘boy scout campfire skits’ to start – and young Mr. Dahlmann has suggested that each patrol have over a half dozen that they can refine and develop over the next month.  We will have more than a dozen cub scouts with us the afternoon of the 12^th – let’s give each of them a traditional T648 weekend welcome!

Please remember that the first payment of $50 for summer camp was due to Mr. Benyi on 12/1 – this is a Colorado adventure July 20-28 that no one will want to miss!  As you prepare for the holidays with your family, please consider attending the troop Christmas party at the Turner home if you are in town and available.  It will be a time for your entire family to share your favorite dessert with your troop family, and spend some quality after-Christmas social time.  The event will be from 6-9PM on 12/27/12, and the Turner’s address and phone number can be found from the troop roster on the website.  Please RSVP if you can join us.

Looking ahead to January, we have Mr. Finnegan’s Eagle COH on 1/5 at 2PM, followed by Webelos Weekend the following week.  As described Tuesday by Pam, we will be supporting Team in Training on the afternoon of the 20^th by cheering them on at the finish line, and then helping them to food and/or medical attention as they complete the Rock ‘N Roll marathon.  The weekend of 2/2/13 will be our annual ski outing to the White Mountains, so begin planning (and praying) for snow!

As Christmas arrives, may this be a time of family joy for each and every one of you.  You are all very important to our T648 family, and we are blessed to have all of the unique personalities and skills in our most excellent troop.

Mr. Cole

Good evening T648!

Wow, what a weekend!  The Bluff Springs backpack had a little bit of everything, both known and unknown.  We knew the weather would be great, that we would see the amazing 50-in-1 saguaro (the largest cactus in the Sonoran desert with an estimated 125+ arms), and that we would again camp under the largest sugar sumac tree in North America (as documented in the National Historic Register).  However, we didn’t know that we would have a front row seat of a dramatic search and rescue and we would see one of the rarest sights in all of the great outdoors.  As we arrived Saturday morning, the park ranger had us pull into the overflow parking area, as he was expecting an unknown number of search and rescue vehicles to arrive as the search continued for a solitary middle aged woman missing since early Friday morning.  About two miles in, a search and rescue team over-took us, and there were multiple aircraft cris-crossing the sky over our heads.  As we reached the Terrapin Trail split, a hovering helicopter landed in a canyon ahead of us, and took off as we arrived.  A forest ranger had discovered her and called in one of the helicopters.  If we had left the church at 6AM, we might have been the first ones to her.  In any case, what ensued were great opportunities to discuss the buddy system and first aid techniques.  Today on the way out, along about Miner’s Summit, sharp-eyed Mr. Jeorling the Younger espied a majestic male big horn sheep watching us noisy interloping humans from his perch high above.  In the collective zillion or so years of the adult leaders’ Southwestern hiking experience, we had never had the pleasure before, so guess what everyone’s rose was in today’s closing Thorns and Roses?  Please see a photo of our friendly neighborhood ram on the website next week.  Every outing truly turns out to be unique – I for one never want to miss a single one!

The next outing is one of the most important ones on the troop calendar, as we welcome our invited Webelos to our recruitment weekend on January 11-13.  Please attend the December meetings as your patrols prepare scout skills stations and campfire programs throughout the month. Led by young Mr. Dahlmann, we have reached out to a half dozen cub scout packs, and already have interest from two large dens with our 25 scouts.  We traditionally have up to 50 guests including the cub scout families, and we are looking to do as well this year.  It is also never too early to start getting excited about summer camp, and we are still looking for each attending scout’s initial $50 deposit for our outstanding July summer camp adventure in the Colorado Rockies.  During this Tuesday’s meeting we will also learn about our January 20^th service project at the Rock & Roll Marathon.  Additional upcoming events are the adult leader meeting tomorrow night at Scottsdale Worship Center from 7:00-8:15, the troop Christmas party at the Turner residence on December 27^th from 7-9PM (please RSVP and bring a dessert and your whole family), and young Mr. Finnegan’s Eagle Court of Honor on January 5^th at Mountain View Church.  Please keep in mind we will not be having meetings on 12/25 or 1/1.

As the holidays creep ever closer, I hope that you and your family continue to be surrounded and blessed by the spirit of the season.  You are a blessing to our troop family, and I know that thanks to you, 2013 will again be one of our best years ever.

See you Tuesday night!

