Fall Camporee Theme Chosen

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District Chair John Wiebke (Troop 358) in cooperation with District Programming Chair Jim Kacius (Troop 174) and District Camporee Chair Stu Bowes (formerly of Troop 69) have been working to plan camporees further in advance.

At the last District Committee Meeting, John Wiebke proposed a Gladiatorial theme, in keeping with this being a Summer Olympic year. His proposal was gladly accepted.

John Wiebke also announced the following planning committee:

Stu Bowles – Camporee Chief
Jeff Heck- Publicity
Rick Akers- Finance/Health and Safety
Brian Crow- Participation & Program
John Ruggles- Participation & Program
Mark Pishon- Physical Arrangements
Curtis Shrote- Awards

Next month the District Committee will work on finalizing more details about the theme and events. The goal would be to have the events selected at the end of the August District Committee Meeting.

John Wiebke drew his inspiration for this event from this website, so take a look and come to the August meeting with your event proposals and patch proposals.

Make sure that your PLC has signed off on your proposal! We would love to see senior scouts running as many events as possible.

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Remember also to come with theme proposals for Winter and Spring Camporees, too, so those can be decided well in advance. Proposed dates for Winter Camporee are

1) weekend of Jan 21st
2) Weekend of Jan 28th
3) weekend of Feb 4th

Building Relationships with Chartered Organization

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Many scout troops and packs are looking for ways to make their relationships with their Chartered Organizations more meaningful.

Our District’s Troop 73 is hosting an event for its Chartered Organization. Here is how they describe it:

Event: T-73 Hosts St. Paul’s Summer Fellowship
Where: St. Paul’s Episcopal Church
When: Jul 24, 2016, 9am – 12pm

Troop 73 will host St. Paul’s Summer Fellowship after the 10 am service on July 24th. We will provide hot dogs, bratwurst, buns and toppings, s’mores and the campfire to cook it over as well as several dutch over desserts (bring your favorite recipe!) . Scouts will demonstrate and teach parishioners about: how to load and paddle a canoe (similar to our trip earlier this summer); using tents and hammocks; sawing logs; & tying knots. Please be ready to demonstrate any of these skills. If you have other ideas, please suggest them!

* * *

Your time spent at the Fellowship will count as service to St. Paul’s, our Chartering Organization.

Now imagine you are the minister of that church. Your scout troop offers to host a Fellowship event. What is your estimation of scouting at that church going to be? What would you be willing to do to empower scouting?

District Reminders for next 7 days

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1. Thursday, July 14th at 6:30 pm is Roundtable at St Luke’s United Methodist Church (New room assignment Room W-125 (Entry #4) due to scheduling conflict.). The topic will be annual planning and adult staffing. See Church Map (Entry #4 cut off on bottom of map.)

2. Friday, July 15th Membership Kickoff beginning at 7:00 pm at St Paul’s Episcopal Church. Packs and Troops welcome. Food served.

3. Sunday, July 17th is the 50th Anniversary Celebration for Camp Ransburg.

Centennial Celebration for Troop 18

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Save the date: Troop 18 will be celebrating its 100 Years of Eagles on August 27 & 28, 2016.

They have been researching their troop’s history and Eagles. We will post more about their history in the coming weeks.

For right now, Scoutmaster Steve Bye shares just a few tidbits.

In 1916, Troop 18 had the first three Eagle Scouts of the Indianapolis Council (later merged into the Crossroads of America Council).

  1. Hall Marmon 
  2. Noble Butler
  3. G. Vance Smith.

Jaccos Towne Lodge History, page 10.

Also in 1916, Edson T. Wood Jr. earns bronze honor medal for saving a lady from drowning (Boys Life, 1916).

2nd Pres troop writeup Feb 2016

Employment Opportunities with Council

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Reaching for Tomorrow, a Learning for Life Program, is looking for part time Program Leaders to deliver basic life skills and character education modules in elementary, Jr. High and High school classrooms in the following towns: Indianapolis and eight surrounding counties, Noblesville/Arcadia, Fishers, Carmel, Westfield, Avon, Plainfield, Danville, Brownsburg, Anderson, Rushville, Richmond, Liberty, Connersville, Hagerstown, Cambridge City, Lebanon, Crawfordsville, Greenfield, Frankfort, Greenwood, Terre Haute, and Shelbyville. Interviewing will be the last week of July. You would start the position the 2nd week of August. This is a paid position and we provide flexibility to make your own schedule.

