LAST COH
Thank you to everybody who helped organize that last COH. And thanks to all of the merit badge counselors who taught the classes which allowed Scouts to earn all those badges.
And thank you to the Guides and Instructors who got so many Scouts to Tenderfoot, Second, and First Class.
However, a question about advancement to Scout for some New Scouts has arisen. Apparently there has been some slipup in communication so that some may not be aware that they have reached that rank. We are sorting that out now. I will send out another note once I know what is going on.
FLAG DAY
Remember Flag Day. 7:00 PM on the Battle Green in Class A uniform this coming Monday evening. Show up a few minutes early because we want to start promptly at 7 PM. The ceremony will be short. I have a meeting starting at 7:30 PM so you can bet I will be pushing it.
I need at least three Scouts to help fold the flag so for those who want to do it, please come 20 minutes early so we can practice. Dropping the flag at the ceremony would be less than cool. This is a very big flag so we will want to practice. I will bring a tarp which approximates the size of the flag.
SUMMER ADVANCEMENT CLASSES
It has been pointed out to me that I left no time to meet with the Guides, Instructors, JASMS, and others who will be doing the actual work during the summer classes. While I said “I” a lot in that earlier e-mail, since we actually use our Guides, Instructors, and older Scouts, that was sort of the inclusive “I”. Meaning “we”.
So there has been a slight change of plans. Next Thursday will NOT be a class. Instead, I would like to meet with any available older Scouts, Guides, Instructors, and JASMs interested in participating as instructors in this effort. We will meet from 6:00 to 7:30 PM at our usual meeting place. Outside if the weather permits. I will still need that other adult. More if they are around.
GEAR INVENTORY & GENERAL QM ROOM CLEANUP
Some things have changed where gear is concerned. The rooms have been cleaned up a bit and the gear has been inventoried. Most equipment now has numbers to allow us to track problems. When you have 8 identical lanterns and then one starts having problems, it is hard to identify which one is the problem one when they are all put back on the shelf in our storeroom.
Tent poles concern me a bit. We appear to have tents which we cannot use because we are missing pole sets for them. We have been busy checking, unbending, and putting new shock cord in our poles, but a bunch are just missing. I suspect that the poles have been lost onesy-twosy rather than a whole set at once. One of the new tents was missing a complete pole set which took me more than two months to locate. I found it, pole by pole, and section by section, spread across the storerooms and in various other places.
So part of the summer classes will probably be about gear. We probably need to relearn how to fold tents and flys and how to care for poles.
In the near future I will make available a list of all the gear the troop has which can be made available for events.
One of the things I did was sort out all of the food. I tossed anything even close to the end of its shelf life, but we still have a ton of stuff. Before an event, patrol grubmasters might want to visit the QM storeroom to see what is available. Hint: We have enough oatmeal in various forms and flavors to feed a small country.
TRIP REPORTS
This is directed mostly at adults who are trip organizers.
Trip organizers should sit down after a trip has been completed and write a quick report about it. Some things to include are:
Where you went
When you went
Transportation arrangements and how you managed it
How many Scouts, how many adults attended
Things that went well
Things that gave you problems
Expenses plus total cost of trip
Changes you would recommend for future trips like yours
For instance, we have something like 20 years of Pancake Breakfast reports. When I took over as coordinator for three years, those reports were invaluable. When I was the organizer for the Fall Cookout, the report done by Skip Irving the year before was what allowed me to run it with absolutely no sweat and then the combination of Skip’s report and my report made it a lot easier for the coordinator the next year.
So, even though I am writing this without telling the organizers, and while they are on the road so they won’t see this until they get home on Monday, let’s start with the Nantucket Bike Trip. And maybe fill in with one on the Last COH for this year.
And one more bit of paperwork. As the organizer is putting the gear back in the storage area, grab an equipment report and fill it out. It will take only a minute or two and will give the QMs some hint of what equipment needs to be looked at before the next event.
