ScoutMaster's Corner

The first Troop meeting of the new scout year is this Tuesday, September 7, 2004.
As usual, we start at 6:30 pm at the Union Congregational Church and end at 8:00 pm. Permission slips
are also due by this meeting for our very popular water weekend at Camp Collier (a weekend of
swimming, sailing, canoeing and even a rope swing into the water). To help us out with menu
planning and patrol assignments, please turn in permission slips by 7:00 pm with your cash
payment. 

During our first few meetings, we will finish-up Summer Camp advancements. This includes
Scoutmaster Conferences, Boards of Review and completing those partial merit badges. If you
have work to finish, please make an effort to attend these first few meetings. There is a Family
Night and Court of Honor Tuesday, October 12, 2004 (this is a date change to avoid conflicts
with school open houses, class trips and varsity soccer games) to re-celebrate our camp
advancements, acknowledge work since then, and to relive the last few month's Scouting
activities via a slide show. We will also unveil our schedule of events for calendar 2005.

It is also time to gear up for our biggest fundraiser of the year, the Pancake Breakfast, Sunday,
October 24, 2004. Tickets will be issued during our September 14th meeting. Each Scout is
expected to meet their obligation to the Troop by selling $15.00 in tickets. This represents one
family ticket and one individual ticket. Since all our Troop families support us by eating at the
pancake breakfast and working a shift, you only need to sell an additional single ticket to meet
your sales obligation. The balance of your ticket sales go directly into your Scout account.

We return to Seabase (the Florida Keys) next summer and hope to make another trek to
Philmont Scout Ranch (northeastern New Mexico) during a subsequent summer. These trips
are expensive. Selling pancake breakfast tickets is a great way to raise funds to help pay for
these trips or cover a week at summer camp. As a special sales note to our younger Scouts, it is
always easier to sell many tickets and build up your account balance when you are young and
cute. Our older Scouts, the old and ugly, need to rely on their sales expertise.

This is also a great time of year to welcome new members. Young men who stay in the program
and make it to Eagle typically have one or two close friends in the Troop. If you have a friend
who is not yet a scout invite them to join. They just come to a meeting and fill out an application.
There is no waiting period. The can join next Tuesday and be on their first trip next Friday.
A Troop goal this year is to make more use of e-mail and our web page to get information out.
Once we get organized, look for permission slips and packing lists posted on the web
(http://web.maynard.ma.us/troop130/index.htm). We have at least one e-mail address for just
about all our families. If you did not receive an electronic version of this letter please drop me a
quick e-mail at bob6161@aol.com. It is our intent to suppress e-mail addresses in our mailings
and we will closely guard your e-mail address to help keep the spammers at bay.

Bob Hill, Scoutmaster - Troop 130