A Scout is Loyal

Elemental Patrol
Matthew

Killer Gerbil Patrol
Aaron

The patrols are in kind of a jumble right now so I’m kind of at a loss for words. The people in my patrol for now are me, Aaron Engelberg, Sean Papay, and David Chambers. I am proud of not only my patrol but all the boys in the troop for doing a fabulous job at Brian’s Eagle ceremony. All for this Wadatchoo Newsletter, Bye!

Know Nothing Patrol
Chris

In our patrol we have six members. The newest scout with us is Wesley, and then we have Bryce and Justin. We also have Matthew who just got the rank of Tenderfoot, the only person in the troop getting rank. We also have Ed and me, Chris. Everyone in the KN patrol went to summer camp except Wesley. Everyone got merit badges and Ed was the only person in the troop who got archery out of 6 people.

SPL Corner
Derek

It’s finally the start of a new season of boy scouting, and I am pleased to report that things are looking good now, even after our moderately shaky start. We say our goodbyes to old scouts and our hellos to those who are new. The troop will be undergoing some reformations, and reconfigurations. Brian and James will take over the positions as patrol leaders with a reorganized troop to incorporate 2 patrols. Hopefully our new fist class scouts, Chris, Sean, and possibly a couple others will be able to take on more diverse rolls in the troop that will enable them to complete leadership position requirements for their next rank. I believe we have a good strategy to accomplish any challenges that may arise. From there things should be running quite a bit more smoothly, once the new positions are taken and our leaders continue to contribute their time. As for the meetings themselves, it is my belief that we have a strong start and a have begun forming a healthy habit regarding timeliness.
The scouts are coming in strongly as well with their merit badges, and rank requirements. Although there does seem to be a bit of a summer mind frame that hasn’t yet been shaken off. The patrols are lacking in areas that they had a firm grip on before the break of summer. With the aid of our new leadership framework, there should be a noticeable step up in the quality, spirit and overall enjoyment of our meetings to come.
I look forward to seeing you all continue the good work.

probably a better view of the places we couldn’t see from Poly Dome (due to where we now stood being in the way). We could also see Poly Dome, which was kind of funny since it looked like a little mound of granite, about a tenth the size of where we now were. After lunch and pictures, we started down, determined to beat the rain to camp. We got back to camp fairly late and didn’t have time to go swimming, and it was still threatening rain, but as the evening progressed the clouds disappeared. As we were making dinner, or, more accurately cleaning it up, I saw a bear behind Sean. I calmly pointed this out to him, and he thought I was joking. I finally got him to turn around, and boy was he surprised to see a bear a only about twenty feet behind him. I went and got my camera (and so did a bunch of other people) and we all proceeded to shoot the bear until it got too camera shy and left. For many of the scouts, this was the first bear they’d ever seen, and finally knew for sure that bears weren’t just a government conspiracy. We didn’t see it again. We made double sure that our food was secure, and then we went back to messing around.
The following day, we packed up and hiked out, got in the car and drove home stopping for fast food on the way (I love fast food). As we drove out, we saw the rain clouds building again, and this time it actually looked like it was raining where we had been camping. And thus was concluded our wonderful backpack trip!

Oljato
July 25-31, 2004
Chris

Lots of people went to Camp Oljato. At Oljato this year, you could not ask for better weather. The sun was out every day and there were no rain clouds. There was a lot of variety of what merit badges people took, from camping to woodcarving. Some eagle required, some not. Over all, everyone who went got at least 1 merit badge. Some even got 4. In the Olimpicade, Ed got 3rd in Chris’s Big Bad Archery Tournament and Chris and Matt got third in the Regatta. Justin got the most improved shooter in rifle and got the rifle merit badge. Again, we got the Navaho campsite and had to share it with another troop.

Morro Strand Beach
September 4-6, 2004
Derek

You might remember me once saying during the announcements that everyone was to show up at the church for this outing at 7 AM sharp, that way we can get this outing started in a timely manner. It was 7:05 in the morning when I arrived at the church, reasonably early when compared with my previous reputation. However that’s a different story all together. This story begins with me, hoping against hope that at least one other senior scout would be there at the church, to great me non-too sarcastically, and crack jokes about my being on time for once. Unfortunately as it turns out, that one candidate just so happen to have a reputation of his own. I wont go into detail, suffice it to say, he didn’t show up.
“Oh well,” I thought to myself “at least there’s this long car ride where I might be able to catch some shuteye. Wow!!! (ß 3 exclamation marks) was I wrong about that! Little did I know, but I happened to end up in the car with quite possibly the two loudest, non-stop kids of them all. That may have been the longest car ride I have ever been on. What a better way to start an outing all on one’s own, than to begin it exhausted and frustrated? (James if you ever read this, I promise I will never leave you alone on an outing again). Aside from

