Troop 281 Cincinnati, OH

  The week of June 19 our troop went to Summer Camp at Camp Friedlander! Everybody had fun working on rank advancement and earning Merit Badges! Loads of scouts showed up to earn Merit Badges and have tons of fun.   We arrived midday June 19th to a huge summer camp with campsites all over. From where we arrived, we walked all across camp to arrive at our campsite. After dinner on the first day, we all came right back to our campsite to prepare our cots for our bed or set up hammocks. Then, we went to the opening campfire, which was an absolute blast with all the skits performed. Some people put their hammocks stacked together to make a hammock stack of six hammocks.  Some called the stack Hammock City.   When we all woke up on Monday, we got ready to go to breakfast and start our Merit Badges. Some scouts’ classes were all the way across camp and gave them tons of exercise every day. After all the classes the scouts would return to camp and then eat dinner. Dinne...

 In March we had our backpacking campout! We had tons of fun hiking and working on rank advancements. Tons of people showed up. We got there late on Friday.  Most of us slept in the cabin, but there were some brave ones who fought the cold. We woke up early the next morning and everybody but the new scouts got ready to hike 10 miles. While the new scouts worked on rank advancement everybody else started their long hike, some getting cold, some getting tired. But we pushed through, climbed up huge hills, and hiked through cool rock formations. We finished our hike late afternoon and set up our tents. We then got a big fire going but put it out later to get ice cream. We all went to Young’s Jersey Dairy to have some ice cream and chill out. We arrived back and went to bed. We woke up on Sunday, packed up, and ended an amazing campout. Some are learning that they need to hike more, some getting new ranks. It was a great campout and we can't wait for the next!

  This past weekend we had the tobogganing campout to Pokagon State Park in Northern Indiana.   Seven Scouts and 3 adults showed up.   We had a super fun time going tobogganing, but not so much carrying the toboggans back up.   But it was still fun!     Since the river by our campsite was frozen, we went on it.  We were probably on the ice for 2 to 3 hours playing and breaking tons of ice.  It was not too cold, but it was cold enough for eggs to freeze on the stove.  Some of us got a little wet on the ice, but we were prepared and able to fix that. We slept on semi comfortable beds, with some snoring and other strange noises coming from unidentified Scouts.  We played a good game of ghost in the graveyard and lost a couple of things.  We had a little trouble getting the trailer out of its spot, but it only took an hour of waiting to finally go and it was a good learning experience.  Overall, we had tons of fun with a tiny...

  This past weekend was the Feast Fest campout. A lot of the troop showed up and it was a super fun campout. We had one AOL, Emmet, join us on the campout. We arrived at Camp Oyo kind of late, but it was fine. We set up patrol boxes, got our gear, and headed up to our cabins. We woke up the next morning ready to start the day with some delicious pancakes and sausage, then we got ready to go on a hike. We found out that it is hunting season and people were out hunting, so we went to a different trail in a non-hunting area that had a great view and is a great hike around a lake. In total we hiked about 6 miles. We went back to camp and made lunch. After lunch we did random things like basketball, gaga, advancement, and Micah and Zoe earned their Totin Chip. After that the cooks started making the dinner. The Swiss Misses had Mexico; Rams had Germany; Gladiators had Greece; and Whales had Italy. Everybody made amazing dishes. The girls won; Rams came in second; Whales came in third; a...

 Camp Whip Poor Will Service Project Last Saturday on November 6, some of the boys and girls in our Troop participated in the Camp Whip Poor Will service project. A total of 5 scouts went and a couple of adults. Our Troop has been helping Camp Whip Poor Will for the past 10 years, and they thank you very much. It was a good day of taking down tents and eating pizza.  Everybody enjoyed it and we all got a good amount of service hours in. They got to walk across a wobbly rope bridge and saw tons of bats under the tent flies. We helped take down 4 campsites. It was hard work but we got the job done. It was a good day at Camp Whip Poor Will, and we can't wait to help them again.  Aaron G. (Troop 281 Historian)

  Court of Honor This past Sunday we had our 2021 fall Court of Honor. Many people got recognized and it was a lot of fun. It started off with opening flags done by the Whales and Swiss Miss, then moving on to the opening prayer done by Melissa Longbrake. Then we started the award part of the ceremony with Mr. Longbrake where a lot of people got their patches for there new rank. Mackenzie Specht was the first out of all of the Swiss Miss to get Life rank. It then continued on to merit badges were everybody got some cool ones from summer camp at Camp Rainey Mountain, and mostly everybody who went got a white water rafting patch. It then moved on to the Senior Patrol Leader talk done by Deacon Howland from the boys troop and Hannah McOwen from the girls troop. After that we moved into summer camp review where they talked about how this year's summer camp went. We made an entrance into our campsite and showed our Troop spirit by running around the parade field on each other's sho...

 Hello everyone!   I am very excited to go to the Air Force Museum this weekend!  GO TROOP 281!!!

