My job was to arrange for the OA to be there for the awarding of the Arrow of Light, build a new bridge for the crossover, and put together a slideshow — that was it!

The decorations were excellent… lots of creativity and I’ll bet a few visits to pinterest.  :-)

The centerpieces were small artificial fire pits on each table.  I took a photo of them, but it turned out blurry.  What was really creative though was the printed menus.  The way they were printed and folded the resembled paper neckerchiefs.  VERY creative!

It’s tough to see from this photo, but if you look closely you’ll see the resemblance.

The highlight of the night was the magician… all of the kids (and adults) really enjoyed that part of the evening and I have to say the guy is incredibly talented and works extremely well with the kids.  To top it off, he is VERY affordable.  This was the second year in a row that we’ve used him for our B&G.  Not sure if we’ll use him again next year or not, but most definitely in the future.  We’ll leave that to the committee to decide though.

To cap off the evening, we awarded the 2nd year Webelos with their Arrow of Light awards and crossed them over to their new Boy Scout Troops.  It was the inagural voyage of the new bridge.

With the 12 center boards being removable it actually worked out very well.  It was unfortunate that we had a delay in the arrival of the Arrowmen from the local OA chapter as their ceremony is quite an experience — we had to keep the program moving along as it was getting late and cub scouts were getting restless.  We fortunately had a plan B ready which included each of the 2nd year Webelos reciting an element of the scout law while handing a plank to a 1st year Webelos scout who took the plank and put it in its place on the bridge while the 2nd year Webelos Scout explained the meaning of that element.  This was repeated for the rest of the elements until the bridge was completely built. Then it was time to cross the boys to their troop.

The AoL and Crossover ceremony was really good — in the absence of the OA ceremony.  It’s going to be tough to decide next year on which we will want to do as I can see a new tradition emerging here.

In all, it was a great evening and I believe all 100+ in attendance had a really good time.  A tad long, but really good nonetheless.  My hat’s off to the B&G committee and all who helped pull it off.  We have an awesome pack!

One of the things that I’ve prided myself on is the running of an efficient committee meeting.  Part of that ability stems from having a meeting agenda BEFORE the meeting, but even better, using that same agenda for the meeting minutes.

Below is a copy of my pack’s latest meeting minutes so you can see how I do it.  Before the meeting I draft up the agenda and only fill in the leftmost column.  As we progress through the meeting I fill in the agenda items notes and any action items that might arise.

Feel free to use it, and let me know if it works for you, and better yet, if you happen to have any suggestions for improvement.

Pack Committee Meeting Agenda / Minutes Template (423)

At the base of the top section is an o-ring next to the coupling.  I recall seeing somewhere else another setup using a larger coupling with a slice in to to place a pull-pin with to secure the rocket.

With this setup, the boys fill the bottle up with about 1 cup of water then quickly turn it upside-down over the pvc pipe.  One boy holds the rocket in place while another boy pumps the air pump.  Once a desired amount of air pressure is realized the do a quick countdown and the boy releases the bottle.

These dudes fly pretty good.  Due to the water involved, it is certainly recommended for summer-time launches.

As I discover additional tips and tricks for such a launcher I’ll post them.

As you can see by this photo, I had to capture a like pose with my boy to commemorate the event like we did in 2009 when we attended.  It’s rather awesome to think back over the past 3 years and where my both my boy and I are in scouting.

I’m looking forward to 4 years from now when we’ll return to WashJam again, but this time, it’ll be with BOTH of my boys!  I can’t wait for that photo opp!

For scouts attending WashJam this next week, they will have an opportunity to be some of the first scouts to possibly earn the new Search and Rescue merit badge. Via the WashJam Facebook page, I learned yesterday that one of the requirements is for scouts to take and pass FEMA’s ICS-100 online training and exam, an approximate 3 hour commitment plus exam.

That is the only bit of information they are releasing at this point, so for boys able to jump online and complete this by this coming Thursday, they might be able to leave WashJam as some of the first scouts to earn this Merit badge.

I love this place.

This cabin has been in the family for many, many years and currently under the loving care of my wife’s brother. Years ago when my in-laws were still alive, we used to come up here nearly every weekend of the summer. After their passing it just wasn’t the same and we stopped coming.

This summer has been a challenge for us to find a weekend, or week, for us as a family to just get away from things and relax. I finally convinced the wife that we should utilize this wonderful resource that is in the family. So, we set out for the cabin on Friday and it’s been just awesome. The boys have had a blast playing in the lake nearly all day and have actually been getting along despite our oldest beginning his teen years (complete with attitude).

I sincerely hope we utilize this resource more over the next couple of years — this has been good therapy for the entire family.

So…  Just how can these two items be combined for DO cooking?  Besides a storage compartment for your briquettes, chimney, and other accessories.

I made a wonderful discovery today that is going to make using my DO here at the house a lot more convenient.  If you don’t have a DO table, or a stand, this will work well in either of their places.

I discovered that the lid of a 33 gallon aluminum garbage can fits well in place of the cooking grate on a 22.5″ Weber kettle grill.  Now, even though I started off using the lid in place of the grate, since it wasn’t a 100% perfect fit, I opted to instead leave the cooking grate in place and place 6 small 2″x4″ blocks around the perimeter of the cooking grate and then place the garbage lid on top of it.

With that, I can then just flip over the garbage can and use it to keep my coals going for replacements as cooking goes on.

Of course… I could have just used my new backyard fire pit.  :-)

Several months back on the Cub Scout Talk list on YahooGroups the topic came up about the scout law and how to teach Webelos scouts that element of the Arrow of Light.  I jumped in to the conversation and shared a technique that I used that involved a pair of fuzzy dice.

Well, apparently a writer for Scouting magazine was also following the thread and he asked me if I would agree to an interview by email explaining my fuzzy dice method. That idea ultimately got published and I in turn shared that fact with my scouter friends on Google+.

A while later, another fellow scouter from Ohio sees the idea and wishes to take it a step further and have the boys create their own wooden dice to help knock out their handyman activity badge — using a hand saw, screw driver, and power drill.

His scouts apparently ate it up!  They loved the idea and one of his scouts took it again another step further and recommended the he and his fellow scouts should roll the die each day and depending on which element of the scout law the die rested upon, that they should consciously do that element all day long.

Wow…  so cool.  A simple idea of taking a pair of fuzzy dice to assist boys in learning the Scout Law for their Arrow of Light has turned in to a fun little tool that boys are certainly “getting.”

It is little things like this that make scouting so much fun for me.  I relish the thought that a little idea can be built upon and become a fun teaching aid for boys. THIS is the sort of stuff that keeps me going — and I’m sure there are others out there who feel the same.