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Over the weekend, the Troop 2319 Cycling MB Group completed their final and longest ride. The dreaded 22 miler! It was long, hot, and tiring, but everyone who started the day made it to the end. What a way to finish off the Cycling MB! Make sure you head over to the Cycling MB Photo Album to see all the latest pictures! (Click the image below for the full album of all past Cycling Merit Badge Rides)  

Summer Camp at Woodruff Scout Camp was absolutely incredible this year! Taking 51 scouts and 16 adults was a huge deal for the troop, we were the largest troop in camp this year and had the most leaders. There are too many people to thank one by one, but to name a few…, especially Mrs. Shumpert who handles all the all the planning and input of schedules, Mrs. Arkenberg who painstakingly reviewed everyone’s health forms, and all the leaders and parents who helped get scouts to and from camp. For a brief overview of camp, check out Col Tom’s nightly summaries:   Sunday: We easily sped through in-processing. Our Troop was too big for the benches used for the picture, so our camp arrival photo was taken in the amphitheater. The boys had plenty of free time to set up camp and have fun in the afternoon. We had chicken fingers in camp for dinner followed by orientation meetings for leaders and the opening campfire. Merit Badge classes begin in the morning.   Monday: Today we started the regular schedule. Rising at 6:30 the boys spiffed up the camp for inspection and scored an 85 – pretty good, but we need to average 90 out of 100 for the top award. Breakfast was French toast and sausage followed by merit badge sessions until lunch. New lunch procedures were a real hit with very short lines at a number of kiosks. Most finished lunch before we would previously have been entering the mess hall. Micky did a great job teaching all the academic portions of the First Aid MB today, tomorrow the boys will finish the hands on portions. After that was free time until diner (chicken fried steak) and more free time later. We played field games, went swimming, played Frisbee golf, mountain biking, kayaking, stand up paddle boarding, and board games in camp. Of course everyone didn’t do all of these, but all had fun.   Tuesday: The boys scored 95% on today’s inspection and are back on track for the streamer. After a full morning of merit badges and a quick turkey sandwich for lunch we finished the First Aid MB in camp and were able to start the handicraft drop in Merit badges. Looks like some of those projects may be getting finished at home. Today was Order of the Arrow (BSA national honor society) day at camp. Troop 2319 was called out in front of the entire camp to be presented with the OA Unit of Excellence Award. Less than 1% of all Troops nationally earn this award so we felt very honored to be publicly recognized.   Wednesday: Congratulations to the 6 adults who completed leadership training today! We will greatly benefit as a unit by being able to have multiple ASMs per patrol. The Scouts continued to work on advancements with the younger Scouts also completing the orienteering and 5 mile hike requirements. The 6 foot long, 2 inch diameter rat snake near the adult tents gave us a bit of excitement today. Scorpio came over from the nature lodge thrilled to add it to his collection. We scored 95 again on the camp site inspection. That combined with the older Scouts completing the Ranger campsite improvement project makes Honor Troop a virtual certainty. The boys are now focused on the top award of Scouting traditions. The adults not in training completed the geocaching course and other items to help toward that goal. We welcomed Nick and Greg to camp today. River and horse rides Thursday.   Thursday: What a full day! Many brave souls went to the lake for the polar bear plunge at 6am then dragged their shivering bodies to a breakfast of sausage biscuits. The inspection was an 88% today so our average currently stands at 90.25%. We need a 90% on Friday’s inspection or we will fall short of our goal and miss out on the award. Some of the Merit Badges are already complete. The rest should finish Friday morning except for the handicraft badges where the boys just ran out of time. Lunch was an adventure today. It was delivered to the kiosks late which led to a huge jam at load out for the horse rides and raft trips. After a short delay to ensure everyone was fed, most of the Troop boarded busses for their off camp activities. Devin led a battle bots team and took 2nd place out of about 20 teams. Many adventures were had and the boys can’t wait to tell you all about them. The late departure led to a late return, but the adults were able to enjoy a steak dinner and the boys were able to do open boating after dinner. Sugaring them all up with cobbler as I write this. Friday will be our last. The mile swim, inspection results and closing campfire look to be the highlights ahead.   Friday: Another glorious day at Woodruff. Too bad we have to come home – we are getting kind of used to this. Most merit badges were finished, but some are partials and will need to be completed in the coming weeks. We had a great showing at the mile swim and the camp wide games. The campfire was a bit anticlimactic though. Then we picked up our results. Did we do well on the inspection and earn the Scouting Traditions award? How much bling did we really earn? Adult awards will be presented Monday the rest you can find out from your triumphant Scout at pickup.   Full Photo Album:https://photos.app.goo.gl/LnBMJ6AqwYPBW5ou5 Highlights from the Week  

