Boy Scout Troop 648 Scottsdale, Arizona

Hello, I am sorry I did not say this during announcements, but we are NOT having bike checks next week, so do NOT bring your bikes.

A brief advertisement from our training coordinator, Mr. Traynor:

There are two dates coming when we can get the Indoor and Outdoor leader specific training.  You will need to go online http://www.grandcanyonbsa.org/registration/calendardetail.asp?ActivityKey=922142 , to sign up for the indoor
leader specific training for Assistant Scout Masters- 9/10- 7:30 am to 4:30 pm

For the outdoor leader specific for Assistant Scout Masters please go to http://www.grandcanyonbsa.org/registration/calendardetail.asp?orgkey=1255&ActivityKey=922144.  This is 9/23 at 6PM until 9/24 until 4:30PM

These dates are filling up fast so please go online as soon as possible to schedule yourself into these classes if you need them.  Please see Mr. Traynor for locations, or for possible additional times and locations in other districts.

Thanks!

Please note that my memory isn’t as good as in ages past.  The Dairy Springs bike outing is slated for the 16th-18th, not the 23rd.  My apologies for the error.

Mr. Cole

Good morning!

What a glorious weekend hiking, camping and splashing in the Fossil Springs Wilderness area!.  Twenty-seven of our troop attended – the largest backpacking contingent since I have been a member of the troop - and they benefited from a fantastic camping location next to the creek, sparkling cold, clear pools, swings, ropes, slides, and a magnificent 30+ foot waterfall at the old dam which was part of the water flume which drove two hydro power plants from days gone by.  There was even a grotto-like cave behind the waterfall discovered by the scouts.  On the trail from the camp to the falls, the boys enjoyed wild raspberries and blackberries, and vistas of red rock, turquoise water and bright blue sky everywhere one looked.  We had a number of first time backpackers, and as this was classified as a moderate to difficult 8 mile backpack, all the scouts were excellent in handling the strenuous parts of the trail, and made good time, maximizing use of the cooler parts of the mornings.  Mr Benyi and the adults did a marvelous job of logistical planning to get everyone out safely, utilizing both the Fossil Springs trail and the old Flume Road trail, and we thank you for your patience in our getting back a bit later than planned.  Hopefully you had a tired but happy camper returned to you, and they can be justifiably proud of their accomplishments on a most excellent weeked of development and good clean/dirty fun.

Thank you for your understanding as we have brought together our new leadership over the past couple of weekends, and added a patrol to accommodate our growth.  It is important that patrols be closer to 8 in size than the 12 or so we had, so that the boys can more easily function as a unit, and allow for better boy leadership opportunities and experiences.  A side effect of the re-swizzling that went along with that is that the boys will have some challenges in reforming patrol relationships.  We leveraged feedback, and tried to balance the patrols by size, age, and known relationships where possible, but things such as this can never be completely perfect.  Thanks for your support as we retool for the overall betterment of the troop.

This week we have our 7PM meeting, and are looking ahead to Mr. Frank’s Eagle project on September 10th.  Please begin planning now to attend the Dairy Springs outing on the 23rd-25th of September – a bike outing in the cool areas in the Lake Mary area outside of Flagstaff.  The fall is some of the best camping in Arizona, although it can be said that anytime is the best time of the year for camping in Arizona

Mr. Cole

Good afternoon,

What an amazing weekend!  I have now witnessed a goodly number of these T648 Patrol Leadership Council Planning sessions, and they continue to impress upon me the skills, commitment and character of our boy leadership.  Whether this was a boy’s 4^th weekend or 1^st, they participated with creativity, opinions, and enthusiasm.  At its conclusion, the entire 2011-2012 calendar of outings, service projects, and fundraisers materialized out of the fog.  While no bears were sighted while we were roughing it in the backcountry casitas of the resort, there were instances of adults implementing the use of earplugs to escape various growling German metal bands during free time, and an occasional change from normal shoes to pink slippers to sooth a pair of aching feet.  Leadership Roles have been identified and communicated, and the associated boys debriefed.  We finalized a draft of the new patrol structure, which will include a leadership patrol and 4 patrols.  We hope to firm up patrol assignments in the next day or two, and will communicate that to you as well.  For those of you interested in getting a sneak peek, upcoming outings have been added to the troop calendar which is accessible from the calendar tab on our website.