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New for Fall Recruitment: Online Registration

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The BSA has established a new Online Registration for adults and youth. You can see an overview video of how the system works below. The video describes it as “Coming Soon.” It is already activated in Crossroads of America Council.

 

This system has many advantages:

  1. You never run out of paper forms.
  2. Your applicant will be immediately notified whether data on one of the screens is incomplete, avoiding the need to circulate the form around twice to fill in missing information or signatures.
  3. There is no physical application that needs to be delivered or sent.
  4. Necessary signators traveling out of town can fulfill their obligations from anywhere in the world.
  5. Your applicant can pay their BSA membership dues online with a credit card.

The current weaknesses in the system are being able to find where to access the website to start.

  1. You must access this from the http://www.BeAScout.org.
  2. From the main page, the applicant needs to navigate to your unit.
  3. On the unit page, the applicant needs to correctly choose “Cub,” “Scout,” “Venturing,” or “Volunteering.” Picking a program puts the applicant in “Youth” status. Adults must pick the “Volunteering” choice, then select a unit.
  4. You can pick the links for your unit and save them for placement on your webpage or emails. This means that you can circumvent some of the problems above.
  5. The system does not collect your unit’s dues or added costs (like local council insurance). It merely establishes the applicant as a member of the BSA through your unit. I have even used it to promote an existing volunteer to a new position without having to pay dues again.

I have used this system successfully twice. I have not dealt with Youth Protection Training in either case because they were existing volunteers. I cannot offer much feedback on that issue yet.

Online Volunteer application
Sample of Volunteer Application

Please begin using this system immediately, especially before recruiting season and rechartering. The more information that is properly registered in the system before October 1st, the smoother your rechartering will proceed.

Fall membership Kick-off

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Hey North Star Packs!
 
It’s time!  Time to pick up your boxes of supplies for the Fall Membership Drive 🙂
 
Friday –  July 15th  7-8 pm 
St. Pauls Episcopal Church
6050 N Meridian
Indianapolis, IN 46260
We need the Cubmaster/Committee Chair/Recruiting Leader/someone from you Pack to attend!
Pick up your box of supplies – yard signs – the whole shebang!
There will be FOOD!
Check out the sample Open House table – fill out your forms and enter your Pack for a chance to win a prize!
    *info needed – date of Open House/Registration Night/how many den leaders does your den have? What are your Pack dues?  When/where does your Pack met?  How many dens do you have? etc.*
 
Looking forward to another great year of Scouting!
Cub Scouts Have More Fun!
Sharla Merrick
Membership Committee Chair
PS – we will be taking requests for specific marketing materials from the District/Council. (example: flyers or signs with a different date)

Mid-Summer and Grand Ritual

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Brothers

Mid-summer Ritual is this coming weekend at Camp Belzer.  I hope many of you plan on attending to cover our Ember duties and welcome our candidates/future Brothers that have worked hard at summer camp to work on their candidate requirements.
Our Ember duties are the send out talks on Saturday afternoon and I need at least 10 Brothers to cover those duties.  If you can’t come for the entire weekend but could maybe help out on Saturday afternoon, please let me know, in case I need to come up with additional help.  We can also always help other Embers with their duties and help the overall Ritual Staff with anything they may need.
Existing member will register upon arrival, with a cost of $2 for registration, $5 for the event patch, and $20 if you need meals.  Remember to bring a current BSA Health Form with you, as it is require for the event.
If you have any questions, please let me know.  Hope to see many of you this weekend!
Save the dates of August 12th to 14th for Grand at Camp Krietenstein!
Yours in the Fire
Greg Hoyes XXX
North Star Ember Advisor

The mystery of the neckerchief – resolved

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In last week’s post, we opened the mystery of who introduced the neckerchief to scouting. The neckerchief and campaign hat or iconic emblems of Lord Baden Powell. Yet he did not invent the neckerchief.

We also discovered last week that BP came to use the neckerchief because of his friend Fred.

So who was Fred?

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