Mr. Cole

Good evening,

An update on this weekend’s backpack outing.  All scouts should bring their scout books and compass, as map advancement will be the skills focus for this trip.  With the smaller number of scouts on this outing, it is an excellent opportunity for those attending to get plenty of practice in the orienting and orienteering skills for both 2^nd and 1^st class ranks.  We will be backpacking by some excellent areas to triangulate (Weaver’s Needle anyone?).  And with the 50-in-1 saguaro residing only a mile from our campsite, there is a rumor that the orienteering course will include both a national historical landmark (our sugar sumac tree at Bluff Springs) and the largest cactus in the Sonoran desert.  Not your everyday, run-of-the-mill orienteering course!!

See you at 7AM Saturday morning!

Mr. Cole

Once upon a glorious Saturday morning, fortified with half a day’s saturated fat content per Krispy Kreme doughnut consumed, our scouts tackled the wilderness overcoming our troop shed and trailer.  Thanks to an effort coordinated by the eldest DeAngelis, the troop now has bundled firewood ready for Webelos weekend, a trailer that literally sparkles in the sunlight, and a manicured area surrounding the troop equipment area on the Blessed Sacrament church property.  The dozen and a half members of T648 who attended did an excellent job of transformation and all in short order.  Nicely done, gentlemen.  Keep this talent quietly to yourself, though, or your rooms might be next!

As we head towards Christmas, the troop will uncharacteristically go into a bit of a hiatus, due to Christmas Day and New Years Day falling on Tuesdays this holiday season.  We will need to be exceptionally busy for the next couple of weeks in order to get in our outing, adult, and patrol planning sessions completed before the big ‘freeze.’  Thus, we will need all Patrol Leaders Council members to come to the 6PM meeting Tuesday night to ensure that we have the right meeting and event planning for January completed, and boys continuing to attend December troop meetings to adequately prepare for our upcoming Webelos Weekend on January 11th – 13th.   Each patrol will have a significant role to play in Webelos events for the Webelos, as well as content during the Saturday evening campfire.  We need everyone’s creativity and participation during December.  Many thanks to all ladies who attended the fun get together at Mrs. Yu’s home last week.  We are also holding our regular adult meetings in the upcoming week – a committee and family meeting on Tuesday the 4^th, at 7PM at Blessed Sacrament, and an adult leader meeting on Monday the 10^th at 7PM at Scottsdale Worship Center.  Please attend to receive information and provide input on 2013’s summer camp, outings, fundraising, service projects, training, and troop equipment.

Summer camp dues begin now!  If you are planning to attend the Colorado Springs area camp, $50 is what we need per youth to begin making our payments to the camp.  Please also remember to bring a blessing of warmth for the homeless to our meeting on the 4^th.  Young Mr. McFetters will be taking our gently used blankets, socks, sleeping bags, jackets, gloves and other donations to our new friends at Streets of Destiny homeless church in central Phoenix.  Our outing this month will be a backpack in the Superstitions on the 7^th-9^th  – and the weather looks to be absolutely gorgeous!  Looking further ahead, we have two festive events to celebrate.  Plan to attend the troop Christmas party at the Turner home on the 27^th – all you need to bring is a dessert and a big smile!  And as an amazing Christmas miracle, young Mr. Finnegan has finally scheduled his Eagle Court of Honor.  Please mark your calendar for January 5^th at Mountain View Presbyterian Church at Hayden and Mountain View Roads – starting time to follow.

There is no better time of year to be a scout in Arizona!  See you at the troop meeting.

Mr. Cole

Greetings and happy December!

1) We will have our quarterly Troop Committee Meeting this Tuesday, Dec 4, 2012 at 7:00pm in the classroom adjacent to the regular Troop Meeting room. The Committee Meeting is open to all interested parents along with members of the committee.

2) The $50 Summer Camp Deposit is due this week as well; if you know that your son is planning to attend summer camp, please bring your deposit on the 4th. If you missed my previous announcement on this subject, summer camp 2013 will be at Camp Alexander in Colorado July 20-28.

Thanks!

Mr. Benyi

Good morning!

I hope that you return from the Thanksgiving holiday recharged and renewed, fueled with new energy born from yummy leftovers and quality time spent with family, and ready to tackle preparation for the granddaddy holiday of them all.  In between chasing Cyber Monday specials or spending hours trying to find that missing string of blue LED lights, I hope you’ll set aside time to join us at scouts.  Because of the way the calendar falls this year, we will not have meetings on the 12/25 or 1/1 Tuesdays, so early December is the time to focus on your advancement opportunities and prepare your patrols for a couple of fun winter camping outings.  With foresight and a bit of time management, there will still be plenty of time to finish studying for finals and getting the tree trimming done, too!