some minor complications with the campsite arrangements, the morning went pretty smoothly. In fact we were able to get onto the beach by around one o’clock.
The boys had a load of fun just body surfing, boogie boarding, digging in the sand, and skim boarding. I managed to get in some skim boarding myself, (although for the first time), and found it astonishingly appealing. It didn’t even take me more than a couple of hours to get the hang of it.
We all found the beach quite warm and pleasantly sunny. Although the ocean held a crisp contrast, as it was quite cold and invigorating. This provided us a rather relaxing and yet intensely excellent experience. As it turns out, we lucked out entirely, in regards to the weather. Apparently this weekend had been the clearest they’ve experienced for quite some time.
At about four thirty, we headed back to the campsite and broke up into groups to work on advancement. If I remember correctly, I may have overheard a couple of the boys saying they had accomplished excellent progress towards their ranks. At about five thirty, we started dinner, and had a fairly relaxed evening (well, as far as relaxed goes on a trip like this one). Later that evening, the leading scouts held a meeting to discuss the plans for the next day’s activities.
The next day we were supposed to wake up at around seven. However, I was unceremoniously prodded awake at about 6:45 in the morning to be told that some things were stolen, including a backpack. However, this scout who had awakened me and had his things stolen had been warned numerous times about such a possibility. (The campgrounds even had a sign that stated that they were not to be held responsible if anything was to go missing, and that such occurrences have happened in the past). The tail continues as well. Later, I found out that during the night, the boys who had some things taken had had their tent collapsed while they were sleeping, and were woken up by it. It just so happened that the reason for this was because their backpacks were being used as a means to hold down a rope to secure their tent pole to. They did not decide to investigate the tents collapse, and thus the culprit was able to get away with much of their belongings. (However, our camp was not the only camp that suffered from this misfortune and the belongings were recovered by

others who searched further down the beach.
After breakfast, we headed down to the Museum of Natural History. There we spent about an hour and a half of a thrilling educational experience. We learned much about the estuaries and Morro Rock, along with the mountain range (or rather the volcano range) it belongs to, including Cabrillo, which we had planned our hike on. We had lunch after that, fallowed by a frustrating three to four mile hike up to the beautiful and gusty peak of Cabrillo. I refer to it as frustrating due to conditions prompted by the ill preparedness of many of the scouts. About one third of them did not take an ample supply of water on this hike, regardless of the previous advice and warnings. That aside, the hike itself was truly an adventure; with its outstanding rocky peak, and picture perfect view. Aside from the heat and lack of water, we had a quite pleasant hike.
Once recovered from the hike, all the scouts wanted to do was hit the cool waters of the North Pacific. It was just a cool stretch of fun and play from there until dinnertime. After dinner and a beautiful sunset, many scouts went to bed or discussed what was to be done the next day in order to get up and out of there with still one last stop at the beach. Over all, the last day went pretty well, although it still takes us some time to clean up our tents and breakfast. However, I’m sure we have greatly improved, we just didn’t have enough senior scouts on this outing to really hold it together. So if there is a lesson to be learned from all of this, it’s that when scouts stick together, things will always turn out better.

Eagle Court of Honor
Thank You
September 11, 2004
Kim

I just wanted to take this opportunity to Thank all of you who helped to make Brian’s ceremony such a success. It wouldn’t have happened without YOU!
All of the scouts did a great job and we appreciate you being there and helping with either the flags, Eagle escort, or as a speaker or all of the above. Senior Scouts, thank you for having such great scout spirit and taking on so many reading roles. Derek, your interruption could not have been better. Brian seemed quite surprised and so cool to think he had one on you when the justification came through. But the protest continued and I’m sure Brian had no idea as to when they were going to stop. Great job, all of you! Thank you James for the Eagle Poem. I’m sure all the Eagles present appreciated it. Also, thank you Aaron for participating as much as you did. Everyone did fantastic and it is hard to thank you enough! It was really fun to have all of you participating.
Dave, you were great as the MC! So natural up there and great at being surprised by those many interruptions… Thank you so much. We appreciate the advice that you and other Eagle Scout Leaders gave, to help make the ceremony perfect.
Wow, I could go on and on but it would take this whole newsletter, but I do need to highlight a couple