In July 2010 6 Scouts and 3 Adults participated in a true wilderness experience in the Maine north woods. Based out of Matagamon High Adventure Base (near Patten, ME), the crew spent a week canoeing and sailing lakes, running rapids and portaging gear/canoes 5 times over difficult terrain.
Trip photos can be found on kodakgallery.com at http://tinyurl.com/2g2xgqe. The full trip report can be found here, or via the Trip Planning information page.
First–the first meeting will be on a Wednesday, not a Thursday because that very next Friday is a school holiday and the start of the Labor Day weekend. Then the next week we run into a Thursday holiday which makes a meeting impossible. The main point of the first meeting is election of a new SPL and reorganization of patrols. All Scouts should make a real effort to attend because the selection of an SPL is VERY important. So Wednesday, not Thursday, this one time only. Mark that date on your calendar: September 1st at 7:30 PM.
There were very few lost items reported at camp. One was a gray-and-blue backpack with a water bottle in it. If it shows up in a trunk, bring it to the first meeting. If you are missing other items, let me know about it.
I owe pictures to a small handful of people and arrows to a slightly larger handful. I will give them to you when I see you. There is a continuing misunderstanding of pictures and how they are paid for. We used to ask a Scout who went to camp for two weeks pay for one of the pictures. That is no longer the case. It is built into the price of camp.
There are some meds which parents did not pick up after camp including an epi pen. E-mail me offline so I can figure out how to get the meds back to you.
There are some partials on merit badges which can be cleaned up. We are making plans for a cleanup session like the one we had last year. The merit badges we will concentrate on will include Swimming, First Aid, Small Boat Sailing, and Pioneering. We will take a look at all of the partials, however, to see what a Scout needs to do to complete those merit badges. If we can provide some way to complete those partials, we will. I suspect it will be an Old Res Saturday as it was last time.
We will also be discussing camp among the Scouts at that first meeting so we can start the planning process for next year. If adults have any thoughts about camp, good or bad, please share them with me.
A note to adults: Go online and at the very least get that Youth Protection Training requirement out of the way. The rules are getting stricter and we want all our adults to have YPT.
-Hank
Below is a link to some photos which show our first couple of days at Hidden Valley this year.
http://www.hankmanz.phanfare.com/4792675
It rained one night, but by the morning the rain had stopped and it is now back to warm and dry weather. Bugs are close to zero.
Everybody has been in the water at least once as the pictures will show.
I will publish a much longer slideshow after we return from camp, so if you have any pictures let me have them. You can send them to me by e-mail (a slow process), you can put them on CD or DVD or even a flash drive, or you can simply upload them to the dropbox associated with the Phanfare site I am using. Look for the squared-off U in the upper corner of the front page. You can upload pictures for me to look at. There is no cost associated with that and you don’t have to have a Phanfare account. Let me know if you have problems uploading.
You can download any pictures you like so you can print them or you can send them off to a variety of photo printing services for an attractively low price.
See you next Saturday!
-Hank Manz
For the first time in years, the Scoutmaster missed the first day of camp so he does not yet have bus pictures and arrival pictures and all of that. Not much gets in the way of camp, but the marriage of my oldest child was, I have to say, just a bit more important. She married an Eagle Scout, after all. However, I do have some shots of camp life. Go to the link below this note and then click on Start Slideshow to see the show so far. Many more pictures will be added and I am hoping that returning Scouts and adults will contribute some of theirs to the effort.
I am sure there are some misspellings and other typos as well as duplicate and out-of-order shots which will be cleaned up in the final version.
Pictures may be sent to any of a number of photo printing services or you can download the high-res image behind each picture and print it yourself. If you wish to contribute pictures you can leave them in the dropbox on the Phanfare site, you can e-mail them (the hardest way in most cases), or you can give them to me on a disk or flash drive.
The weather is terrific. Just a bit of rain Monday night which settled the dust and cooled things down without making anybody uncomfortable. Since then we have had nothing but warm days and cool nights with another spot of rain.
The two Beefy O’s and the Rubber Bandits have been doing incredible work in the kitchen, but the Rat and Cardboard patrols are catching up quickly. The Rats are at Outpost on an overnight as I write this. They planned the hike, they will cook their own supper tonight, and they will figure out how to get there. And they named their own patrol, by the way. 
Look for an expanded slide show after we return from camp on the 21st. And if anybody has any pictures, send ‘em on.
-Hank Manz
I apologize for using an all-points e-mail to catch just a few, but time is short. This is directed at all First Year Scouts going to Bell.
All of you will be participating in the Curlews program which has been considerably beefed up. The plan was to put the new program into place next year, but since we have been pushing for changes and since it is a light week, it seemed like a good idea to not wait until next year. This should give all First Years a signoff on even more requirements for Tenderfoot, Second, and First Class.
But to fully participate there will be an overnight thrown in as part of the five-mile hike requirement so you should make sure you have at least the following gear with you:
- Rain gear
- Sleeping bag you can carry
- Pack
If you are going to fall short on either the pack or sleeping bag, send me an e-mail so we can dig into the troop stores to see if we have what you need. Once we are up there, it will be too late, so do it now.
Thanks,
-Hank Manz