Newsletter June 4, 2002

WEST
Ski trip

Daniel

Conquer Palo Alto
JLT

A Scout is Loyal

Shark Patrol James

Hello- This is Bryant, former OA rep and now patrol leader of the Sharks. The last couple of months have been pretty busy, with events like Brian's Eagle Project and the Camporee. I'm happy to say we placed 29th in the Camporee, earning a second place ribbon. Also, several members of our patrol participated in Brian's Eagle Project, contributing semi-valuable hours. Several scouts in the patrol have achieved new ranks and will be recognized at the Court of Honor, next month. Also, Daniel could possibly be joining the Order of the Arrow, which I have talked about numerous times in previous articles. The summer is ahead; the backpacking trip, Hawaii trip (only for 1st Class Scouts and above), and summer camp are all on the troop's to-do-list. That's about it for the Shark's update; I apologize for the lack of witty comments and oh-so-subtle jokes. The reason is, of course, my many hours spent making the patrol flag. (Hey! There's a funny remark!) Note: Patrol members, start thinking up new designs for the flag. Or better yet, MAKE IT YOURSELF! (errr…parental supervision might be good around scissors) This is the Shark's new patrol leader, Bryant Look, signing out…

Falcon Patrol Derek

The falcon patrol is settling in with satisfaction, with a few minor changes. The newer scouts are getting used to the practice of the general workings of our Boy Scout system. As you may know, Boy Scouts is a boy run program and I believe that the newer scouts are ready to begin taking on more responsibilities. The hardest thing to get used to is the discipline, it's easy to get carried away, but in time, with responsibility, they will understand. Many of the newer scouts are looking forward to advancing and all they need is little help and that's what the patrol is there for. Along with the new scouts some hope they will bring more creative ways to improve the scout spirit and enhance the fun in our scout troop.

It is my belief that these new scouts will further improve the patrols motivations and standards in the ongoing rivalry for honor patrol. I hope they learn to work together and help provide encouragement in exchange for advancement to our progressing patrol.

The Falcon Patrol is still continuing to experience change and will make the best of it. I hope the change does not effect the patrols actions too much and I expect a full recovery and advancement to be under pressure. This might mean the budding of patrol meetings. I expect to give our competition a much more challenging opponent.

Any questions feel free to contact me.

Best of luck

SPL Corner
James

Hi! This is your new Senior Patrol Leader James Enomoto. I was just recently elected and am hoping to help this troop the best I can. We have many young scouts who are really working hard on achieving their ranks. The Senior Patrol has lots of fun and exciting activities planned for this year. We will be covering the many skills needed to obtain your next rank, so please be at every meeting, on time, and bring your book. You can also have your parents work with you at home. If you need extra help on any of these skills, let your Patrol Leader or a Senior Scout know. Going on all the outings is another important way of getting things signed off. Read your book before hand, so you know what to concentrate on. Most importantly, we have lots of fun on our outings that you don't want to miss.

Eagle Service Project
Brian

For my Eagle service project, I built a map kiosk. But what is a "map kiosk" anyway? A map kiosk is essentially a special bulletin board. It consists of a basic frame made up of two 6x6's and two 4x6's with plywood in the middle. The map kiosk will have on it a couple of "attachments", which will make it more than a simple bulletin board. The attachments include, a map of the park that will be protected by, but still visible through Plexiglas. It will have two bulletin boards, one for the rangers to use, which will be covered by a Plexiglas door and another for the public to use. It will also have another permanently covered Plexiglas display, which will house some general information. The map kiosk will also have a map dispenser so that the public will be able to get maps of Santa Teresa County Park. The entire display area has a small roof over it and its legs are buried in the ground. Now you're probably wondering how I built it, right? Well the answer for the attachments is simple; the park is adding all them. The rest however, we, the troop, did. But enough describing what it is, time to learn why it was needed.

The map kiosk was necessary to provide information on Santa Teresa County Park, such as the trails and what the historic section (where we placed it) is all about. Previously, there wasn't anything at the trailhead giving the trail a name, distance, or even destination. This meant that unless you asked, were psychic, or had a map, you wouldn't know where it goes.

The map kiosk didn't just fix this problem, but it also provides additional information. The park has a very tight budget and the maintenance is very busy. This means that it would have taken a while before they could of gotten around to building the map kiosk. One was needed though, for it benefits everyone. The public is greatly benefited from this, for as I've stated above, there was no information on the trail or any maps to take. The rangers aren't always there so even if someone wanted to ask about where it went, they wouldn't of been able to. Having a map kiosk eliminates the need to ask the rangers, meaning that when they are there they won't be bugged about where the trail goes and what the historic section is all about; people will be able to look on the map kiosk!!! Enough about the why it was so important, it is time to learn how it was built.

