Trail Talk – 9/23/25

Happy First Day of Fall! I hope you are doing great today! We had a great weekend this last weekend with the September campout! We had lots of scouts and adult leaders on the campout.  We learned a lot about fishing from some of our scout fishing experts. We did a lot of fishing. Sadly, we did NOT do a lot of catching. Only the littlest fish seemed to be biting on Saturday afternoon and they were just eating our worms right off the hook! I bought a fishing license just to feed the fish on Saturday! Thank you to Christy and the other adult leaders for leading and being the adult presence on that campout as I could not be there the whole time! Thank you to Eli Szekely, Elizabeth Haas and Phinn Cornwell for providing youth leadership on the campout! You guys rock!

IMPORTANT NOTES AND ANNOUNCEMENTS FOR THIS WEEK:

Adults on Campouts – I noticed this weekend that not all our adult leaders were registered and/or had medical forms turned in. I want to remind parents and adult leaders that it is the policy of Scouting America that in order to attend an outing of some kind, you need to be a REGISTERED adult leader who has taken the Safeguarding Youth training(the old YPT training) AND we need to have a medical form on file for you with at least Parts A, B1 and B2 for a weekend campout! We love having adults on campouts, but we do need to follow these policies the best we can! So, if you would like to come out on a campout, get yourself registered with the troop and scouting, fill out Medical Form(attached) Parts A, B1 and B2 and turn it all into Sherry! Thank you!

ADOPT-A-HIGHWAY –   September 27 at 9:00 a.m. at the Speedway Gas Station in Schoolcraft. THAT IS THIS SATURDAY!! Please bring gloves and wear long pants. We have adopted this section of 131 now for 30 years and we clean it up every September and April. These are SERVICE hours! We need as many people as possible to help! The more we have, the quicker it gets done. It usually takes about 3 hours. We need adults who can drive alongside the highway to supervise and keep scouts safe. Sean Harrigan will be leading up this event.

October Campout – October 17 – 19th and we will be camping at Fort Custer Recreation Area in one of their group sites.  During the day on Saturday, we will venture out and go to Gull Meadow Farms for a “Fall Excursion”. We will do what you do at Cider mills and Apple farms in the fall…Corn Mazes, Games, Apple Canons, Apples, Cider and Donuts and much more! Because we are planning to go to Gull Meadow Farms, the cost for this campout will be a little bit higher than normal. The cost will be $60 per person. This cost will include the cost of the campout itself(food, campsite, transportation) as well as entry to Gull Meadow Farms. However, if you plan to buy cider, donuts, apples or anything at their store, YOU NEED TO BRING YOUR OWN MONEY!  The permission slip for this campout is attached. There will be a signup for this campout starting TOMORROW(TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 23) NIGHT! Please sign up as soon as possible! This will be a fun “FALL campout”!!

Adult Helper Needed – When the troop goes camping, we string up lights in our canopies and those lights are powered by car batteries. For several years now, Jeff Crawford has helped the troop out quite a bit by making sure that those batteries are charged and ready to go before each campout. He would like to step back from that duty and so I am looking for someone else who would be willing to take the car batteries that we have home, charge them and make sure they are returned to the trailer before the next campout. If you are willing to do this, please let myself, Christy and Jeff know! Thank you!

SwampBase Participants – As of now, you should be up to date with your payments in the amount of $300. This includes payments for the deposit as well as payments for the months of August and September. We must send SwampBase the first payment by October 1st.  Mike King, the adult leader in charge of SwampBase, would also like to start meeting with all the participants. He is looking to have a SwampBase meeting on Tuesday, October 21st either at 6:00 before the meeting or during the meeting at 7:00. Please check your email for an email from Mike and let him know what works best for you! Starting in October, payments will be made in increments of $160 per month through February.

SERVICE OPPORTUNITY! At Pathfinder Church! In October we will be filling Blessing Bags for Midwest Mission. The bags have rice, soy, dehydrated vegetables and a vitamin packet. One bag will feed hungry people and they are sent all over the world. We will be setting up assembly lines with 10 people per line to fill the bags, weigh them and seal.  We will be running 4 lines for probably 3 hours. We wondered if perhaps the Scouts might be interested in helping to set up, tear down or fill the bags. Set up will be on Friday, October 24 around 6:15.  Saturday, October 25 will be filling the bags, sometime during the day. No set times currently. Probably that afternoon we will be tearing down.

Philmont 2027 – Are you interested in the trip of a lifetime? Are you interested in challenging yourself alongside your fellow scouts? Are you interested in doing things you might not be able to do elsewhere? Are you interested in seeing some of the most beautiful country that is on planet Earth? If you are then, please sign up for Philmont 2027 on the signup sheet with Sherry and pay the $150 deposit as soon as possible. We have had several more people sign up since I last sent out a Trail Talk! I am so excited!! Sherry will be sending an email out to confirm the people that we already have signed up! Please check to make sure your name is on that list! If it isn’t, and you want to go to Philmont, email myself and Sherry. We do need a $150 deposit, but you can talk to us about that if it is a problem right now. Please doublecheck that you are signed up to go!

Fall Court of Honor – September 30th at 6:30 p.m. We are planning to have our annual Fall Court of Honor on Tuesday, September 30th. This court of honor is always a big one because of all that has been accomplished over the summer months. There will be announcements and awards galore! This includes merit badges, rank advancements and more! In addition, we have a special ceremony for one of our adult leaders that will be a part of this court of honor! You don’t want to miss out! Make sure that you attend with your scouts! THIS TUESDAY, Tuesday, Sept. 23 will be the last day for any merit badges or rank advancements to be completed if you want them to be awarded at this court of honor. This is only a few weeks away, so if you want an award earned by the court of honor, you had better start finishing it up now!

Scoutmaster Minute –  SYMBOLS – Why do symbols have such a profound place and heavy impact in our culture. There are symbols all over the place. In the Christian faith, the symbol of the Cross is a symbol of Jesus death and resurrection. In the Jewish faith, the Star of David is a symbol of Judaism thought to be the shield of David and linking the symbol to the Seal of Solomon. We use symbols all the time. The symbol of the heart is meant to symbolize love, the dove represents peace, the apple represents knowledge. Even in Math we use symbols! The plus sign means to add, the minus sign to subtract and so on. Scouting symbols are all over the place as well. The Eagle represents the highest rank and scouting and stands for freedom and leadership. The two stars on the 1st Class badge represent truth and knowledge. The knot tied to the bottom of the Second Class Badge and up reminds us to “do a good turn daily”. The Second Class Badge itself reminds us to always be cheerful as it is turned into a smile. I was thinking about symbols yesterday because we have another symbol that is often used upon the passing of someone from this life. That symbol is the symbol of the Headstone and what is written on that headstone. After months of not having a headstone, of them losing the  order for the headstone and then us finally reordering, my dad’s grave finally has a proper headstone. My sister let me know this yesterday and sent a picture. I have to admit, seeing that proper headstone made me grieve all over again. I was lost a bit in contemplation and that sense of loss in looking upon my dad’s headstone.  When I showed the picture of the headstone to my daughter, she pointed out the symbols on the headstone. We made sure that two symbols were placed on my dad’s headstone, that of the Cross to represent his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ and that of the Fleur de Lis, the symbol of Scouting in America. The Fleur De Lis is shaped like the “mariner’s compass” and is always meant to show us the way north. My dad loved his Savior, and he loved scouting. These two symbols seemed appropriate as a symbol of my dad, his legacy and his work as well as a place to mark his final resting place.  What symbol will represent your life and legacy someday?

“What Troop Does More!!” – 244