A Scout is Loyal

Shark Patrol
Bryant

Another Court of Honor is coming up, and you know what that means- another patrol status report from me. Well, I’m happy to report that our patrol finally got a flag, thanks to the hard work put in by Tenderfoot Scout Todd. Our patrol has been busy over the past few months, getting requirements signed off and learning new skills. Chris Davis earned the Tenderfoot rank after working hard for several months at it. The Sharks worked hard in January and we earned the most honor patrol points, so we avoided getting the Cleanup Patrol duty at Mount Madonna. I hope everyone got some rest over the Winter Break, since there’ll be a lot of things coming up: the Court of Honor, the Ski Trip, and the all-important Camporee. So keep working hard, summer is only a few months away!

Falcon Patrol
Derek

SPL Corner
James

Since the last Court of Honor, our troop has been on many fun outings. Some of our more popular outings have been to Mt. Madonna Park and the overnight trip on the USS Hornet. I hope that all of the scouts who went on these outings, or any of the others, had a lot of fun and will be at the other outings that we have planned. If anybody has any suggestions, within reason, for an outing they might want to have, please tell the senior scouts and we will do our best to get it organized at our next J.L.T. On these outings, you have the opportunity to use the skills you have learned, get requirements for your ranks signed off, AND have fun. During my time as the SPL of this troop, the senior patrol and I have tried to help you scouts with your requirements to the best of our abilities. In order for us to do this, we need you to come to us for requirement signoffs and ask any questions you might have, but at the right time! We try to schedule time during most meetings for this… so please plan ahead!! It is very important for all of you to try and advance to the next rank. In March, we are expecting many new scouts to join our troop and they will be working hard on advancing. It will greatly help if they had all of us to answer any question that they might have and assist them with their requirements. Finally, please remind your parents that our troop has a parent Troop Committee Meeting every second Thursday of each month and their presence is requested. Many important items are discussed (both present and future), and this is a good time for them to share their opinions.

Del Valle
10/19-20/02
Daniel

Earlier this year we went on an outing and we invited the webelos from nearby packs to join us. We do this every year as a way to bring more webelos into our troop, when they graduate to Boy Scouts. Our trip went to Del Valle, where we camped out next to the lake. We had about fifteen webelos come on the trip. The trip lasted from Saturday to Sunday afternoon. We did several activities, including building a tower and going out on the lake with boats. Granted the tower was crooked and we almost sank the boat, but that was most of the fun. The webelos had lots of fun playing in a stand of cattails near where we were camping. Later that evening, we played capture the flag in the cattails.  We had a lot of fun, especially because we didn’t have to cook. This is one of the very few outings in which the adults do all the cooking. This outing is one of the most fun we have all year and we hope that the webelos had lots of fun as well. This is an outing that we’ll be doing for many years to come, because it has become such a success and it is a great way to show people our troop. 

time spent there, most of us feel, was a waste. We then went to a slide show on anti-submarine warfare, or so we thought before we went. Although it was interesting, it wasn’t on anti-submarine warfare. The guy spent about a minute talking about it, then went on to talk about the development of the Russian nuclear submarine, and how he could tell them apart by their silhouette. After the submarine speech we all went down to hear “scary” ghost stories. Everyone had said that they were going to be so scary, getting my expectations up. However, they weren’t at all scary, at least to me. After the ghost stories we went back to our bunks and soon were all asleep (they wouldn’t let us play cardsL).
The following day we packed up and took all of our stuff to the cars. The people with smaller attention spans went home, while the rest of us explored the ship more. I went and saw the island and command information center, both were fairly interesting although I must say that the CIC was by far the best part of the trip. It was lit only by the radar and tactical information screens and was very cool just to be in. There were also a couple of sonar-buoys, one of which was Russian (don’t ask me how it came to be on the Hornet, I’m sure the Russians didn’t just give it to the Hornet; I think the guy said they got it on e-bay, so I’m thinking maybe I might buy myself a Russian attack sub; now that would be funJ). Anyway back to the Hornet. There was also a picture down in the control room (and in the island) of after the Hornet went through a storm to avoid an encounter with the Japanese in World War II. A couple waves that were a hundred or so feet tall washed over the task-group, and a couple destroyers capsized, a cruiser got one of its 8-inch gun’s knocked off, another aircraft carrier got its flight deck totally rolled up, and the Hornet, the biggest ship in the group, got nearly the entire front half of the flight deck (a deck 60 ft from the surface) broken at an insanely haphazardous angle. It was amazing to see what the ocean could do. After touring the ship for a little longer we all went back home, where we got to feel the comfort of a real bed.