My project started when I contacted Mr. Dorrance, an education Ranger at Santa Teresa County Park, and he told me that he had a project that I could do. I visited the park the next weekend and we drove to Almaden Quicksilver park to see an example of the map kiosk I was to build. After I decided to build it, I needed the materials. Mr. Dorrance told me that we could go to an area in Hellyer Park where they recycle all of the things that were once something. So my dad and I went with Mr. Dorrance and found almost all of the wood we needed to build it. The place was amazing, there were lots of old picnic tables, some big hunks of concrete, food lockers, tons of wood, and even two assembled bridges, which must span a hundred feet. The trip probably saved hundreds of dollars on supply costs. After going to Hellyer, we only needed three more pieces of wood and some hardware. To get these my dad and I first went to Home Depot, which had nothing. We then went to Pinecone, which had everything that we needed. Once we had all of the materials (we got everything but the paint/stain which we got the week we painted/stained it.), we were ready for the first day.

On April 27th, we met at 9:00 am to build the map kiosk. We were a little slow at getting started and it was hard the first day to keep everyone working. This was due partially to lack of planning and the fact that there were two groups doing drastically different things and often needing the same saws. We divided up into two groups, the first consisting of Eric, James, and

Bryant, built the frame while the second, made up of Karl, Alex, Jordan, and Daniel, built the roof. The second group got the frame of the roof assembled and found about a third of the shingles, which we would need the next week. The first group got the two 6x6's cut (except for the top of them which wasn't finished until we put it in) and also got the 4x6's cut. This was fairly difficult since most of it needed ripping, which Eric did. Eric kept binding up the blade and eventually killed the saw. He will however, blame this on the fact that the saw blade was dull, which was true of course. When we got a new blade, he was able to cut much better. The turnout wasn't as good as I was hoping, but there were the most amount of people of any of the other days, and although we didn't get all of what I had hoped done (I'm not sure having more people would have helped much because of organization), it was enough to be able to finish the next weekend.

On May 4th, we again met at 9:00 so that we could catch up to the plan of painting it on that weekend. The sign was soon finished, which basically consisted of James and Derek cutting the frame for around the plywood, and testing to make sure the plywood fit (somehow it did on the 4th, but then didn't when we went to put it in on the 11th). The roof part however, took a little longer since we first had to cut the plywood to length, and then make the facia boards. The ends were fairly complicated but luckily I had a skilled worker, Karl, who managed to get them cut fairly well. After the facia boards were cut, Alex and Edward took turns stapling on the tarpaper. We then began putting on the shingles. Once the frame of the sign was finished, we painted/stained it, thus concluding the second day of the project.

The third day, May 5th, James and Daniel arrived around 3:30. However my dad, my sister, and I, started working on it earlier in an attempt to fix the shingles on the roof. There were a couple of problems with the roof. The first was that by the second and third row, the way we had been cutting the shingles made them stick up in an ugly, weak, and useless fashion. Another problem was that we had forgotten to put in a starting row. The third and final problem was we had put on the tarpaper the way the plans specified. The plans had the tar paper wrap under the facia boards

forcing any water that got under the shingles to go between the roof and facia board, which would leave a puddle, something we didn't want. So we spent a long time taking off the shingles (trying not to break them). We then put on another piece of tar paper, and put on the shingles with a starter row, and leaving them long so that the wouldn't stick up. Daniel helped me finish the roof while James started putting on a second coat of paint/stain, and 2 hours later we were finished.

The fourth and final day, May 11th people arrived at 9:00 again. We loaded Mr. Arken's truck with the disassembled sign. We then drove to Santa Teresa County Park, where we unloaded everything. Matthew, James, and Bryant then cleared the weeds away from were we were going to put the sign. Jonathon, Mr. Arken, Mr. Lorman, Mr. Enomoto, Mr. Dorrance then started digging the holes for the posts, while James, Bryant, my dad, and I were assembling the sign. This was a little hard since we ended up having to modify the rafters to accommodate the top 4x6. After solving the problem with the 4x6 and rafters, we assembled the sign, put on the facia boards, and added the ridge boards. The digging was very slow in the rock hard ground, inspite of the fact that we had a roto-hammer. We were digging until around 1:30 before we finally had deep enough holes to put the sign into. After putting the sign in, we had to mix eight bags of concrete, which was barely enough (the plans called for four). Once we finished putting in the sign, we took our "finished" picture, I wrote "T 463" and "BT" in the concrete and, finally, we were finished with my project.

