Troop 281 Cincinnati, OH

PRISON TACOS At the most recent Troop 281 meeting, Thanksgiving break had already begun for those still in school, including the four visiting Cub Scouts who were with the Flaming Arrows for that night. So the skill session was appropriately all about Dutch Oven cooking and cleaning. Led by Ben M., it was a mostly digital presentation with PowerPoint detailing how to make a very basic but very good Dutch Oven dish: Prison Tacos. (Simple chili mixed in with Fritos after being cooked, sometimes also known as “Walking Tacos” to the older generation.) The skill session was very informative, as Dutch Oven cooking can be a confusing art, cleaning being an even more confusing art as it is a very bad idea to use soap at all to clean up, rather it has to be left all up to water, an un-soapy rag, and good old' elbow grease to clean the iron cooking pot. The presentation was not over when the power point slides were, however, as outside the Scout Room there had been a Dutch Oven cooking th...

ORIENTEERING This previous meeting was mainly focused to hold Boards of Review for scouts who were ready to get to their next rank. However, as usual, most of the Troop did not need a Board of Review (seeing as how there was one not too long ago after the Survivor Campout), so those who were not advancing took part in the skill session of Orienteering, led by SPL Avery R. Using hand-out maps and specialized compasses (provided that the scouts brought their own), Avery went over the basics of Orienteering; ranging from how to set a compass to be able to be used with differing maps to how to orient yourself even without a compass. DISHWASHING Avery’s skill session wasn’t the only one that occurred that night, however, as right after the SPL finished, Scoutmaster Dr. Reynolds started his skill session on dishwashing. For those who don’t know, the Patrol Boxes (those giant brown heavy boxes that always get loaded first into the trailer) are equipped with tubs and...

IINTRODUCING THE BEARICANES It was time once again for one of the more infamous of Troop 281’s annual campouts: Color Wars! This year, there were only three patrols competing against each other due to there not being enough in either the Viking or Kodiak Bear patrols for them to function as their own patrols, so they were merged with the Hurricane Patrol to be the combined, one-time entity patrol known as the “Bearicanes. The other patrols were the younger - but much more numerous - Falcon and Flaming Arrow Patrols. Senior Patrol Leader (SPL) Avery R. and Assistant Senior Patrol Leader (ASPL) Brett C. also were known to have said that some “surprises” were to be expected this year, not revealing their sinister plans to anyone they didn’t think trustworthy enough. Another difference was the pleasant fact that there was no rain at all this time at Achewon, meaning everybody could perform their best at the challenges to prove their patrol was better than everybody else’s patrol. Anyway, t...

The Historian as a gamer 000 At the most recent Troop 281 meeting, Boards of Review were held for those eligible for the next scout rank, but since only a few scouts were able to participate in a Board of Review, something had to be done for all the other scouts who were attending the meeting. Thus the reason the last meeting was a “Game Night” meeting, or in other words where there is no real objective other than to have fun, a goal which could be reached through several means. Set up at a few different spots were televisions hooked up to several different video game consoles (a Wii, an Xbox 360, a Gamecube, and another Xbox) where a few scouts could play together in any of the games brought for said consoles. For those who didn’t want to or were waiting to play the video games, there were other non-electronic games, too. Several scouts played basketball and others engaged in various card games. As the night went on, the scouts who had Boards of Review were pulled out periodically, l...