B.S.A Cub Scout Pack 250 – Rock Island, IL.

This year’s Blue & Gold Banquet Theme is “The Wild West”. Come on out to the Rock Island Center for Math & Science on Thursday evening, February 23rd, for a night of food, fun, and awards for our hard-working Cub Scouts.

Scouts (and parents and siblings) are encouraged to dress up in their best western gear! We’ll have cowboy hats and bandannas for anyone who needs some. Arrival is at 5:30, with dinner at 6:00, followed by the program.

Each den is asked to bring a dish to share. Tigers – a meat (barbecue, pulled pork, or any appropriate potluck meat to share). Wolves – chips, veggies or fruit. Bears – buns, bread, cornbread, etc. Webelos – drinks. We will also have a Western Themed dessert decorating contest, so use your imagination and bring a cake, cupcakes, or other dessert with a Wild West theme. We will have some surprise guest judges, and have several categories for awards – best tasting, best overall design, most creative, etc.

The night will include songs, skits, awards, and a lot of fun. We look forward to seeing everyone there. Parents, siblings, grandparents are all invited to attend. Call Daryl at 781-8451 with any questions on this year’s Blue & Gold Banquet!

What a great first few months for Pack 250 in our new scouting year!  The Tigers have been working hard towards their Bobcat and Tiger Badges.  The Wolves and Bears continue their progress also, completing many advancement requirements and fun projects.  The Webelos 1 have been working hard towards earning their Webelos Badge, focusing on their Citizenship, Fitness, Athlete, and Communications Badges.  And the Webelos 2 are almost at the end of the Cub Scouting Journey, and will cross over to Boy Scouts on December 16th.

I am very proud of everyone, and especially grateful to the parents and leaders who have stepped up to make this successful year to date.  We sold over $14,000 in popcorn this year, resulting in $4100 in profits directly back to our Pack.  This total will allow us to pay for and discount many events and items for the Pack, such as the upcoming SHARKS program at the Putnam.  We were able to discount the price by $5 for scouts and parents!

This is a busy time of year for everyone, so our meeting schedules have been limited to work around the Holidays.  We will get back to a regular schedule in January.  But in the meantime, it is rechartering time.  This means we must re-register each scout with the Pack for the 2012 Calendar Year.  If you have not picked up your recharter information, or paid the required $15 annual, fee, please contact me, Daryl, to take care of this.  We must turn in our recharter paperwork by December 3rd, and don’t want to miss anyone who intends to re-register for the coming year!

To date, we have 28 new scouts registered for Pack 250 from last Spring and this Fall.  This is fantastic!  Welcome all aboard, and we hope you find your scouting years a worthwhile experience.

A big thank you to Boy Scout Troop 243 for hosting us on August 26th and 27th at the Rock Island Conservation Club.  The Webelos learned a lot and are well on their way to earning their Webelos Badge.  The younger scouts who joined us on Saturday also had great fun.  Check out a few photos on the Photo Log page, and make sure to send me (Daryl, daryl@gaselectriccu.com) any photos you would like to see posted.

We are on our regular meeting schedule for September, with Den meetings on the 1st and 15th, and a Pack Meeting on September 22nd.  The dens will begin working on their individual achievements and advancement requirements at these meetings.

Webelos are invited to the Illowa Council Webelos in the Woods Event on Saturday, September 10th overnight to Sunday.  This is a great opportunity to earn or work towards earning your activity badges.  Much of what you do here we simply cannot do at the Pack level.  Attached is an informational flyer on this event.  Webelos in the Woods 2011.  Early Bird registration ($8 ends Friday, September 2nd, and it is $15 after this date.)

School is back in session, and that means the scouting year is also kicking into gear!  This should be another exciting year for Pack 250, with lots of activities and fun meetings planned.

We kick things off on Thursday, August 18th.  At 5:30, there will be an orientation session for new Tiger Cubs (1st graders) and all new scouts.  We’ll discuss the requirements of being in scouts, what you will and will not need to purchase, and answer many questions you may have.  At 6:30, we will have our first Pack meeting of the year.  We’ll give out awards earned from the last scouting year and over the summer, and then Mr. Windt, retired aerospace engineer, will show us how to build scout-powered rockets and launch them on the church lawn.  This is always a lot of fun to start the scouting year off right.

Thursday, August 25th will be the first den meetings of the year.  We will discuss the campout for that weekend at the Rock Island Conservation Club.  Webelos 1 & 2 will be camping out Friday evening as the guests of Boy Scout Troop 243.  They will have lots of fun activities for the Webelos to introduce them to Boy Scouts and what they are all about.  The rest of the Pack can come out Saturday afternoon for an overnight campout.  This is a family campout, so at least parent is required to stay with your scout overnight, although often families will come out for the afternoon and evening only.  We’ll have skits and songs after supper, and some dutch oven desserts from the Boy Scouts.  More details will be forthcoming at our meetings.

In September, we get back in to our regular meeting schedule.  Be sure to click on the 2011-11 Calendar Link at the top of the website for the full year calendar. Thank you for your continued support for Pack 250!