Troop Youth Leadership Training                         January 5, 2019 Today was TYLT or also known as Troop Youth Leadership Training. TYLT is for the Scouts who have recently been chosen for a leadership position. The Scouts met from 9 A.M- 2 P.M. to learn about  the duties of their position  and how all of the positions lead the Troop.    By: Christopher Birck

Troop 281 had their annual Pig Roast/New Scout Induction Campout on the weekend of September 15th. The campout was well attended with 37 Scouts! The original plan was to have the campout at Camp Achewon, but due to rain and bad weather it was moved to Friedlander. Mr. Goodfellow and Mr. D'Wolf spent over 7 hours preparing the pig for our feast. During dinner the Court of Honor was held, and scouts shared summer camp and Sea Base memories by watching slideshows of their experiences. After the Court of Honor, the New Scout Induction ceremony was held. Five new scouts from the Maniac Monkey Patrol were welcomed into the troop.

Last week we had our outdoor games meeting, and it was very much fun. We had two choices of games to play. Those consisted of cornhole and football on the front lawn. In cornhole it was some competetive, and some not. In football it was a ton of fun. The final score was 49-63. There were some absolutely amazing plays. Such as my interception, Brendan Haught's hail mary touchdown throw to Ben Reichard, and Eli Stelter's 2 touchdown catches. I would also like to congratulate our newly elected SPL Aidan Hickey. He will take over at our spring court of honor upcoming. Until next time, Hunter Melton Troop 281 historian.

This past Sunday, April 29th, we had our yearly Eagle Scout court of honor. This year it was featuring 3 of our scouts, two from the crew and one from the troop. Alexander Smith made a gaga ball pit for New Horizons Church and did well on it. Max Brodbeck did a fantastic job tearing out an old chain link fence and replacing it with a beautiful split rail wood fence. Matt Blaine did a great job when making tables and benches for an outdoor classroom at a non-profit organization. We would also like to thank Mr. Beilter and Mr. Wafford for presenting the Eagle Scouts with certificates from the Submarine US Veterans Association. Congratulations to all three scouts. Hunter Melton, Troop 281 Historian

This campout started out great. Warm 76 degrees, sunny, and DRY. We met at the lockup just as we always do, but the scouts were joyed with the good weather. While some were finishing their dinner, others were loading chest full of ice and getting ready to load the trailer. Thanks to Bryan Creelman, we made quick work of loading the trailer and a few other vehicles. We then departed for camp Friedlander, where campsite Kroger was awaiting out arrival. We setup camp, some in tents and others in the two cabins that were in Kroger. That night there was an opening meeting that we attended to kickoff the official campout. There were 8 or 9 troops in attendance at the camporee. After the meeting we went back to camp and we went to bed, only to wake up to a beautiful morning. It was around 70 degrees, semi-cloudy, but a storm was brewing. We then shot BB gun, Slingshot with Lima beans, archery, 3D archery at fake animal decoys in the woods by the archery range, .22 rifle, 20 gauge shotgun, pai...

This past Tuesday was our first ever Easter egg hunt. While it was a chaotic dash for eggs all over the church, it was a ton of fun and the scouts thoroughly enjoyed it.They were going upstairs, downstairs, left and right. The eggs were EVERYWHERE! Great job to all of the scouts who hid the eggs, they did a fantastic job!! We would also like to thank all scouts who brought in candy and eggs, it made this egg hunt work. Until next time, thank you for reading. Hunter Melton Troop Historian

This past weekend was a very fun campout. It all started when the  first car arrived a bit after 5. From there the mystery began. It began w ith a mysteriously dark drive that ended at Camp Birch. Getting out of the vehicles, the Youth Staff led us on a " Wild Goose Chase". We hiked to our campsite with no gear from the trailer. We were told that we would be sleeping with  only what we had with us!  Later, the Youth Staff led us to our correct campsite that had the trailer and three cabins as well. We set up and had a great night of sleep. For this weekend we were split up into two teams, which were purple and orange. The day would be a competition. We woke up to a cold drizzle that would change to a hard rain, then drop a heavy dusting of snow. The weather didn't keep us from hiking in the beautiful Clifton gorge. The gorge has a fast river full of rapids running through it. Our hike was a full five miles and pretty muddy. A Capture the Flag game followed back at camp, w...

Hello all, My name is Hunter and I am the new Historian of Troop 281.  Tonight was an incredible meeting. It was comprised of planning for the upcoming Mystery campout, a great presentation of Troop 281 history, provided by Mr. Siebenburgen. We learned 281 was originally chartered with AHUMC, but under the name of Forestville Methodist Episcopal Church.  Thank you Mr. Siebenburgen!! Join us at next week's meeting for a robotics demonstration.  Until next time,  Thank you for reading the Troop 281 blog. 

Shhhhh....they are sleeping.

Alexander S - Mile Swim Ben S-  Top Shot Seamus G - Winchester Award and Several others. Great job Scouts!