This coming weekend, we will have an opportunity to cool off from this oppressive heat in the pines and the sparkling mountain water with our backpacking trip to Fossil Springs.  We have had tremendous interest, and it will most likely be our largest backpacking attendance in many years.  This short trip is a great opportunity for a novice backpacker to gain experience, and for a more experienced backpacker to take an extended day hike or just hang out in the pools.  Come tomorrow night for an opportunity to get your pack checked during the course of the meeting, and to get any of your remaining questions about the trip answered.

On September 10^th we will join our nation in remembering the 10^th anniversary of 9-11-01 during a national weekend of service.  S. Frank has scheduled his Eagle Project on that weekend, and we will contribute more than 150 hours of service to his Eagle project.  The project will be in the context of this larger effort to drive value back into our communities through individual gifts of our time in memory of those who lost their lives in these senseless acts of terror.

See you at tomorrow’s 7PM Troop Meeting.  Thanks for your continued contribution of time and energy to our troop.  It’s a beautiful thing!

Mr. Cole

Good morning,

For those of you already bored with back-to-school routines, come check out what we’ve got going over the next few weeks!  This coming weekend is the Patrol Leadership Council (PLC) annual retreat.  Those of you who have been invited to the three day, two night planning session at a local resort have received an invitation from Mr. Benyi.  Those of you who have not yet received an invitation this year, your opportunities are two-fold.  Please provide feedback to your patrol leadership on outings that you would like to attend in 2011-2012, and they will represent your interests at this fun but very productive session.  Secondly, continue working diligently on your advancements, and in the coming years, you will find yourself representing your patrols at future planning sessions.  New youth leadership and patrol structures will be announced following this weekend’s planning, in addition to a comprehensive troop calendar for the upcoming 12 months.

At the next couple of meetings we will be preparing for the Fossil Springs backpacking outing.  Bring any questions you might have on equipment, clothing, food, water, etc. as we ready the troop for a weekend of hiking and swimming in the woods.  Mr. Frank indicated we already had 25 signups as of last week, so this will be one of our biggest backpacking trips ever.  We’ll need a good number of adult participants this month to ensure we have the right number of seats.  Looking ahead, please put Mr. Frank’s 9/10 Eagle Project on your calendar.  This event ties very nicely to our nation’s focus on community service the weekend of 9/11, and is an excellent way to give back to our troop, our community, and our country in this time of reflection on the horrific but galvanizing events 10 years ago.

There will also be tenderfoot and second class scout skills training this week at 6PM ahead of the troop meeting.  We will have a court of honor and potluck scheduled within the next 6 weeks – this is an opportune time to be finalizing new ranks.  See you tomorrow night!

Mr. Cole

When: September 10, 2011, 6AM

Who: YOU and as many friends/parents/neighbors as you want!

Where: Rockaway Hills Ranch –

6206 E Rockaway Hills Dr, Cave Creek AZ 85331

Just north on School House Road from downtown Cave Creek

I will be directing traffic to the actual build site from the entrance to the ranch

What to bring: Work gloves, closed toed shoes, post diggers, wheelbarrows, tape measures, shovels, and power drills.

What we’re doing: Building a small goat shelter for goat and sheep at a local non-profit no-kill shelter called Luv Shack Ranch Rescue.

Additional notes:

• Breakfast and lunch will be provided

• We should be finished (or mostly finished) with the project by lunchtime

• Contact fellow scouts/parents if you want to carpool(about 40 minutes from church)

• Water will be provided

 Call 480-370-7476 if you are interested and want to sign up.  I will also be at the Tuesday meetings if you want to sign up there instead.  I’ll post another bulletin flash closer to the project date.

Good evening T648!

Welcome back to our intrepid trekkers who conquered Philmont and rolled back into Phoenix earlier this evening.  This once in a lifetime experience has already had a profound effect on their lives, and as they pause to process and reflect, will continue to have impacts for years to come. From close encounters with bears, pushing through pain, weather, and dried food, reaching summits, dining with deer, and completing an amazing 10 day high altitude backpacking tour, our scouts and scouters return with nothing more serious than a sore ankle or two, and justifiable pride and happiness in their accomplishments.  We look forward to hearing more first hand on Tuesday.

