Popcorn
We had a huge weekend at Bass Pro and have hit our $10K sales goal (including online). If your Scout is interested in taking inventory to sell through the neighborhood, please contact Tim or Nicole Harter. Scouts can also do a "take order" which is basically ordering now to be delivered at a future date. Our deadline for getting "Take Orders" into the system is 10/27 at 4:30PM...so you have all of this week and until Friday of next week for orders. We will have inventory for those orders on 11/18. You can also continue to get online orders through your Scout's Trail's End webpage.
October Meetings
This Tuesday (11/17) the Scouts will be making cards for Veteran's Day that will be distributed by the Senior Center. This is part of Levi Harter's 8th grade capstone project. They will also be starting to work on meal plans for the November Troop Trip. The plan for that trip is to do all of the cooking either with a lightweight backpacking stove or a cooking fire. The Troop has purchased 4 new "Jet Boil style" stoves for the Patrols to share. They can also think about potentially doing foil packs for their meals. I made a list of meal ideas a couple of years ago. I have added this guide to the troop website, but they can also access it directly here TROOP COOKING IDEAS. Please have them take a look and come up with some ideas of what they would like to cook on the November Trip. They can also just google "backpacking meals" or "Foil Pack Cooking" and come up with many recipes. The Patrols can divide into smaller groups if that makes it easier for the Scouts to collaborate.
Next Tuesday (11/24) we will be having a Troop 29 Open House/Recruiting night. As we did last year, we will be encouraging the Scouts to invite friends from School to check out the troop. We will supply pizza from Dominos, watch some videos, and pictures of recent trips. We will also be carving pumpkins (or painting) as an activity. Please have your Scouts think of friends they can invite to join the troop. I will also be putting the word out online through various Facebook pages. There will be NO WEBELOS crossing over in the spring, so this is our big chance to bring in new members this year. We will start the meeting 30 minutes earlier at 6:30PM - 8:00PM so that the Scouts can enjoy pizza for dinner.
No meetings on Halloween night, however we will need help on Friday 10/27 to set up the Halloween Haunted House. Please have your Scouts arrive starting at 6PM to help decorate the basement at St John's and turn it into a spooky haunted house for the next day.
Haunted House
As previously noted, we will be running a haunted house for St. John's on Saturday 10/28. The setup will take place the night before. We have two shifts planned for Saturday. The 2nd shift is a bit light on attendance. Please have your Scouts help out if they are able to. Here is a link to the sign up genius HAUNTED HOUSE The Scouts should be wearing some sort of costume (hopefully something spooky) as they manage the Haunted House that day.
Scouting for Food
I have not looked into this in great detail yet, but traditionally the first two weekends of November the Council designates for Scouting for Food. I am going to ask St. John's if we can somehow advertise at the pumpkin sale on the 28th (perhaps have flyers with a drop off date). Alternatively, the Troop could go out on the weekend of 11/4 - 11/5 to ask neighbors to help contribute (pass out flyers with what is needed) and then return to do the pickup on the afternoon of 11/12, after we get back from the Orienteering Trip. We'll discuss more with the PLC, but please have your Scouts plan to do something with Scouting for Food in November. I will also find out from the Franklin Food Bank what their biggest needs are this season.
Troop Trips
The weekend of 11/10 - 11/12, we will be heading to Nobscout Scout Reservation and camping in tents. As previously noted we will be focusing on trail cooking or cooking over fire, as well as Orienteering. Mr. Latshaw started to show the Scouts how to orient maps and read a compass last week. This will be a more intensive trek through Nobscot Scout Reservation, using those maps and compass to navigate from point to point. If you have not already signed up for November's Trip, you can do that here ORIENTEERING
December 15 - 17th we will be Cabin Camping at Squanto in Plymouth. We have reserved one of the newer cabins right off the parking lot and adjacent to the Campmaster's Cabin. The Campmaster's Cabin has flush toilets available. The Cabin will be heated! On Saturday we will travel to the National Cemetery in Bourne to help lay wreaths on Veterans Graves as part of Wreaths Across America. We will return to Squanto in early afternoon to work on Advancement, Cook Dinner, and play games and/or watch movies that evening. Please sign up here WREATHS
January - We are looking at weekends for a combined Ski Trip with Troop 99. Please be on the lookout for more details on this trip. Potentially we will be going to Pat's Peak in NH and sleeping overnight in their lodge. If anyone has the bandwidth to take on the planning for this trip please let me know. I started with an email and have a response for them. I could use help with coordinating
February - TBD but there are lots of things we can do if the weather cooperates and we have snow and frozen ponds. We could also potentially return to either the Freezout at Camp Resolute or Klondike at Camp Squanto....TBA
All of these upcoming trips, past trips, and council events can be found on the Troop 29 Website. I have started to update it and will add more pictures to the past trips page in the coming week. http://franklintroop29.org
Troop 29 Merchandise
We will be discussing soon the possibility of having a "pop up store" website with Troop 29 Gear available to purchase for you Scouts. Sweatshirts, Jackets, Class B shirts, Winter Hats, etc...please be on the lookout for a more formal announcement on whether or not this is possible. Either way, we would like to get the Scouts new SweatShirts and Winter Hats if possible. The troop may be able to subsidize some of the purchase, but there will be a cost associated with this.
Summer Camp 2024
I sent out a note a few days ago, but only have one response besides my own. Please take 3 minutes to ask your Scout which camp they are most interested in attending next summer and answer the poll. I would like to get a reservation on the books next week with a camp! Please review options with your Scout and select your top option for Camp.
