Calling all SPL's and ASPL's to come on over to the Lakeshore District Roundtable at the Ridgepoint Community Church at 7:00 PM on the second Thursday of every month starting on September 8.  We will be offering this new breakout session just for the top youth leaders in your troop. We will be offering all kinds of tools, tips, and activities to help the top youth leaders be more effective leaders. Some of the items that will be covered are communications, conflict resolution, motivating scouts, strengthening patrols, utilizing the patrol methods and the importance of it, meeting planning skills, and much more. All this will be done in a hands on manner with activities and role playing and most of all it will be

FUN and EXCITING!!

The last half hour or so of all sessions will be an open roundtable discussion.

So come and join us on September 8, 2011 at 7:00 PM

Ridgepoint Community Church - 340 104th Ave. Holland, MI

If your troop is using Troopmaster you should be *very* careful with the latest update that is available (v4.04).  Several users in the Troopmaster User Group are reporting issues with corruption in the database.  This appears to happen when one user updates to the new version but others don't.  When new versions come out you should do a "coordinated update" where all users update their Troopmaster installation.  First make a backup of the database in case the update goes badly, then all users update, then verify that there are no problems.  If there are you can always revert to your backup.

If you have already run into problems, contact Troopmaster for a fix.

Write a one-page report titled “The Best Book I Read This Year” and enter it in the Boys’ Life 2011 “Say Yes to Reading!” contest.

The book can be fiction or nonfiction. But the report has to be in your own words — 500 words tops.

First-place winners in each age category will receive a $100 gift certificate good for any product in the Boy Scouts official retail catalog. Second-place winners will receive a $75 gift certificate, and third-place winners a $50 certificate.  All participants will receive a patch.

More Details are available on the Boys' Life website.

If you missed out on taking Wood Badge last fall and really want to take the training, there's another opportunity coming soon. The Great Lakes Council (Detroit area) has openings in its Wood Badge course coming up in May and June. 

If the $235 cost is a problem, don't worry.  I have it on good authority that they may still be able to help you with that.  Just contact the Course Director and see what they can do.

See attached registration form for details.

Reminder about important new information from the Camp Leader's Handbook...

"Camp" also includes Cub Scout Day Camp.

New and Important Information

Here are a few items that leaders and participants should be aware of. Please plan for these changes!

  Read more »

From http://blog.ScoutingMagazine.org...

 

UPDATE (3:15 p.m. Jan. 13): Bill Evans, Youth Development team leader with the BSA, tells Cracker Barrel that these merit badges will count as electives for rank advancement. As if you needed another reason to get your guys to earn these.

A merit badge called Computers would sound just a crazy to a 1910 Boy Scout as a merit badge called Tracking sounds to Scouts today. That’s because the BSA’s list of available merit badges has evolved through the years as the interests of boys have changed.

In honor of the BSA’s 100th Anniversary, though, today’s generation of Scouts will get the unique opportunity to experience some of the activities their predecessors enjoyed. That’s possible thanks to the BSA’s new Historical Merit Badge Program, a set of four discontinued merit badges that today’s Scouts can earn.

Boys can earn any or all of these merit badges:

Signaling

• First offered in 1910 and discontinued in 1992.
• Sample requirements: build a simple buzzer or blinker capable of sending Morse code messages, and send a message of at least 35 words; send and receive messages using semaphore flags at a rate of at least 30 letters per minute.

Tracking

The following Board Resolution was passed during the recent National Executive Board and Committee Meetings in Washington DC:

WHEREAS, the current age and grade eligibility requirements for participation in the Venturing program is 14 years of age and completion of the eighth grade, and
 
WHEREAS, the Program Content Committee has recommended that, effective May 1, 2010, the age requirement be changed to 13 years of age and completion of the eighth grade;
 
NOW THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that Article VII, Section 2, Clause 2 (a) of the BSA Rules and Regulations be, and hereby is, amended to read as follows:
  Venturer- Be 13 years of age and have completed the eighth grade, or be 14 years of age or older, and not yet 21 years of age.

Recently spotted on Craig's List...

32 Ft Pinewood Derby Track - $750 (Wyoming, MI)

32 Foot Wood Track, 4 Lanes, Switch Gate, Fast Track Timer, Digital with all K3 options, with plastic wall, that unscrew if you do not want to use them. We have 3 other tracks, and we do not use this one anymore.

Wayland Boy Scout Troop 97 and the Wayland United Methodist Church will celebrate 50 years of charter together on Saturday, March 21 from 3pm
until 6pm at the church.

There will be a ceremony followed by open
fellowship.

We would like to invite all of our Scouting neighbors to
join us and ask, if possible, that you please RSVP the amount expected
to attend to either:

Michelle Amante at 269-792-2659 or Amante0827 [at] yahoo [dot] com (Amante0827 [at] yahoo [dot] com)

or

Carol Low at 269-792-2959 or CLLOW100 [at] yahoo [dot] com (CLLOW100 [at] yahoo [dot] com)