The Troop 1954
Wednesday Newsletter

 

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Hi Folks,

Thanks to all who helped with last night's meeting.  In the next couple of weeks we need to really get our youth and adult leadership teams functioning well.  My sense at the moment is that everyone is having fun (and that's a really good thing) but not too much scout stuff is really getting done.  To make this work better, I'd like to get our system of adult coaches working again.  If you can take the responsibility of coaching one of our six active patrols, please let me know as soon as possible.  I really need at least three new coaches (people who have not done it before...those of you who have done it, I'm counting on you to continue to do it).  All that's needed is a willingness to make it to meetings pretty much every week and a willingness to work with the kids.  Let me know, r.warms@txstate.edu.

Lots of camping going on this weekend.  Our newly elected SPL, ASPL, and all PLs will be camping Friday night at the Seguin outdoor learning center.  On Saturday evening they will be headed up to McKinney Falls.  The rest of the troop will be camped at McKinney Falls both Friday and Saturday nights.  All campers meet on Friday evening at the Scout Hut at 5:00.  Plan on returning for lunch on Sunday.

Unfortunately, the 1954 Webelos have decided not to join us on this camp out.  We hope they will join us on another one later in the year.

Speaking of Pack 1954, I've asked Gabriel Garcia and Tom Heathman to serve as official liaisons between the troop and pack.

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  The Wednesday Newsletter is the official record of Troop 1954 and serves as minutes for all troop and committee meetings.

Note that the patrol names are still in flux.  We'll get the final names in a week or so.

Attendance

SPL  Tony Frediani presiding assisted by ASPL Justin Williams

 

 

Vicious Badgers  Patrol Leader, James Wheatly

 

Aaron
Daniel
John
James

 

 

Ferocious Ferrets  Patrol Leader, Perry Henson

 

Tony
Lorenzo
Perry
Kirk R.
Justin

 

Mullets   Patrol Leader, Mason R-K

Nathan He.
Philip
Mason

 

 

 

Biohazards   Patrol Leader, Ace Govea

Alexey
Eric
Ace

 

 

 

Crimson Fromage     Patrol Leader, Ben Warms

Patrol motto: A Light Sprinkling of Genius with a Chance of Doom

Sean
Ben P.
Josh
Ben W.

 

Highly Flammable Piffs     Patrol Leader,

Patrol motto: Don't Misunderestimate Us!

Lee

 

Non-Patrol Scouts    

 

 

Point System Scoring

 

Patrol

Attend.

Uniform

Behavior

Game

Spirit

Meeting

6 Mo

V. Badgers

4

5

-

3

-

12

12

F. Ferrets

4

5

 

5

-

14

14

Biohazards

4

5

 

3

-

12

12

Fromage

5

4

-1

5

-

14

13

Piffs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
notes: 1) you get half a point for wearing a "class B" on a "class A" night
2) We're adding a category for the evening's contest (whatever it may be).  We'll see how it works.
3) We'll try another new rule...especially because we have reduced summer attendance.  In case of tie, the patrol with the largest number of people attending gets the award.

Note: Scouts with more than three consecutive misses will not be counted against patrol attendance scores.  Such scouts are not removed from their patrols.  They are simply not counted for attendance points until they return.  Also note that when all patrols score the same on a category, it doesn't matter what they score.
Behavior, subtract for each incident.

Fails to come to order when scout sign given -1
Fighting with each other -1 per incident
Bad language -1 per incident
Failure to treat others with respect -1
Asked repeatedly to do any task -1
Fails to clean up -1
Shows poor sportsmanship -1

 Spirit: Add for each, highest score is a five.

All members cooperate with game +1
Members make progress on meeting’s task +1
Members show enthusiasm for tasks +1
Members show good organization (listen to PL and Coach) +1
Members exemplify Scout Law +1


 

 

Announcements

 


1) Cub Halloween Carnival will be held at 7:00 on Thursday, October 27th.  We will need to work on setting up the haunted house at next week's meeting.  We'll also need to arrive early to staff the haunted house on the 27th.

2) November 5 is scout day for Texas State Football.  Wear your class "A" and get in free.