This week we have PLC Tuesday night at 6PM, with a parallel scout skills Tenderfoot / 2^nd Class session with Mr. Butler also at 6PM, followed by the troop meeting at 7PM.  We will have an assistant scoutmaster leader meeting at a site to be named on August 15^th (Marie Callender’s has closed 🙁 ).  Now with school starting back up, our calendar will again be filling up as well.  Those of you older scouts should look for an invitation to our leadership planning session to be held at Scottsdale Conference Resort the weekend of August 19-21.  Patrol leaders and up will be developing the roadmap we will follow for the upcoming 12 months.  The following weekend we will have an outstanding opportunity to revisit Fossil Springs north of Payson in a moderate backpacking outing with warm, clear creek water and an 8 foot deep swimming hole. Be looking ahead for Mr. Frank’s Eagle Project in early September as well – another terrific construction opportunity for a very worthy charity.

We look forward to seeing many of you who have been out of the valley for extended periods during the summer.  We will have
outstanding events coming up being planned by your boy leadership for this outstanding troop.  It’s a great time to be a scout in T648!

Mr. Cole

What is possibly going motivate our political heroes to spring into action and produce a solution, any solution, to the latest eleventh hour U.S. debt crisis?  It is bringing back flashbacks to college in the 70’s, and the panic that would set in to finally pull the all-nighter necessary to complete a term paper.  In those days it was clear what would happen if I didn’t get to work at the last minute and provide a viable submission to my professor.  Today, it is less clear.  Will government cease to function, and if so – how will we know?  I’ve heard late night show hosts pondering whether we will have to temporarily move into a smaller rental country, or go north and crash on Canada’s couch until we figure out how to print ourselves some more money.  I’m sure that whatever happens, the mass inertia in this case won’t be as catastrophic in the short term than if I had not turned in my term paper.  The government will not fail, as I would have.  But considering that the government’s checkbook is 311 million times more complicated than mine, there will be a long trail of peeved creditors until resolution is completed.

In the meantime, on debt ceiling day (August 2) we will still have our weekly troop meeting, come resolution or no resolution.  However, with the majority of the PLC either at Philmont or at band camps, we will NOT be having PLC at 6PM, and we will NOT be having tenderfoot training at 6PM, only the troop meeting at 7PM.  Let us instead plan to have the PLC meeting on 8/9, a tenderfoot meeting at 6PM that night, and an assistant scoutmaster meeting the following Monday on 8/15.

Please ensure that you begin to provide input to your patrol leaders on the types of outings they should represent for you – locations (Angel Basin, Hell’s Hole, etc.) or types of outing you want to ensure occurs (backpack, canoe, mountain bike, shooting sports, base camp with fishing, etc).  They will be meeting on 8/20 to plan the entire year’s calendar.  Remember that we have an outing coming the weekend of 8/26 – a hike in to Fossil Springs – a terrific opportunity to get that 5+ mile hike with map and compass requirement signed off! (this will be about 7+ round trip).

I have received no subsequent updates from our Philmont crew, likely due to the remoteness of their trek, so I have unfortunately not been able to pass along any further GPS coordinates since the one from early last week.  Fortunately, I suppose, there are places on God’s green earth where you can still go to truly get away from it all!

See you Tuesday night

Mr. Cole

Good morning T648

What a week it will be!  Our intrepid adventurers, 9 scouts and their adult leaders, have left for their amazing 10 day backpacking expedition through Philmont Scout Camp.  I have a few pictures as they readied themselves for the trip from Mrs. McFetters, and will send those along in an email.  In other news, we finally had a more typical monsoon storm with less haboob and more lightning and rain last night.  And tomorrow night, you all will have an opportunity to orient yourselves from one side of the Blessed Sacrament property to the other in an orienteering exercise led by S. Frank and the few remaining members of our Patrol Leadership Council who are not at Philmont.  If you are in possession of a compass, tomorrow night would be the night to bring it to the troop meeting!

See you tomorrow night at 7PM…

Mr. Cole