February 15, 2016
Shooting for a good meeting
Well we will be having an introduction gun safety this week, we are shooting to have a good meeting, don’t miss it.
Be a leader
There are plenty of opportunities to be a leader of the Troop for those scouts who are First Class or above. The quality of the program is directly related to the what our youth leaders lead it to be, so if you want YOUR troop to excel, be involved. We are looking for all kinds of leaders, Patrol Leaders, Quartermaster, Librarian, Historian and others. Be sure to fill out the Leadership application. Don’t forget, anyone who would like to be considered for Leadership Corps, you should also look at the requirements and fill out an application if interested.
State of the Troop
As we re-chartered the Troop for another year, it is always a good time to reflect on the state of the Troop. As many of you know, the Troop numbers have been shrinking over the last couple years, most of the shrinkage is because of scouts aging out over the past year, our current Troop attendance is averaging at a pretty good number, so I think we are doing pretty good on programs that everyone seems to enjoy but there is always room for improvement and if you have ideas, we want to hear about it. We currently registered less than 25 scouts, which is the lowest number in a long time (10 yrs ago, we had 68 Scouts), so the leadership of the troop is evaluating many things we have done and modifying them to fit our new size. One of those items is the number of patrols, we currently have patrol sizes that are pretty small, we feel it is time to consolidate a little bit to make the patrols a little larger so that everyone benefits. It is never very fun to have patrol with only a couple people there. We are hoping to have that all finalized by this Monday and will be introduced at the Troop meeting and hope everyone accepts the change. There will be some moves, so if anyone has any desires or wishes, please email those by Sunday night, if we can, we will see if we can accommodate them but I cannot promise anything. We are hoping this reduction of a patrol in a short term situation. This year it looks like we will only gain one or two new scouts from Cub Scouting, but some predictions, next year we could gain as many as 10 to 12 new scouts, with fewer aging out, we might be able to bring back one of our patrols next year, but we just didn’t want to run lean for a year till that growth shows up.
One of the key factors of Troop membership is the Cub Scout Packs we have been associated with in the past have also had some membership decline over the past years. With Pack 161, we have taken an active role to work with them and it is early, but hope to help them improve their membership, which in turn will improve our membership down the road. We are talking about doing some things together to share some resources, so we both units grow. We are also looking at working with some other other Packs in town which should help with membership growth, but those will come into play next year. As always, the Troop is always welcoming to ANYONE who wants to join the Troop, so if you know someone who might enjoy scouting, invite them to a meeting and get them involved. Cub Scouting is not a requirement to join, anyone 11-17 can join Boy Scouting.
The last element of review is advancement, some of you have been sitting at the same rank for a long time, and we need to move that forward. While ranks up to First Class should be working with their patrol leader and the older scouts in the program to get things signed off in their books so you can advance. Older scouts should be looking at working with other Scouts and setting up some merit badge time with counselors. The parent’s role is this process is to sit down with your son once in a while and ask him how he is doing on goals HE set to advance. As part of the Scoutmaster Conference, we discuss what the scout’s goal is to finish the next rank, take a look in your/their book and see how they are doing towards your/their goal. Scouts, it IS NOT your parent’s responsibility to work on advancement, call merit badge counselors or even do the research to find a counselor. I am going to list some resources below for you to research this info, and YOU need to take the steps to get this done. Let’s see if we can all do something to improve the overall troop advancement and SCOUTS we need your help to be part of that process, let’s all set a goal to work some advancement!
Over all the Troop is doing well, if we can fix these few things, it will make us a stronger troop and more people will get more out of Scouting, which is our goal. So let’s see what we can do to fix a few of these weaknesses and keep Troop 161 a great Troop it has been for many years!!
Advancement Tools
2016 Advancement Changes -All rank advancement has changed as of January 1, 2016, Click on this link to see these changes, feel free to print and insert in your book. It is set up for double sided printing.
Advancement requirements online- The Official Three Harbors advancement page has all the resources for advancement, you can check it out at this link.
Meritbadge.com has a great collections of workbooks for working on advancement, especially merit badges
Scout Stuff – All eagle required merit badge books and a few others can be purchased in electronic format, they not only have the traditional information that the paper books have, they also have multi-media clips and videos in the book that will allow you to watch on your computer and tablets. All Merit badge pamphlets are available here as well as the Kenosha and Milwaukee Scout shops in paper format too.
Troop Library – The troop does have a Merit Badge library available, you can check out books and use them, then return them when you are done. If you purchased a book and we don’t have a lot of them in our library, we will buy them from you for two dollars.
Merit Badge counselor list- Scout go to this link, and use the User ID is meritbadge636 and PW meritbadges. Here is a list of merit badge counselors available in our council, note the location of the counselor, you may want to stick to Lighthouse and Racine area counselors. If you have problem with this, scouts can also go to the Merit Badge Counselor list or see Mrs. Andersen or myself who has this list available.
Upcoming event- Attention Scouts and leaders! Registration for Merit Badge Tech opens tomorrow, February 13, 2016 at 8:00 a.m.! If you're planning to attend Merit Badge Tech on Saturday, March 5, 2016, make sure to register tomorrow. Classes fill very quickly. Details and registration opens online at 8:00 a.m. at www.gtc.edu/merit-badge-tech.
Elections
Elections-Our plan is to do the elections this Monday. At this point, we will be doing the OA elections and High Adventure elections. With the reorganization of patrols, we are going to hold off till March 14th with Patrol/Troop elections, so if anyone else who wants to add their name to the election list, so you have time to sign up.
Camp Deposit
Don’t forget camp fee is due this week. Be sure to bring your $75, you can find the fact sheet. We will talk about Merit Badge sign up for camp at a future meeting.
High Adventure
We will be voting on High Adventure that was in last weeks BSB, at this week’s meeting, if you want to see the ballot check it out HERE, note the dates on the bottom, be sure you know what works for you
Philmont 2017
Philmont Deposit- Philmont deposit needs to be turned in this week, be sure to bring that deposit. Fact sheet HERE.
RSVP for the Annual Dinner
Dont forget to RSVP for the Annual Dinner and Eagle Court of Honor. You can do that at T161annualdinner@mrfsweb.com.
Sorry for the long BSB this week, but we have a lot of things to cover. Our next meeting is February 29th, when we talk to NASA, then Court of Honor will be March 7th.
Thanks
Mr. F.