Trail Talk – 5/19/25

Here are our Troop announcements for the week

Adelynn Beery Eagle Project – Adelynn is doing her Eagle Scout Service Project this next Saturday, May 24th!! This is exciting, another Eagle Scout on her path to the Eagle Rank! She will be the second female in the girl troop to complete an Eagle Scout Project but to do so she needs YOUR help! Please see the details below. If you can spare a bit of time on Saturday, May 24th, she would appreciate it.  We will be replacing the current playground border and spreading wood chips. We may be done before 2, so plan accordingly. Lunch is provided. All help is appreciated!
Portage Memorial Day Parade – Memorial Day, May 26th! We will once again be marching in the Portage Memorial Day Parade. We will gather at 9:00 a.m. in Crossroads Mall Parking Lot across from JC Penney. 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. Parents, please plan to pick up your scouts behind the Portage Police Station after the parade ends! THIS IS THE LEAST WE CAN DO TO HONOR THE MEN AND WOMEN WHO HAVE DIED IN THE SERVICE OF OUR COUNTRY AND YOUR FREEDOM!

June Campout – Pentwater – June 6 – 8th, Hill and Hollow Campground, Pentwater, MI. Please sign up, turn in the permission form and pay, starting THIS Tuesday night!! See Sherry! This is one of the most FUN campouts that, in my opinion, we do all year! This is meant to be an end of the school year celebration for all the hard work that scouts have put in over the years. We have been doing this campout since 1995, and I want to make sure that we keep doing it! You can come to the campout and not have to worry about working on scouting requirements. You can come to completely have fun…swim in the pool, play at the arcade, ride the go-karts, go to Lake Michigan Beach and so on. You will have to bring your own money for arcade, go-karts and so on. The cost of campout is $45 but will cover the normal, gas, lodging and food.

VFW Post 1527 WorkDay – On Saturday, May 31, VFW Post 1527, will be having an all hands on deck workday at their post. Tim Davis, the father of Timmy Davis in our troop, is a member of this VFW Post. They are requesting any help they can get for their workday and would love to have a few scouts out to help. The VFW post is located at 1920 E. Kilgore and they will be working from 9 – 5:30. Lunch is provided. Bring shovels, rakes and other tools! Any help you can give is appreciated.

SUMMER CAMP 2025(Check-In) –Pioneer Scout Reservation the week of June 15 – 21st! Please make sure you are paying any outstanding balances due for summer camp and getting in the necessary paperwork that needs to be turned in for scouts and leaders! This is important! We have to have this done. Scouts, are you getting prepared for Summer Camp? Are you thinking about what you need to bring to be successful during that week? ARE YOU DOING YOUR PREREQUISITES FOR YOUR MERIT BADGES! Get those done!

BOUNDARY WATERS(URGENT/UPDATE) – July 11 – 20th Please continue to make payments. The cost is $900. Please pay any remaining balances and turn in any remaining permission slips! I need to turn in the menu request soon. I have heard back from a few of you about scouts NOT needing any dietary restrictions or anything. I have yet to hear anything more specific from anyone that might need anything. I will be turning in those menu requests either the end of this week or next weekend! If I don’t hear from you by the end of this week, you will get what you get!

Mini-High Adventure(UPDATE, UPDATE, UPDATE!) – August 2 – 6th the troop will travel to the historic battlefield of Gettysbury, PA. We have a final cost for this trip now. The final cost is $200 to cover lodging, food and transportation! Please pay the balance of this trip as soon as possible. A permission slip for this outing is attached to the email. If you have not signed up yet, there is still time to sign up. Questions, please contact Abby Withers.

PHYSICAL FORMS!(Reminder) – BY TUESDAY, May 27th. Sherry will be going to a pre-camp meeting on Tuesday, June 3 and bringing the physical forms with her! We need your form before she goes! NO PHYSICAL FORM, NO SUMMER CAMP, BOUNDARY WATERS OR MINI-HIGH ADVENTURE. Every Scout and Leader MUST have an up-to-date BSA PHYSICAL FORM with all parts of the form filled out, Part A, B1, B2 and C if you plan to go to Summer Camp, Boundary Waters or the Mini-High Adventure. You must get a new one for this year. No Form, No Trip. WE NEED ALL PHYSICAL FORMS TURNED IN AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. Starting NEXT Scout Year(September), we MUST have a physical form on file for your scout for that scout to be able to go on ANY outing with the troop. This is Scouting America policy.

TAX EXEMPT DONATIONS(Important) – Now that we are back under the charter of Pathfinder Church, we once again have a 501c 3 status which means that we have an EIN number that allows for tax free donations! If you have been wanting to donate money to the troop for such things as our Campership Fund(help, send a scout to camp) or for other areas of troop need but haven’t wanted to be taxed on it, NOW is the time! Please talk to Sherry about donations to the troop!

 JERKY!(Reminder) – We only have a few weeks left in our Jerky stick sales this year! Typically, we run this sale until the end of May. Sell, sell, sell! Each stick sells for $1.00 and for each one sold, the scout earns 24 cents into their individual scout account. You can make payments for jerky at any time here – https://bit.ly/244Jerky

Scoutmaster Minute – GRIT – I will keep this shorter today as it has been a tiring weekend and dinner is calling to me right now! This last weekend our scouts continued to show us that they have GRIT. I was telling the scouts that I was reflecting this last weekend while I was cleaning out the Klewer latrine that often my generation criticizes the current young generation. We often say that the current generation has everything handed to them and that they don’t really know what hard work is. As I reflected on that, I saw our scouts in action this weekend. We had a job to do. We had to get all those leaves in Klewer campsite cleaned up so the ground can dry out before summer camp. We had to fix the axe yard. We had to clean out drainage pipes. Our scouts, working together, did all of this in 3 hours’ time! There was no laziness going on. There was only hard work. This shows me that Troop 244 Scouts have grit. They know how to work hard and get the job done. Grit is defined as a combination of passion and perseverance for long-term goals. It’s the ability to keep striving towards a goal when facing setbacks and challenges. You know what, that is exactly what our scouts were doing this weekend. We faced some interesting weather conditions this weekend between storms prior to and the night of the campout. The temperature was not the warmest and it was windy. Cleaning an entire campsite is not easy work and yet, our scouts showed passion for doing service work, not only for our troop, but for every troop that would use Klewer campsite this summer. They worked hard and THEY GOT THE JOB DONE!  I could not be prouder to be the Scoutmaster of Troop 244, where are scouts defy the stereotypes, work hard, show grit and FOLLOW THE SCOUT OATH AND LAW all the time! Great job Troop 244!!

 “What Troop Does More!!” – 244