Trail Talk – 9/29/25

Good morning Troop 244!!!

Wow, it is almost October! Can you believe that?! That just seems crazy to me. It certainly doesn’t feel like it is outside. I am not going to lie though; I love the warmer temps and will keep them for as long as we can! I love this kind of weather in the Fall! I just hope I get the chance to get outside and enjoy it! I hope that you all had a great weekend this weekend! I know that we had some scout stuff going on this weekend between Adopt-A-Highway, merit badge days galore and just general scouting. I hope you guys are ready for the week ahead. Mostly, I hope you are ready for the COURT OF HONOR ON TUESDAY NIGHT AT 6:30 P.M. I just spent a couple of hours putting together some stuff for the Court of Honor. A few of our other adult leaders have also been busy putting together the awards for the court of honor. We are prepared to hand out over 400 awards on Tuesday night! That is incredible! We will see you there! MAKE SURE YOU WEAR YOUR CLASS A UNIFORMS AND YOUR NECKERCHIEFS!

Just so everyone knows, for this next Tuesday at the Court of Honor, Sherry will not be present. Becky will also not be present. Brandon Beery will be “Sherry” for the night if you need to sign up for anything or turn anything in. This would include anything for the October campout(PLEASE SIGN UP), or high adventures or anything else!

One thing I do want to mention to everyone, and it is more an area we need to work on than anything else. This last Saturday we had only 5 people show up to do Adopt-A-Highway. We have a three-mile stretch of US131, both southbound and northbound, that we are responsible for taking care of. 5 people is nowhere near enough! We need to do better in the spring at our Spring Adopt-A-Highway. That includes me. I will do better at making sure you are more informed, but I need scouts to do better at showing up! Let’s work on this!

IMPORTANT NOTES AND ANNOUNCEMENTS FOR THIS WEEK:

Fall Court of Honor – September 30th at 6:30 p.m. We are planning to have our annual Fall Court of Honor THIS Tuesday, September 30th at 6:30 p.m. Please note that the time we will start is 6:30 p.m. We need scouts at the church by 5:45 p.m. to help set up chairs! This court of honor is always a big one because of all that has been accomplished over the summer months. We are going to be handing out over 400 awards, leadership positions, advancements, recognition and more! Parents, please attend WITH your scouts! Please note: THIS IS NOT A DINNER COURT OF HONOR. There will be NO Food!! ALSO, SCOUTS, PLEASE WEAR YOUR CLASS A UNIFORMS AND NECKERCHIEFS!!

Procedural and Policy items –

• Adults who participate in Troop activities MUST be registered with Scouting America to do so. They also need to have completed the Safeguarding Youth Training. This is something that is not debatable or flexible. We want adults to do activities, but we must follow the rules. If you hope to come on an activity, get yourself registered now and take the training!
• Medical Forms – We need to make sure that we have up to date medical forms for all scouts AND ADULT LEADERS. For activities less than 72 hours, this means Parts A, B1 and B2 of the medical form. For activities over 72 hours, we also must have the doctor part of the form, Part C filled out and turned in. Please make sure your form is up to date and turn it into Sherry.
• Permission Slips – 2 pages. Front page, fill out and turn into Sherry before an activity. Second page, tear off the top part and keep so you know the times of departure and return to the church. Bottom part of second page, fill out. Put medications in their original containers and the bottom of the second page in a Ziploc bag. Turn into scout leader before activity.

3. 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.  I am not a huge fan of that, but I think it might be worth the cost this time! 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. Please note the change in wording for medications. We NEED medications in their original bottles and the bottles put into Ziploc bags along with the second half of the second page of the permission slip. Thank you!

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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!! I will be registering for Philmont this week!! You guys have no idea how excited that makes me! We will owe Philmont $150 per person by December 1 so when you sign up, we are asking for a $150 deposit fee. If finances are an issue, PLEASE COME AND TALK TO US!!

7. Tuesday, November 4 – no troop meeting due to election day at church. All church activities are cancelled, and the building is closed except for the election.

Scoutmaster Minute – I was doing what a lot of us do when we are bored and I was scrolling through social media at one point this weekend. I am old so I use Facebook although I am still a little hip, so I use Instagram as well! 😊 Anyway, I was scrolling through Facebook, and I came across this really cool “story” of something a teacher did with her class. I wanted to share that with you.

This teacher gave her a test in class. The test was really easy; she gave them a picture of a chair and asked them “What is the most important part of a chair?”. This was the only question on the test. So, the students took the test and naturally they gave answers like “the seat”, “the back”, “the legs” and so on. She looked at them all and shook her head and told them that they had all failed the test. These were not the most important parts of the chair. She then showed them another picture showing all the hidden components of the chair. The things you can’t see. This included screws, the joints, dowels, glue, the stuffing in the cushion of the chair or the back, and so on. Without these items, the chair wouldn’t even hold together.

This teacher gave this lesson to the students as an example of how important it is for a person to take care of themselves. Sometimes, we look at what is important as the things on the outside, our job, our hobbies, our activities, our friends, even our own personal outside. However, if we don’t take care of the things on the inside, our mental health, our physical health, our spiritual health, our body systems, muscles, and so on, then everything will just fall apart.

I wanted to share this with you all because I thought it was such an easy lesson for seeing something so profound. Please, take care of yourselves. Get enough rest, eat properly, make smart and good choices, surround yourself with people that will lift you up and support you. We can get so concerned with external factors that we forget to focus on the internal. It is important that every single scout follows the scout Oath when it says, “to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight”. Make sure you are doing that daily!

“What Troop Does More!!” – 244