 
 

News of the Scouting World

 

Virginia man to receive Eagle Scout award - at age 74

The Associated Press State & Local Wire
October 17, 2005
By LINDA McNATT, The Virginian-Pilot

Vann Johnson has always been possessed by a dogged determination. When he joined the Boy Scouts at age 12, he walked more than five miles to attend the meetings and return to his home on Whitemarsh Road in Suffolk, he said. As a teenager, he became infatuated with a lovely 16-year-old. More than 50 years later, he married her.  He was the first in his family to graduate from college. It took him seven years, but, in 1955, he earned a degree in business from Virginia Tech.  And now, 57 years after he first met the requirements in the summer of 1947, Johnson is about to receive his Eagle Scout award.
     "I can't tell you what it means," the 74-year-old said recently. "I just can't. An Eagle in scouting is like a general in the Army. I earned it, but I never got it."
     In one year - 1946 - Johnson passed the requirements for 14 merit badges. In the summer of 1947, he went off to Camp Waters, on the James River near Surry, determined to get the final four. "I was gung-ho," Johnson said. "I was a perfect Scout. I volunteered to wash dishes. Every bunk around me was made up perfectly." But he made one mistake. On the Saturday night before the awards ceremony, Johnson and three other Scouts slipped away from camp to see a Petersburg friend visiting nearby Scotland Neck. Before they got back, the leaders had checked beds.
     "We were only gone for an hour," Johnson said. "They told us we weren't getting our awards. It was heartbreaking, like an arrow had pierced my heart."  He found out later - too late to get his Eagle - that all of the other Scouts who had been away without leave that night eventually got their merit badges.
Johnson grieved over his loss for years.
     Just a few months ago, Johnson was with a cousin, doing research at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Bennett s Creek. He saw a man in a Scout uniform.  "I have a wild story I'd like to tell you," he remembers saying to David Robertson, Scout master of the church's Troop 96. Robertson told him: Write it up, bring me your application, and I'll get it in for you.  Johnson went before the board that reviews applications for the Colonial Virginia Council. Clutched in his hand, as he stood before the board, Johnson had his original application, dated July 17, 1947. He'd hung onto it all those years. "We may have done the review for the world's oldest Eagle Scout," said Fred Glanville, a longtime local Scout leader, an Eagle Scout himself and a member of the board. 
     Not quite, according to the national office of the Boy Scouts of America in Irving, Texas.  The national board has looked at applications for Eagle Scouts as old as 90, said Terry C. Lawson, director of advancement. It doesn't happen often, he said, but every once in a while.  In recent years, Lawson said, the board looked at an Eagle application for a World War II Me dal of Honor winner. The man had accomplished everything he'd ever wanted to accomplish, except for the Eagle. "We don't award lightly," Lawson said. "We have to document and verify. It is very unique. The Eagle, for these men, is as important a happening in their lives as getting married, getting a college degree or having their first child." 
     Johnson had everything the board required. Glanville has volunteered to be the "voice of the Eagle" part of the ceremony where someone talks about how "we've watched you grow and become a man."  Chuckling, Glanville said, "I think we may have to change it just a little for Vann."  The ceremony will take place next month at the Bennett s Creek Ruritan Club, with family, friends and Johnson's "best merit badge," his wife, Liz, standing by. The Johnsons married four years ago.  "He's persistent," she said, smiling. "He sets his mind to doing something, and he does it." 
 

Upcoming Events

October 21-22 Leaders' team-building camp, Seguin

October 21-23, McKinney Falls Camp Out

November 18-20, Garner State Park Camp Out

December 1-3, Sights and Sounds of Christmas Funnel Cake Fundraiser

December 26-30, Winter Camp

January 20-22, John Knox Camp Camp-Out (ropes course)

February TBA, Lost Pines (climbing tower and canoeing)

March 13-17, Enchanted Rock Camp-Out

March 30-April 2, Camporee

April 4, Troop Elections

April 11, Spring Court of Honor

May 5-7, Inks Lake

June 2-4 Big Bend

July TBA Summer Camp