Troop 281 Cincinnati, OH

Last week's meeting had the younger scouts split up from the older scouts again, the younger scouts going off somewhere to learn knots while the older scouts sat in on the skill session on the Personal Finance Merit Badge. The skill session was led by none other than the Troop's very own Mr. Ossman, who was well prepared for teaching the skill session as he is a registered counselor for the merit badge. In the skill session, Mr. O covered all the basics about the requirements for this Eagle required badge, including the notorius "13-week budget" requirement. After the skill session, Mr. O handed out a little quiz to test scout's knowledge about various money and time related things along with a bonus question that only Brett Carwile knew: What is Jar-Jar's given name? The question, while not related to the actual skill session nor the infamous Jar-Jar Binks of Star Wars infamy, was related to Mr. O handling Summer Camp sign ups, as the counselor Jar-Jar is now...

If one word could only be said to describe the older scout campout to John Bryan State Park, it would be the word “Awesome!” Thanks to Mr. S, Mr. Goldberg, Mr. Rye, Mr. Hallenbeck, and the rock climbing instructors: Barry Atkins, his son Chris Atkins, and Rob Merkel, the campout was full of amazing, fun, and ‘interesting’ events for everyone. The events of the campout started long before anyone even got to the campsite on Friday, March 21st. The plan for Saturday’s lunch was that everybody would have packed their lunch from home, but several scouts forgot to do just that, myself included. All the scouts who had forgotten their lunches got into Mr. Rye’s Excursion, A.K.A. “The Tank,” and the first stop after leaving the church was the McDonalds just down the road to pick up the next day’s lunch. While most of the lunch-less scouts bought a few hamburgers, I wasn’t so sure about the belief everybody had about McDonald’s food being able to keep overnight, so I just bought some Chicken McN...

On March 20, 2009 To March 22, 2009 the Kodiaks and the Falcons went hiking at Bear Wallow. After getting lost in southern Indiana, we arrived had to set up our tents in the dark. We slowly got up and managed to get to the trail by 10:00. On the trail learned a lesson from Dr. Reynolds on hot spots because one of the scouts had a blister. We hiked and hiked looking for our lunch location, then we had lunch right before we found the picnic area. After we found the picnic area, we had a surprise from Dr. Reynolds .He had a watermelon and a cantaloupe in his backpack. The total hike was a little under 13 miles. The next morning after breakfast we had chapel service. In chapel service Elliot sang a Latin song for us. Then we had a police line and then went back to the church.

At the latest troop meeting, the skill session was focused on the basics of hiking while camping. Led by Greg Brinkman, the two youngest patrols took a short trip around the church, making short breaks to focus on one of the ten scout essentials for hiking. I'm not quite sure what the other scout patrols did since yours truly tagged along with the new scouts. But from what I could gather when the troop fell back in after the skill session, it seems the other group of scouts did a similar exercise. The Kodiak and Falcon patrols are going backpacking at Bear Wallow, so they will most likely have benefited from the recent refresher course. The Hurricanes and Vikings are going to John Bryant State Park; where instead of hiking, those scouts will be climbing rocks, but it's always good to make sure you have the ten scout essentials on any campout. The game after the skill session, called "British Bulldog", was new for a lot of scouts, myself included, In the game everybo...

At the last meeting, the existing Hurricane, Viking, Kodiak, and Falcon patrols were joined by a fifth patrol, the Flaming Arrow Patrol, who had recently come back from their very first campout. Then after the Order of the Arrow elections were held, the patrols split up to plan the meals for the upcoming campouts, while the Kodiaks and Falcons are going hiking at Bearwallow, the Hurricane and Viking Patrols will be going to John Bryan State Park to go rock climbing. Guest speaker and former Troop 281 member Barry Atkins visited to explain what the rock climbing was like and brought some "nice shiny objects," as he put it, in the form of climbing equipment used to climb the rocks. Mr. Atkins is an advisor for a Venture Scout patrol as well, so I bet there will be some Venture Scouts on this campout as well who are climbing the rocky cliffs. After planning what meals will be made on the trip, the scouts broke up into two parties yet again, this time divided by age. The older s...

Mr S. was among those attending the latest meeting, which was a very exciting meeting indeed. The skill session was simply titled "Cooking on the Trail" and led by Chef Max Goldberg and Assistant cook Dillion Whitehead. The skill session covered how to make basic meals on the trail, how to be conservative with garbage on the trip, and a mini-class in backpacking Nutrition 101 to show what kind of stuff one must eat on the trail. What really made the little cooking class interesting was what went on during it: flying compressed bread slices, a discussion about getting butter from milking anything vs. just bringing squeeze butter, a rush for Spam sandwiches, and plenty of delicious taste tests. Then after cleaning up the skill session, the scouts only got more energetic when the game was revealed to be the ever popular Dodgeball. The adults set up a net where the stage wall used to be to block balls from flying into the stage backdrop, and Senior Patrol Leader Will Carlson said...