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December 30, 2009
Tis the season!!! So much to do for so many and so little time to do it in. I hope all of you had a great Christmas, my family sure did!! Now that the year has come to an end we need to take a moment to remember the great year we have had. Memories of a lifetime were made once again this summer. Who will ever forget the rain at Muskego and at the O.A. calling out ceremony at Tesomas. Did your tent float away during the big storm at Muskego? No rain got in the tents but a few had plenty of it underneath. We only spent three hours in the bath house after the sirens went off!! Everyone survived as usual. Hey, it’s 592 – one of the only amphibious troops in the council!!! Which scouts forgot their rain gear for the O.A. ceremony? The ones that won’t ever do that again!!! You will talk about those moments for years but also the time you spent fishing, swimming, shooting and on and on. There was a little rain at Devil’s Lake but you still hiked the designated trails and you never let it get in your way of having fun. Our fall Court of Honor produced so many rank advancements and merit badges it was truly overwhelming. So how do you top all that? Your new Patrol Leaders Council is already working on it.
At the PLC meeting we began a new leader training program that will bring us closer as a team and produce an even better program for all of us – week to week and month to month. The PLC has already identified some things we want to stop doing – impromptu meetings, too much game time (really – it wasn’t my idea) and some things we want to continue doing – have our schedule include outings we can count on doing every year, like Muskego and Camporee to give us a sense of structure. Also, start doing some things we are not doing. Add some fun events to our weekly schedule and get out of the scout room. We also began talking about something very important to making the troop be what you – the scouts of the troop want it to be. That is called VISIONING. Visioning is a process where you ask yourself what would I like the troop to look like and be to make it as close to what I want to do in scouting as possible. Once you make do that dreaming you will have a direction to move toward. After that, all you have to do is set goals to determine what we have to do to get to that vision. We did a little of that visioning at the meeting. The question asked was; If you could go on a troop outing without worrying about cost and other obstacles, what would that outing be. We came up with a few ideas that are really not that farfetched or out of reach! Now each of you has to ask yourself the same question! If you can’t dream it – we can never do it.
January we will have our First Aid merit badge councilor at our meetings on the 5th and the 12th to complete the badge. We have already reviewed much of the badge work so please attend these meetings. If you do not have this badge yet this is an excellent time to get it. If you do have it, this is a great time to review these skills so they are ready if the time comes to have to use them. This is important. For those of you going to Jamboree, you should definitely have this merit badge earned. We will be preparing for Klondike on the 26th and on February 2nd. By the way, have you turned in your permission slips yet? We have a cabin reserved but we have to have our registration in ASAP.
Once again, I want to thank all of the families that participated in the “Friends of Scouting” (FOS) campaign at our Christmas pot luck! I know Mr. T. will be following up with the balance of our families and I urge you to do whatever you can to help out.
Once again, we should have several Eagle Scout Ranks awarded this year. I urge each of you to re-evaluate your advancement progress and renew your efforts to move forward. In all the Eagle Scout Scoutmaster conferences that I have had, every scout states at least one of these two things: “I wish I would have gone on more campouts” and/or “The best times I had in scouting were the campouts and trips.” Don’t miss the best times in scouting!
I have a great feeling about this new PLC!! Jeremy M. our new SPL has prepared himself by attending Powderhorn –National Youth Leadership training. He is committed to leading the troop to great things this year. Check the website often. Keep in touch with the calendar that is in there. For those of you who are going to the National Jamboree start your preparations now. Your council troops will begin meeting in January and before you know it you will be getting on the bus for the big event. For all of you going to camp this year, start your goal planning now as well. Is this the year you climb the sixty foot tower, or swim the mile or finally get to take shotgun merit badge? Keep dreaming scouts!! I do and I never seem to run out of places I want to go or things I want to see – just over that next hill, on the other side of the lake, at the top of that mountain.
I’ll See You On The Trail,
Mr. G.
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