Although we weren’t able to go place flags at the Marietta National Cemetery this year to due federal capacity limits, we were still able to hold our own Flag Retirement Ceremony. Check out the photos by clicking the picture below.  

It was a hot out yesterday, but the Cycling Merit Badge crew still knocked out another 8 mile mountain biking ride. Way to go you guys, looks like you had an awesome time Blankets Creek! Only one more ride to go, but its the big 22 mile one… Good Luck! (Click the image below for the full album of all past Cycling Merit Badge Rides)

Troop 2319 headed to Bert Adams this past weekend to work on the Signs, Signals, & Codes Merit Badge, at it looks like all the scouts had a blast! They worked on signaling using mirrors &  flags, how to communicate in morse code, and what tons of different signs mean. Thank you so much to Opa for organizing the entire Merit Badge Class and thank you to all the other leaders and older scouts who helped act as instructors, we couldn’t have done it without you. The day didn’t stop there though, we had many of our OA scouts helping with the OA Day of Service and all the scouts ended Saturday by playing out it the woods. You couldn’t ask for a much better weekend trip! (click the image below for the full album)

Looks like the scouts had an awesome time this past Sunday working on the Archery Merit Badge. Shout out to Mrs. Hembree for organizing it! (Click the image below for the full album)

Troop 2319 headed up to Tennessee this past weekend to camp and hike in the Savage Gulf State Natural Area with some of the highlights being Laurel Falls, Greeter Falls Waterfall, and of course the Stone Door! Things were a little rainy Saturday morning but quickly cleared up. Although everyone camping in the same site, this trip actually had a split purpose. For most of the troop it was a great new location for day hikes, but for the crew heading to Philmont, it was another intense weekend training weekend including packing out Saturday morning for a long hike, returning in the evening and setting back up, and then breaking down and having another quick hike Sunday morning to get in the rhythm. Judging from the photos, it seems the nearly 40 people on the trip had a really great weekend with some pretty amazing views! (click the image below for the full album)

Several families headed down to Pensacola earlier this week for what proved to be an interesting trip.  The trip was a little bit chaotic at times with plan changing rapidly dependent on weather and policy changes, but everyone was really flexible and it all worked out in the end. Scouts got to spend a good amount of time at the beach on Wednesday and Thursday, spent the morning on Thursday exploring Historic Fort Pickens, and even squeeze in a campfire. Friday was a bit more interesting, with extremely gusting winds in the morning (the troop might need a new white canopy) and intermittent rain, the group opted to head into town and go to a couple escape rooms! However with extremely high winds, hail, and rain forecast for early hours Saturday morning, we ended up cutting the trip a little short and bugging out late Friday night. Even with last minute changes, I think everyone had a good time, and getting to play at the beach in the sun on a scout trip was a nice change of pace.

The troop had an absolutely amazing time at the March Troop Training Campout! We had tons of scouts earn their Firem’n Chits and Totin’ Chips that we ran out of cards! Scouts also had lots of time to work on knots, fire making, cooking, and general scout skills! But we didn’t work all day, in the afternoon, the troop Kubb sets were again very busy. The weather was just about perfect as the rain held out all day Saturday and just long enough for the troop to depart Sunday morning. Overall, I don’t think we could have asked for a better weekend. (click the image below for the full album)