Scoutmaster Musings

The new scouts chose to be known as the Moose Patrol. It was 'Bruce, the Spruce Moose' for awhile, but that didn't last long. All five of them received their Scout badges at the court of honor after having their scoutmaster conferences with me.
Now, they're excited for the troop's Pioneering campout in April where they'll help build a monkey bridge and hopefully a catapult of some kind. They might also earn their Totin' Chip and Firem'n Chit cards that weekend.

Our new PLC had their first meeting this week, planning the meetings for the next month out. They were amazingly on task so we might just be in for a very productive summer!

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I'm glad cross-over from Webelos is at this time of year. It's a great injection of energy into the troop after a long, cold winter.
Four of our five new scouts have earned their Scout badges already and will be presented at the court of honor on Monday. A super Troop Guide just met with their patrol last night and is helping them with figuring out a patrol name, flag, and yell. So, they are just bursting with energy and getting busy!
I can tell this group of scouts is going to be great fun. As one indication, their Webelos den was a combination of the 'Phat Frogs' and the 'Flaming Arrows' so they became the 'Phat Flaming Frogs' - now that's a good patrol name! I'll let you know what they come up with for their Boy Scout patrol name.

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As far as I know, I've got no Irish blood in my body. But, today, everyone gets to pretend to be related to Arthur Guiness, Molly Pitcher, or Oscar Wilde. Or, maybe you prefer to be a leprechaun and dance a nifty Irish jig.

Whatever your pleasure, enjoy this last festive day of winter. Spring starts with the vernal equinox on March 20. You wouldn't know it here though - my son and I just built a 10ft by 7ft by 6ft high pile of snow the past two days in the front yard. After school today his plan is to start digging it out, so we're gonna have fun! Maybe I can talk him into camping out in it tonight.

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It looks like this year will see our troop shrink a bit. We are getting 5 Webelos crossing over and losing a handful of scouts to aging out plus a few that gave scouting a shot and decided against continuing.
After our huge growth of 19 scouts last spring, this will be a much different year. We'll have lots of experienced scouts to show them the ropes and we have a couple Troop Guides that will be just great.
Another local troop that got just a handful last year is getting 18 this year so I plan on keeping in touch with their scoutmaster to see how it goes.
We've checked to see why there was a change this year and as far as anyone can tell, one scout from each den decided early to go to a troop and the rest of his den just followed along. That might be a good thing to remember if you are 'competing' with troops for Webelos - get one of them to commit to you early and tell the rest where he's going.

I'm not concerned with getting fewer scouts - its actually good for us, I think. I am sad about the few scouts that chose to leave the troop. Every one of them said the troop was fine, but... too busy doing other things. I wonder what I could have done different to have them still be with us.

We do have one fellow who told me he wants to be a 'part-time scout' and only attend the outings and meetings he can make. I tried to explain that everyone is a part-time scout and it would be just great to have him participate as he can.

Scout On

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