In my (totally unbiased) opinion the sign turned out great! I invite everyone to go see it. It is at Santa Teresa County Park. I would like to thank everybody who helped me out, especially James Enomoto who put in the most hours to help me. He was there every single day! I would also like to thank Mr. Dorrance, my contact in the park, for his help planning, executing, and getting materials for the project. Thanks to him we didn't need to use all pressure treated wood! Finally I would like to thank my father, for without his help getting the materials, providing transportation, helping iron out the flaws in the plans, and help executing the project it would have never finished, not to mention finished on time. Thank you everyone who helped, it wouldn't have happened without you!

Junior Leader Training
3/23-24/02
Eric

The JLT (junior leader training) started off with the leadership meeting at the church and heading over to a local park to do some exercises and discuss leading methods. One of the exercises was making a shelter out of a tarp and some poles. After a couple hours of this we headed back to the church and made two different prototype catapults in preparation for the next meeting. Once the catapults were built we had a water balloon fight. Of course the senior patrol won with an amazingly accurate catapult. Finally after a long day of discussions, water balloon fights, and discussing water balloon fights, we drove to Sanborn Park and had more discussions. At last we got to go to sleep. In the morning we had a discussion about next year's outtings. After cleaning up we got into the cars and drive home.

Bike Outing
4/14/02
Eric

The bike outing was going to be great; I was ready for it. I wake up with a start when I realized the bike trip was today, I looked out the window at the beautiful...rain? Well, to make a long story short the outing was delayed, then delayed again. After the second rescheduling we finally got the outing off without a hitch, and believe me when I say without a hitch I mean without a hitch. It was a beautiful day as we biked down Cañada road, not a cloud in the sky. Well, maybe there was one cloud, but only a wisp. We didn't have to worry about cars because Cañada road is closed every Sunday for bikers. There was a gentle breeze, and except for a couple places the biking was easy. Cañada road turned into a busy street, unfortunately, but we quickly went back onto a bike trail. The bike trail was nicely paved and shady. From the bike trail we went up towards San Andreas reservoir. After awhile we stopped and ate lunch under a tree. Once we finished lunch we turned around and biked back. The total distance was approx. 28 miles round trip. This was an exceptionally great outing in my slightly biased opinion.

Pinnacles
4/20-21/02
Brian

The April outing was to Pinnacles. We arrived at about nine and immediately (well after getting organized and covered in suntan lotion), we set off on our five-mile hike. It was a little slow moving, but it was fun! It was nice weather, sunny but not too hot and very good visibility. We stopped a couple of times to work on map and compass skills (the hardest skills to master.) When we got to the top (about halfway), we stopped to have lunch. After lunch, we had some more hiking, this time only downhill. The younger scouts seemed to love going downhill, running half the way, however, others of us didn't like it so much. We took another stop at the lake and then prepared to go through the cave. We were all excited about going through it and were thinking how lucky we were since it was closed last year. We started into the cave and less than a hundred yards later discovered . . . that the caves were closed:(. We then had to walk above them, wishing we were in them. We got to camp at around 3:00. After setting up camp, we had some free time until dinner. We worked on some more requirements during this time and had some fun chopping wood, while at the same time earning the Totin' Chip card. We then had dinner, which was lacking in some ingredients, then had more free time before going to bed. The next morning, we woke up and had French toast, again lacking some ingredients, packed up camp and went home

Camporee
5/18-19/02
David

That's right: it's the 2002 Camporee. Well, where to start? First, it can pretty much be summed up like this: Webelos. NOTHING rhymes with them. Because of our 12 Webelos and their parents, we had something like the 4th biggest troop there. Overall, the outing was endless fun. The first day, we organized the massive Webelos contingent, arrived, and set up our tents _ a rather daunting task due to the aforementioned masses of Webelos. We had some difficulties with organization and cooperation along the way, but they didn't really disrupt the outing much. We went out and did our events, and did pretty well: all our patrols were on the high end of the 2nd place group, and we would have done even better if we could spare leadership for staff (hey, don't look at me, I was busy regulating Webelos). Next year, hopefully, with some new OA members, I think we can definitely break into the 1st place group. Anyway, we had fun, which was what's important. Then we had dinner, which was even more fun. Both patrols had well-planned, nutritious meals. And then we went to the campfire, which included the soft-spoken but nevertheless brilliant Webelos performing our troop's classic skit, "Robbers." Finally, we went to sleep. And when we woke up, there was a beautiful light mist around the campsite. A light mist that turned into a heavier mist. A heavy mist that turned into a drizzle. A drizzle that turned into a relentless soaking downpour. Yeah. That part wasn't fun. But we were prepared, and we got home without anyone drowning, so everything was still ok