The boys in charge of the next outing have reevaluated the December Winter Camping theme, due to our recent unexpected excellent experience with winter weather during the November outing above Mayer.  We will continue the backpacking format originally planned, but now schedule it for a Superstitions trek instead of the originally planned higher altitudes.  Come find out the details on our upcoming adventure 12/7-9 into the amazing Sonoran wilderness bordering the eastern-most part of our Valley.

This is the time of year during which we focus on recruitment.  If you have contacts with a cub scout pack, please let young Mr. Dahlmann know, as he has been contacting local packs about attending our January Webelos weekend.  He will appreciate any help you can provide in spreading the word about this fun weekend, which typically includes 75-100 people as a sunny Saturday afternoon in the McDowell mountains turns into evening, learning scout skills, playing, laughing, eating, singing, and staring into the community campfire before heading home or turning into the tent, tired but happy.  If you have a friend at school that you have been thinking about inviting to try out scouts, this is also a perfect opportunity for them to get a good understanding of what it is to be a scout in T648.

Please keep in mind a number of upcoming dates / events.  Tomorrow night is a fun get together of all troop Moms at Mrs. Yu’s home during the troop meeting.  December 1^st is when the first $50 installment of payments for summer camp is due.  For all adults, we have a parent/committee meeting on December 4^th in a conference room next to the troop meeting.

As we prepare for Christmas, I am so very thankful for family health, which is at the pinnacle this year of the many other blessings in my life.  We have such an abundance, but in the midst of all we have, there are many who are much less fortunate than we are.  Please also remember to give as you are able this season.  One good option is to bring gently used blankets and socks to our next two troop meetings, and young Mr. McFetters will see that they are provided to our friends at Streets of Destiny Church.  Stay tuned for further details on this continuing service project.

I give thanks for all of you!  See you at the troop meeting….

Mr. Cole

Good morning T648!

As we transition into this holiday season traditionally set aside to give thanks for our many blessings, I am particularly thankful for young men who give of their time to better themselves and their community.  Weekly we have more than a couple dozen scouts show up for troop meetings to teach and learn skills that will be beneficial in the out-of-doors and life in general.  On a monthly basis, they test these skills in a wide variety of ways, including dealing with the elements (from heat to sleet), learning hiking, water, boat, bike, and ski safety, administering first aid, cooking, camping, leading, teaching, mediating and especially tolerating a bunch of middle-aging scouters, who also still love doing all these things, but at a much slower pace.  I am thankful that they are aware of far more than themselves, and have had the desire and ability to help charities of all kinds, through church volunteerism, and by way of troop service projects.  As I sit thinking of each boy individually, they are all so very different and uniquely talented.  However, when they band together as patrols or on projects, the troop as a unit is far greater than a group of individuals.  I give thanks to to be associated with such fine young men, not to mention the families and friends of T648, who continue to greatly influence their excellence.

Tomorrow night is the troop meeting – come ready to leverage all the learning from our Mayer outing on fire building, fire safety, and even a bit on what fires to use for cooking.  Also, I hope you have been already thinking about building summer camp into your next summer break.   Camp Alexander is in the beautiful Elevenmile Canyon at about 8500 feet elevation in the Pikes Peak National Forest approximately 45 miles west of Colorado Springs, Colorado.  Along with Ponderosa pine forests and grassland valleys, there is also wetland vegetation comprised of a stream and the beautiful Lake George, resulting in abundant wildlife.  This is a summer camp not to be missed!  We have reserved our week for July 20-28, 2013, and our payments begin in December.  To reserve your spot, please provide a $50 deposit beginning December 1^st.

As we begin the holiday season, I hope you will continue to make time for scouts.  We will be planning for our annual January Webelos weekend during December meetings, and our winter outing will be December 7-9.  Parents will have the opportunity to gather on December 4^th at 7PM for a troop parent and committee meeting. This year we will also marks a new tradition, as the Turner family has invited the troop to their home for a time of potluck desserts and fellowship on December 27^th from 7-9PM.  Mark your calendars, and stay tuned for additional details as the event nears.  I hope that you will be able to join your troop family on this festive occasion if your plans find you in the valley over the Christmas holiday.

See you tomorrow at the troop meeting!

