Trail Talk – 4/27/26

Good afternoon Troop 244!! I hope you are all doing awesome this new week! What a busy, busy weekend we just had as a troop. This last weekend, a group of 26 of us traveled down to Springfield, IL to participate in the 81st Lincoln Pilgrimage and 100th walking of the Lincoln Trail. 13 adults and leaders visited the Lincoln Presidential Museum and the New Salem Village to learn about the life of Abraham Lincoln. Another 13 adults and leaders completed a walk in the footstep of Abraham Lincoln between New Salem and Springfield by walking 20 miles! Everyone was exhausted and worn out but it was a great campout.

URGENT!! URGENT!! URGENT!!

NEXT CAMPOUT: MAY CAMPOUT – PIONEER SCOUT RESERVATION May 15 – 17th, Cost is $40. We will be camping at Crockett Campsite but then going across the bridge to work on cleaning up Klewer Campsite, our home for Summer Camp! We need to have enough people on this trip to be able to cleanup Klewer and make it spectacular for the Summer, especially as our home for our week of Summer Camp! THIS CAMPOUT IS ONLY 3 WEEKS AWAY!! WE NEED YOU TO SIGN UP NOW IF YOU ARE GOING TO GO ON THIS CAMPOUT. YOU CAN SIGN UP ON ZEFFY OR AT THE TROOP MEETING THIS WEEK.

IMPORTANT NOTES AND ANNOUNCEMENTS FOR THIS WEEK:

WILDERNESS FIRST AID TRAINING –For those of you who already indicated interest to me in the Wilderness First Aid(WFA) training, the training is THIS WEEKEND, MAY 2ND AND 3RD!! I need scouts to be volunteers as victims. I have a few now but am glad to have more. Plan to have some down time, bring something to do! The location is at 2723 Vanderbilt Ave. Portage, MI 49024. For those taking the course the cost for the course is $80 if you haven’t paid yet. We have already paid for YOU, so we need you to pay the troop back. We will start at 8:00 am each day. You can pay for this on Zeffy!

EAGLE SCOUT PROJECT: DAVID GLISTA – Hi, I’m David Glista and I’m holding my eagle scout project on Saturday May 9th at the Kleinstuck nature preserve from 9am to 2pm. We will go into the preserve and pick garlic mustard, an invasive low light plant that outcompetes the natural low light plants limiting diversity and hurting the ecosystem. We will be working in the forested part of the preserve and will not always be on the trail so wear appropriate footwear. gloves will be provided but if you want to bring your own that would help. We will meet at the Maple Street YMCA’s entrance to the preserve and have pizza for lunch. See you there!

NO TROOP MEETING – Because of the Portage City Elections happening on May 5th, we will NOT have a troop meeting next week! The church does not want any groups meeting on the night of an election because it is a polling place. NO TROOP MEETING NEXT WEEK MAY 5TH!

SUMMER CAMP 2026 June 21 – 27th, 2026 PIONEER SCOUT RESERVATION. For those of you who have not paid in full, please do your best to get your payment as soon as possible. Please also make sure that everyone is working on getting their Medical Forms for Summer Camp. This MUST be the Scouting America Medical Form, and it must be the ENTIRE form: Parts A, B and C! Turn these in as soon as possible but no later than the end of May! BOTH ADULTS AND SCOUTS must have medical forms.

Meat Stick Fundraiser – MEAT STICKS! MEAT STICKS! Pick up your meat sticks to take out and sell at the troop meeting. This year, in order to get most out of the fundraiser, we are selling the meat sticks at a price of 2 for $3 instead of $1 apiece. This helps us to make more money overall for each scout’s individual scout account. You can see Brandon Beery at the troop meetings to get meat sticks to sell and to turn in the money from your sales!

PORTAGE MEMORIAL DAY PARADE – Memorial Day, May 25th! We will once again be marching in the Portage Memorial Day Parade. I am going to be contacting the organizers of the parade this week to make sure we have a spot! I am sure we will. The parade starts at 10:00 a.m. and we will end at the Portage Bandshell behind the Police Station. Usually, the parade lasts about an hour.

Scouting America PHYSICAL FORMS! – Every Scout and Leader that goes to summer camp, Swampbase, Pictured Rocks or the mini-high adventure MUST have an up-to-date SCOUT PHYSICAL FORM with all parts of the form filled out, Part A, B1, B2 and C. You must get a new one for this year. No Form, No Trip. WE NEED ALL PHYSICAL FORMS TURNED IN BY MAY 1ST.

Pictured Rocks Backpacking Trip – The trip itself is July 9 – 15th Cost is $300 due by June 15th. PREPARE! PREPARE! PREPARE! Make sure you get your Scouting America Physical Form completed and turned in. This includes Part C.

SWAMPBASE – July 9 – 18th Please stay up to date on all information for this trip. Get your Scouting America medical form filled out! Prepare! Prepare! Prepare! Please see Mike King if you have any questions about this trip!

Troop 244 Payment Portal – Zeffy. Our Zeffy page remains open for you to make payments or by troop merch! Wanna pay for the campout, Pictured Rocks, SwampBase, Registration, etc. Go to the following link: http://bit.ly/pay244. For troop Swag/Merch you can click on this link: http://bit.ly/244swag

Scoutmaster Minute – I just want to take a minute to reflect on this last weekend with the troop. The Lincoln Pilgrimage campout is a campout that we do every 2 years although the event itself takes place every single year. It is something that 244 has been doing since even before I was a member of the troop. It is an exhausting weekend, but I think it is also a worthwhile weekend. President Abraham Lincoln, our 16th president of the United States was a personal hero to my dad, to me and to many others. Many people may not agree with his actions or may not agree with how I feel about him and that is ok. However, I do want to tell you that in looking at his life, President Lincoln teaches all of us quite a few lessons. He did not have an easy life, his childhood, his middle years, growing up, his political career and finally his Presidency were all years just rocked with hardship. Yet, this man endured and persevered. Without President Lincoln, you may very well need a passport to travel to Florida or anywhere down south today. He fought to preserve our country. Without President Lincoln, we may still be treating human beings as inferior and degrading our fellow man. I just can’t imagine that. His work will forever go down as work that preserved this nation and helped jump start freedom and equality for EVERYONE. It wasn’t easy. I think we can all learn from that. Life is NOT easy. We are all going to face hardships and trials, yet we all have it in us to endure and persevere. We all have it in us to struggle through the tough times and come out on the other side of it if we are willing to fight for and through it. President Lincoln shows us that life is worth fighting for and that you can make it! I am very thankful for this campout every 2 years where we can go down, learn about him and learn from him. I am thankful we get to honor his legacy every 2 years as well.

“What Troop Does More!!” – 244!!!