Memorial Day Grave Flagging

   Every year a number of Cub Scout Packs, Boy Scout Troops, and Venture Crews volunteer to honor our fallen veterans by placing flags on their graves on Memorial Day.  A few units have already signed up this year to represent the District and honor those who risked all (and sometimes lost all) to protect us and to protect freedom for others around the world, but we don’t have enough units signed up to cover all the graves at Greenwood and other places in Butler County.  If you would like to participate, please contact Mr. Don Shollenbarger or Mr. Ron Jones at the Soldiers, Sailors, and Pioneers Monument in Hamilton during regular office hours in Hamilton at 867-5823.

   Procedures involve placing flags (provided by County Commissioners) and retrieving and returning them later.  Units are compensated for the number of flags placed and returned.

   Placing may begin as early as Wednesday, May 21, 2008, and flags will then be retrieved between Saturday, May 31, and Saturday, June 7.

   Flags can be picked up from and returned to the Butler County Soldiers, Sailors, & Pioneers Monument during regular hours Mon. thru Fri. 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM and on Saturdays from 11:00 AM – 3:00 PM.

   More information is available at the Butler County Soldiers, Sailors, & Pioneers Monument web site  or you can call them at 867-5823.

Spring Camporee (Updated 4.22.2008)

   Here is all the information for our District Spring Camporee being organized and presented by BSA TROOP 914 – WEST CHESTER, OHIO.

   The theme is the Scout L*A*W (Land, Air, and Water).  There will be exciting events planned for all three areas – Land, Air, and Water.  Full details including schedule, driving and parking directions, patrols structure, identification of events, items to bring, pre-Camporee Activity Preparation (especially the Egg-loft Rocket Competition Rocket Kits), and songs and skits preparation can be viewed in our Attendee Packet.

 (New Update – 4.22.2008) The rockets that will be used for the patrol egg loft rocket competitions at Spring Camporee have arrived.  They are located at the Tri-County Scout office.  Please be advised that only one rocket per patrol will be issued.  This means each patrol should decide upon one representative to pick up the rocket.  Please pick one up only if your patrol is definitely participating in the competition this year.

   Now would be a good time to check out the newly published rules for the rocket competition and start working on modifying your rocket to achieve the best results you can to win the competition.  Modifications should be completed before the Camporee begins.  Contact Brian Griffin at bgriffin@cinci.rr.com with any questions.

   Here is a brief recap of the essential information:

WHEN	May 16 – 18, 2008
WHERE	Voice of America Park West Chester, OH	QUARK Rocket Club This rocket will be on display and may fly that weekend. (click photo for a larger image)
COST	$12.50/participant (Scout or Leader)
REGISTRATION	Register On-Line or by phone or in person at the Victory Parkway or Fairfield Scout Offices
REGISTRATION DEADLINE	Registration deadline is May 15, 2008, or when capacity is reached, whichever occurs first.
CAPACITY	Attendance will be limited to the first 300 registrants.
EMAIL FOR INFORMATION	Brent Hawkes       dbussell@cinci.rr.com Brian D. Griffin      bgriffin@cinci.rr.com
CHECK IN	Friday, May 16 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
CHECK OUT	Sunday, May 18 8:30 AM till Camporee Closes at 10:30 AM

Miami River - Clean Sweep 2008

   The annual Clean Sweep of the Miami River has been scheduled for the morning of Saturday, May 10, 2008.  Local volunteers will be cleaning up the Great Miami River from Indian Lake to the Ohio River. This event provides an organized, fun, and easy community service project for your Scouts, church groups, and families to get involved in our community while helping clean-up our Great Miami River.

   Clean Sweep volunteers will pick up trash, tires, and other debris that does not belong along the river banks.  The trash accumulated at each site will be disposed of by participating city, municipal, or township maintenance crews.  Additional details can be found on Clean Sweep’s web site.

   Here is a list of the established locations in Butler County for the Sweep (each title is a link to a flyer for that location):

   Contact information is included in their Flyer should you have any questions.

   Please note that all volunteers need to read and sign the Participation and Waiver Form prior to the event.  Forms will be available the day of the event or may be downloaded by clicking on the link above (large groups are encouraged to pre-register).  This form includes guidance for attire and appropriate safety procedures as well as a space for requesting Scout patches.  Those participating will also receive commemorative T-shirts.

   If you are able to participate in this project, please remember to enter your involvement in your Good Turn for America service account.

