The Troop 1954 Wednesday Newsletter

Wednesday, March 2, 2005

Hi Folks,

Thanks to everyone who helped out at last night's meeting.  OA elections went very smoothly (thanks to AJ) and thanks to John Myers for his turtle presentation.

We're camping at Guadalupe River State Park this weekend.  We'll be leaving from the Scout Hut at 5:30.  The park is roughly seven miles beyond the intersection of routes 46 and 281.  It takes just about an hour to get there.  Saturday, if all goes well, we'll have a tour of the Honey Creek area, which is generally closed to visitors.  We'll also, hopefully, be doing a brief service project for the park.  Guadalupe has a reputation of being sticklers on keeping the number of tents in campsites relatively low (and tightly clustered) so if patrols could plan on tenting together, that would be best.

Our schedule for March: We'll be meeting next week as usual.  There will be no meeting on March 15 (Spring Break week).  We will meet as normal on the 22.  ON the 29th we are scheduled for swimming at the Baptist Academy (I believe).  I will be not be at either the March 22 or March 29 meetings.  I'll be back for April 5.

A techie note: If you're not technically minded, don't worry about this, nothing should change for you.  However, if you're interested in this stuff, I am about to make some significant technical changes to our website.  For the past two years (for scouts...and much longer for cubs) our web sites have been hosted by Texas State University.  We are grateful for the use of their servers, but (along with my other stuff) we're growing to large for them.  So, during the next week or so, I will be migrating the website to a new location.  You may notice some differences in service and there may be some times when the site is down.  Our web address will continue to be www.sanmarcos1954.org but, whereas before this pointed to my area on the Texas State servers, it will now point to troop1954.sanmartians.net.  Just for the record, I personally own both the domain names www.sanmarcos1954.org and www.sanmartians.net . By the way, if anyone wants a sanmartians.net email address, let me know, I can arrange it (such email can be accessed through webmail but is better through a client such as Outlook or Outlook Express).

I'm leaving the following notices from previous weeks up here.  Important stuff folks.

Summer Camp packets were distributed at the meeting on January 25.  Briefly, we're going to summer camp at Camp Alexander in Colorado this year.  We leave on June 24 and return July 3.  Camp Alexander is a spectacular place and it should be a fantastic camping experience.  The cost is $400 for scouts and adults.  The first payment of $100 was due on February 15th.  If you're planning on going but haven't yet paid, please contact Susie Lewis, slewis@mail.riverrats.net as soon as possible.

Financial Aid: The troop committee has made some financial aid funding available for expenses including camp.  You will find the policies for the awarding of financial aid and forms to apply for financial aid by following this link or by going to our troop website, sanmarcos1954.org and clicking troop policies, then financial aid policies.  Note: the committee made some changes in both the policies and forms at our last meeting.  Financial aid forms should be submitted to Curtis Painton, Committee Chair.

I want to remind the younger scouts that there are participation requirements for advancement to First Class.  To be get your first class rank, you have to participate in 10 troop events other than meetings. At least three of them must include camping.  During these camp-outs you have to pitch a tent, help prepare a meal, select a camp site for your patrol, plan a menu, serve as patrol cook...as well as several other things.  Some of our Biohazards and Vicious Badgers haven't been on many camp-outs.  They really need to start coming if they want advancement.

This week's patrol contest winners:

As always, the Troop 1954 events calendar, this and all back newsletters,  and all sorts of other useful information is available on our website at www.sanmarcos1954.org