Mr. Cole

Good morning troop 648,

Our adventurers returned from our early winter campsite (a month early – we had planned our sub-freezing campout for December) hale and hearty and highly pleased with another fabulous weekend.  While it began a bit slowly, as the lead cars returned from our camp location to get out and push the fishtailing trailer up the muddy road, followed by new life skills putting up tents in the dark in first rain, then sleet, and finally a fine layering of tiny hail, we awoke the next morning in a beautiful oasis of tall trees and blue skies in which to ride bikes, hike, cook, and do advancement only an hour as the crow flies from the valley.  Completing the weather trifecta, we had beautiful snowflakes later in the afternoon and we tested our fire building and clothes and bedroll layering techniques as the temperatures dipped well into the teens on Saturday night.  You know it is cold when the bottled liquids in the ice-filled coolers are warmer than those left out on the table.  It is outings such as this that one looks back on fondly, as the boys deal with adversity, turn it into adventure, and come through it all with new learnings, character and good humor.  Among the quotes heard – ‘I think my soul is frozen’, ‘Mr. Conrad, there is something dead behind you’ (a skinned mule deer, left by a careless hunter) ‘Let’s build a world record campfire’ and from many of the boys during our ‘thorns and roses’ ceremony at the end of the weekend – ‘no thorns, everything was a rose.’  The meals planned and executed by the patrols were hearty and appetizing, the biking was short but exceptional, and a hike yielded massive downed log sectionals to stoke a large warm campfire for days.  I consistently enjoy watching our scouts putting into practice what they have learned, and there is nothing like all-season camping in Arizona to put those lessons to the test.

Now that we are back to normal Scottsdale weather on this Veteran’s Day weekend, we will be slowing down as a troop a bit for the holiday season.  We do have a number of upcoming items of note, however.  Tonight is the monthly adult leader meeting, followed by our weekly troop meeting tomorrow night.  We have outings scheduled for December 7^th (another opportunity for winter camping) and January 11^th (our annual Webelos cub scout recruiting weekend).  It is important that you continue to attend the weekly meetings as our boy-led meetings will do such things as further prepare you for winter camping, and begin planning fun patrol events and campfire skits for our cub scout guests.  It is also never too early to begin planning for summer camp.  December 1^st is the due date for the first $50 deposit for summer camp – this year in fabulous Camp Alexander.  Every other year the boys choose to go somewhere out of council for summer camp, and this year they have chosen a camp in the fabulous Rockies outside of Colorado Springs from July 20-28, 2013.  Hope you are already planning to attend!

See you at tomorrow’s troop meeting

Mr. Cole

Good morning!

For those of you attending the mountain biking outing beginning this evening in the Prescott National Forest, be advised that with the changing weather, you should be packing to accommodate some possible rain and cold.  We will be moving our base camp site to a lower altitude in the at-large forest camping area above Mayer rather than in the planned Granite Basin area to avoid the potential for snow (we’ll hopefully be even more prepared for some snow during our winter camping experience  in December).  However, you should still plan on possible showers for tonight, and lows in the 30’s, with highs in the 50’s.  A parka, gloves, and warm socks/beanie to sleep in are highly advised.

We’ll see you tonight at the church around 5PM to begin our latest adventure!

Mr. Cole

Good morning,

I have sent out a separate email this morning with pictures from this weekend’s outstanding Eagle Project put together by young Mr. McFetters.  Please let me know if you did not receive it, and would also like to see the transformational nature of the work done Saturday by the troop of turning a hardscrabble church backyard into an oasis for kids who have had little opportunity to play with nice things at all in their difficult lives.  Scouting is often viewed through the outings, but it is at times like this that I become most aware of the leadership development taking place in our sons’ lives due to scouting.  And as I view the photos of the pure joy on those kids’ faces on Sunday, I am extremely thankful for the impact that our troop has in other people’s lives.  Many thanks for all you do!

This coming week continues to be a busy one.  Please join us tomorrow night – troop leadership for Patrol Leader’s Council at 6PM, then for the troop meeting at 7PM.  We’ve completed bike checks for the Granite Basin outing on the 9^th – 11^th, and we’ll finish up final preparations for the weekend during tomorrow night’s meeting.  Even if you aren’t planning to mountain bike the exceptional trails in the basin, this is a base camp in a terrific setting outside of Prescott.   Please plan to come and join us for hiking, cooking, advancement opportunities, campfires and more in the cool pines high above the valley.  Plan accordingly, the highs will be below 50, and the lows will be dropping below freezing, for a nice crisp change of pace to our warm fall weather.

For our adult leaders, please finish up youth protection training for certification purposes.  We will also have an adult leader meeting from 7-8:15PM at Scottsdale Worship Center on Monday, November 12^th.  Please come and help plan support for upcoming outings, youth leadership, and prep for our recruitment activities in 2013.

In this month of Thanksgiving, I am thankful for my troop family.  See you tomorrow night at the meeting, and this weekend on the outing!

Mr. Cole