Random Act of Kindness

  We want to thank Pack 935 for participating in National Random Acts of Kindness Week, 2-11-08 to 2-17-08.  It began with an idea from Mandy Toney, the Pack’s event coordinator.  Then on 2/15/08 when the Pack’s Cubs were out of school, they gathered at the home of their Cubmaster, Jennifer Lonicker, and made 40 valentine cards with a NRAKW card attached to the back and a piece of candy attached to the front with the boys decorating the inside and front.

   Then everyone went to Sunrise Assisted Living in Hamilton on N.W. Washington Blvd. and walked around to hand out the cards they made to the seniors living there.  All involved were tickled to both give and receive, and the Pack made a lot of new friends that they will be seeing again in the spring to help them plant flowers, put up birdfeeders that the Cubs will make prior to going, and install some birdhouses that a Wolf dad, Charles Loos, will make for the Pack.

   Here is a picture of some of the boys and their leaders with a few of the residents. (Click on the picture for a larger image.) Thank you Pack 935 for brightening the lives of a lot of people in our community.

Klondike Derby Results

   We had an excellent Klondike Derby on Jan. 25-27.  We had a good turnout, and there was a decided show of spirit and enthusiastic participation.  20 Patrols and 3 Webelos Dens participated.

   We had close to ideal conditions, cold enough to keep the ground frozen and not too windy.  Unfortunately the only snow we had was in the wooded areas.  Some Troops camped both Fri. and Sat. night, but most of the Troops camped on Sat. night.  It was our first overnight Klondike in years, and it went over big.

   The highlight after all the activities was, of course, the campfire.  Rev. Chester did a fine job of explaining scout spirit during the non-denominational service there.  Walking around the campfire and looking every boy in the eye one-by-one as he circled in front of the troops, he was able to make every boy feel like he was talking directly to him, explaining what Scouting spirit and character are in terms each could understand and relate to but without sounding “preachery”.  It was an inspiring talk straight from the heart that we hope others who missed it get to hear in future events.

   Ribbons were given out for 1st., 2nd. and 3rd. place for each event (results here), and Huge Trophies were given to the overall winners:

Boy Scouts

Webelos

   The evening ended with all the OA members circling the campfire, facing the audience and singing the OA's official song, immediately followed by everyone present singing Scout Vespers.

   A big Thank You to all the members of the Tsungani Chapter of Ku-Ni-Eh Lodge for an excellent job of planning and executing such a fun and successful event!

Relay for Life

  The American Cancer Society in Butler County hosts a series of events called “Relay For Life.”  Each Relay is a great community service project, and it’s also a wonderful show of support if you know someone with cancer.

   Relays are being held in April, May, and June throughout our district.  Each begins in the afternoon and lasts for 18 hours.

   That’s right; it’s an all night event!  Much more than a walk around a track, Relay is a time to celebrate those who have battled cancer, remember those lost, and get inspired to fight back.  Teams of 15 members form with the goal of keeping one person on the track at all times.  Relay For Life® brings together friends, families, businesses, hospitals, schools, churches, community groups ... people from all walks of life.

   Here is a list of the different relays in the Ft. Hamilton area.  You can click on the name of each relay to go to that relay’s web site for more information or to sign up:

National Council Website Changes

   For all Scouts and Scouters accessing National’s web site and for all unit Webmasters linking to the National web site, we thought you might like to know that National is updating their site and rearranging some of the links.

   On January 14th, National’s web site http://www.scouting.org moved into a new publishing platform.  You will see the benefits in enhanced navigation and search, e-mail, and subscription services for every page, and a more consistent look and feel throughout the site.  The biggest change to Scouting.org appears in the way that URL's have been simplified for easier handling.

   However, one issue that will arise from this new URL system is that some URLs will no longer match the URLs found on Scouting.org in the past, and this will likely cause problems for any website that has links to pages deep within Scouting.org.  To address this issue and to allow for any links that currently exist to continue to work, National has set up an archived version of Scouting.org that will remain active for 90 days.  This archived version can be found at http://old.scouting.org.  This will give webmasters time to update their sites to link to the new page locations.

   For more details on how to do this, see the full text of the announcement that was sent to all registered Scouting webmasters.

Notice: On January 30th, National sent an additional notice of web link changes for webmasters to use to update their own sites.  Check this out also if you are linking to National’s website from your own website. (PDF for printing)  (TXT for the copy/paste fans)

Order of the Arrow

Attend Roundtable: Stay Informed!

New Training Opportunities Page

Webelos Transition

District Chaplain

Adult Knot Awards

Yahoo Email Groups

Congratulations!