Trail Talk – 6/16/25

Happy Saturday Evening and Summer Camp Eve!

T’was the night before Summer Camp and all through Pioneer Scout Reservation, the creatures were stirring, even the staff! The campers were ready for a week full of fun in the hopes of rank advancements, merit badges and activities to be done! Sunday morning would bring such a clatter as well as the hopes and excitement of a whole bunch of scouts!

This is it folks, the night before Summer Camp! I hope you are ready! Sherry sent an email earlier this evening with important details and informational reminders about tomorrow morning! Please make sure you look at that email as I am NOT going to repeat what she already sent.

Here are our Troop announcements for the week:

SUMMER CAMP 2025(Check-In) TOMORROW, TOMORROW, WE LOVE YOU TOMORROW, YOUR ONLY A DAY AWAY!! Summer Camp is here! It is finally here! We are out of school and ready to camp! Be prepared to have fun! The biggest piece of advice I can give anyone and everyone going to camp is to remember this “You get out of it what you put into it”. That means if you go with a positive, “can do”, ready to have fun attitude, then that is exactly what you is going to happen. If you go with a negative, “I hate this”, “I would rather be playing video games”, piss poor attitude, then you are going to have a terrible time and there is nothing, not one thing, that anyone can do about it but YOU! Choose to have fun, choose to do the activities, choose to be involved!

The Introduction to Leadership Skills for Troops (ILST) – In place of merit badges and rank advancement, we will be running a program for the three Tuesdays AFTER SUMMER CAMP. ILST is a great training that helps the scouts understand the different roles and positions of a troop, and the leadership skills that will help them be successful. Usually this is something that we want to do after patrol elections, but this time around we want to make sure everyone can be a part of it. ILST will be split into 3 sessions held over the 3 normal troop meetings between Summer Camp and the Boundary Waters trips.

BOUNDARY WATERS(UPDATE) – July 11 – 20th. Meet at the church at 7:00 a.m. July 11th! Make sure your pack is ready with everything you need in it for the trip. Make sure you have a separate smaller bag for the car with fresh clothes, toiletries, things to do in the car and so on. Are you ready to hear the call of the Loon? Are you ready to maybe see an Eagle swoop down and snatch a fish out of the lake with its talons? Are you hoping to maybe see a Beaver swim by your campsite at dusk? Adventure is waiting and coming soon!

Mini-High Adventure(SIGNUP! SIGNUP! SIGNUP!) – August 2 – 6th the troop will travel to the historic battlefield of Gettysburg, 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!(URGENT! IMPORTANT!) – If you don’t have your physical form for Summer Camp turned in, you will NOT be able to go with us tomorrow. If you are not going to summer camp but are going to Boundary Waters or the Mini-High Adventure, you MUST have a physical form with all parts filled out including Part C signed by a doctor. If you don’t have this form turned into the troop, you are NOT going on either of those trips.

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) – THIS IS IT! We are now selling jerky until it runs out! We are not ordering or getting anymore! Let’s try to make sure we don’t lose any money on this fundraiser and get all the jerky that we have in stock, SOLD!  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 – OPPORTUNITY – As Summer Camp has approached this year I have been doing a lot of thinking about summer camp. Mostly I have thought a lot about past summer camps over the last 35 years. Of course, the first thing that comes to mind is that every single one of those had something in common….me and my dad. Every.single.one. This will be the first time that I will go to summer camp without my father and on Father’s Day, none the less. This will be tough for me. I am not going to sugar coat that at all, and I am expecting it. However, I have some things on my side. First, I have my own daughters with me for camp. For the first time in years, I have both of my kids with me on Father’s Day and both going to camp with me. I could not ask for anything more on Father’s Day. Another thing that we all have on our sides is each other. Troop 244 is a family. It is truly a family, where each member of the family looks out for the other members of the family. It doesn’t matter if you are a boy, girl, middle schooler, high school, adult, wanna be adult or whatever. We all look out for each other, which is what makes our troop so great. Finally, another thing on my side and yours is that we get to spend a week at camp! A week at camp is a very powerful experience. It is powerful because it is not just camping. It is not just doing merit badges or rank requirements. It is not just swimming, rifle shooting, archery, or whatever. It is a combination of ALL those things rolled into one. On our first Philmont trek in 1994, my dad taught our crew a very important lesson, one that I have carried with me all these years. We were sitting in a campsite, and it was a trail camp, which meant no staff and no program. We were “bored”. Can you believe that? Bored at Philmont. How is that possible? Finally, my dad got sick of us just sitting around and kicked all of us out of camp and told us to go explore. Explore we did! We went all over that area, climbing rocks, discovering different animals and natural features. We found some of the best views at Philmont. My dad’s point – DO IT. Get out there and take advantage of everything you can while you can! Don’t just sit on your rear end but be a part of everything you can! I encourage all of you scouts to do the same at camp. My dad might not be at camp with us this year, but his lessons to us can continue to live on!

 “What Troop Does More!!” – 244