Mt. Madonna
1/11-12/02
David

This year’s Mt. Madonna outing was pretty amazing. First of all, it didn’t rain for the first time in the history of Troop 463 Mt. Madonna outings (although it was a bit chilly at times). We arrived there somewhere around 8:00 Saturday (I think), spent a while choosing sites and setting up tents, and then embarked on our first adventure: a simple hike. … Led by younger scouts. We spent the entire morning wandering around lost in the wilderness, waiting for the search team to arrive, and in the meantime trying to survive on the snacks we brought along… No, actually it wasn’t that bad. We did take the wrong path several times, and clearly the map-and-compass skills left something to be desired, but in the end, the younger scouts found their way working together as a group. I think they probably learned a bit more independence, responsibility, and teamwork from the experience, in addition to refreshing their navigation skills and putting them to practical use, so the exercise was useful. On the other hand, they took such an amazingly, ludicrously, unbelievably long time (well, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the point) to figure it out that the senior patrol took over to get back to camp, where we ate lunch.
Then, we went out for the day for the main attraction: about 3 – 4 hours of archery, starting at a single large first target, and splitting into groups to go around the course. This was obviously endless fun, and each group came back with many stories (and many lost arrows). For example, Daniel and Brian almost shot two deer! They had arrows nocked and strings pulled back, ready to release, when, out of nowhere, two deer

walked RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE TARGET! We weren’t even standing very far from the target! And the deer walked across so calmly and matter-of-factly, like “Hello! I’m here for my afternoon suicide appointment. How are you today?”. Anyway, other anecdotes included arrows found (David found a big, expensive, fat aluminum arrow), arrows blunted (David completely flattened the metal tip of an arrow by accidentally hitting a metal bar above a target), arrows exploded (somehow James apparently made an arrow shatter in midair), and trees abused in every way by incoming arrows.
That night, we had dinner and cleaned up. However, it wasn’t that simple; it took forever to accomplish both tasks, and one patrol had insufficient food. After that, we – and by ‘we’ I mean other people and not me – had even more endless fun hiding AJ’s chocolate, passing it off, running away, and restealing it after he found it.
Finally, the next day, before leaving, we went out to do a quick service project: one group took out two clumps of pampas grass, a non-native, fast-growing plant that was taking over some parts of the park that it shouldn’t have been. The other group took out another type of plant (I forgot what it was) that also didn’t belong in the park, and also spread incredibly quickly.
Thus, overall, the outing was extremely fun. Did I mention it didn’t rain?

Advancement
Tim Thurgate

This Court of Honor will be very short, as there is only one scout advancing in rank and three receiving merit badges. Unfortunately, this is typical of our recent Court of Honors, which means our scouts are not advancing at a reasonable pace. In general, it should take no more than a year to achieve the next rank. This is especially true of the lower ranks. As you move up in ranks, they become more difficult so it becomes understandable that Life may take a little more than a year and certainly Eagle will take longer. But, we have many scouts still working on Tenderfoot. It will be embarrassing when we get a new batch of scouts and they earn Tenderfoot before our existing scouts.
Scouting has many purposes. Certainly, one of our goals is to have fun, go on neat outings, and enjoy the outdoors. Scouting is more than this however. In fact it has to be to fully enjoy the outings. For only if you can take care of yourself and can be self-sufficient are you going to be comfortable and safe in the outdoors. You need to know how to cook to eat well, the proper clothing and how and where to pitch a tent to stay warm and dry, how to keep from getting lost or what to do if you are lost, first aid in case something happens, etc. One of the goals in scouting is to learn these and other skills. If learning and growing is not part of your purpose for being in scouting, then not only are you wasting your time, but the rest of the troop’s time as well. The senior scouts spend much time preparing for and running the meetings. It is not fair to them or to the other scouts if

you are not there to participate in the acquiring of skills and knowledge and in working on getting requirements signed off for rank.
Scouting has an even greater purpose than learning various outdoor skills. It is to help you grow as a person, in character, citizenship, and leadership. This starts when you join scouting. In earning rank you develop initiative, perseverance, respect, and so on. But, this really begins in earnest after you achieve First Class and join in the leadership of the troop. This of course, won’t happen if you do not get to First Class. In fact, shirking the responsibility of learning and of earning rank is actually reinforcing negative character traits. One can tell a lot about a scout by the progress he is making on rank.
So, stop being lazy, stop resisting learning new skills, stop being an obstacle in the meetings. Get focused, get to work, and come to meetings with a positive attitude and an eagerness to participate. It is work to learn new things and you will struggle at times, but I guarantee that you will have more fun if you go along with the program than in fighting it and you will be a better person for it. You will also get the support of the older scouts and the rest of the troop, instead of having them on your back. We do skills instruction almost every meeting and on the outings. We allow time in the patrol meetings and again on the outings to allow you to get things signed off. If there is more we can do to assist you in earning rank, let us know.