Simsbury Troop 175

Simsbury Troop 175 Wins WebAward

The Web Marketing Association recently announced that the Simsbury Troop 175 Website was selected as a winner of the Standard of Excellence WebAward in both the Blog and Advocacy categories as part of its 14th annual WebAward Competition for Web site development.

More than 2,000 sites from 45 countries were adjudicated in 96 industry categories during this year's competition. Entries were judged on design, copy writing, innovation, content, interactivity, navigation, and use of technology.

The Troop 175 combines the news from the troop and its scouts with general scouting and camping news.  It also features a library of photos from troop events, a private email communicatoin tool using Google Groups, and even automaticly creates a weekly email newsletter containing that week's new posts.

Simsbury Boy Scout Troop 175 To hold Open House At Onion Mountain

Simsbury Boy Scout Troop 175 is known for its adventure trips and outdoor camping skills. On the Weekend of November 13-14 the troop will hold an open house at Onion Mountain on West Mountain Road in West Simsbury for all area Webelos and any other boy between the ages of 11 and 17 interested in learning more about scouting.

The weekend will begin at noon and the current scouts will have prepared a zip line, ropes course, and a typical campsite with survival shelter for the event. Visitors will be able to participate in an Iron Chef cooking competition, a fire building with flint and steel contest, night time capture the flag game (bring a flashlight) and end the night sitting around a campfire telling jokes, watching skits and singing songs.

Parents are invited to enjoy a campfire and learn more about the scouting program at Troop 175 while their sons are embedded with boy scout patrols for the afternoon.

For more information, please contact Troop 175 Scoutmaster Brad Mead at 860-836-4114 or bradmead@deltanow.com

Scouts Run 5K

Congratulations to Troop 175 Scouts Jon E. and Keegan R. for running in the 2nd Annual VIE for Kids 5K Trail Run at the Ethel Walker School in Simsbury. Both scouts finished in among the top 20 runners with almost 500 people participating.

The event helped raise money for the CT Children's Medical Center Foundation.

 

Troop 175 Goes Bald

In an effort to increase awareness to the effects of cancer, 68 scouts from Simsbury Boy Scout Troop 175 wore bald caps as part of national "Be Bold, Be Bald" program. Now in its second year, Be Bold, Be Bald took place on October 22nd and saw thousands of people across the country go bald for the day to honor cancer patients and raise money to help fight this terrible disease.

To learn how you can participate in future events and even make a difference now, go to www.beboldbebald.org

October is Camping Month

Over the next several troop meetings, the scouts for Simsbury Troop 175 will be working on requirements for the Camping Merit Badge. This Eagle required badge is improtant in a troop such as ours because it teaches many of the basic and advanced skills we use each month on our camp outs.

Camping is one of the best-known methods of the Scouting movement. When he founded the Scouting movement in the early 1900s, Robert Baden-Powell encouraged every Scout to learn the art of living out-of-doors. He believed a young person able to take care of himself while camping would have the confidence to meet life's other challenges, too.

Requirements

1. Show that you know first aid for and how to prevent injuries or illnesses that could occur while camping, including hypothermia, frostbite, heat reactions, dehydration, altitude sickness, insect stings, tick bites, snakebite, blisters, and hyperventilation.
2. Learn the Leave No Trace principles and the Outdoor Code and explain what they mean. Write a personal and group plan for implementing these principles on your next outing.
3. Make a written plan for an overnight trek and show how to get to your camping spot using a topographical map and compass OR a topographical map and a GPS receiver.
4. Do the following:
   1. Make a duty roster showing how your patrol is organized for an actual overnight campout. List assignments for each member.
   2. Help a Scout patrol or a Webelos Scout unit in your area prepare for an actual campout, including creating the duty roster, menu planning, equipment needs, general planning, and setting up camp.
5. Do the following:
   1. Prepare a list of clothing you would need for overnight campouts in both warm and cold weather. Explain the term "layering."
   2. Discuss footwear for different kinds of weather and how the right footwear is important for protecting your feet.
   3. Explain the proper care and storage of camping equipment (clothing, footwear, bedding).
   4. List the outdoor essentials necessary for any campout, and explain why each item is needed.
   5. Present yourself to your Scoutmaster with your pack for inspection. Be correctly clothed and equipped for an overnight campout.
6. Do the following:
   1. Describe the features of four types of tents, when and where they could be used, and how to care for tents. Working with another Scout, pitch a tent.
   2. Discuss the importance of camp sanitation and tell why water treatment is essential. Then demonstrate two ways to treat water.
   3. Describe the factors to be considered in deciding where to pitch your tent.
   4. Tell the difference between internal- and external-frame packs. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each.
   5. Discuss the types of sleeping bags and what kind would be suitable for different conditions. Explain the proper care of your sleeping bag and how to keep it dry. Make a comfortable ground bed.
7. Prepare for an overnight campout with your patrol by doing the following:
   1. Make a checklist of personal and patrol gear that will be needed.
   2. Pack your own gear and your share of the patrol equipment and food for proper carrying. Show that your pack is right for quickly getting what is needed first, and that it has been assembled properly for comfort, weight, balance, size, and neatness.
8. Do the following:
   1. Explain the safety procedures for
      1. Using a propane or butane/propane stove
      2. Using a liquid fuel stove
      3. Proper storage of extra fuel
   2. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of different types of lightweight cooking stoves.
   3. Prepare a camp menu. Explain how the menu would differ from a menu for a backpacking or float trip. Give recipes and make a food list for your patrol. Plan two breakfasts, three lunches, and two suppers. Discuss how to protect your food against bad weather, animals, and contamination.
   4. Cook at least one breakfast, one lunch, and one dinner for your patrol from the meals you have planned for requirement 8c. At least one of those meals must be a trail meal requiring the use of a lightweight stove.
9. Show experience in camping by doing the following:
   1. Camp a total of at least 20 days and 20 nights. The 20 days and 20 nights must be at a designated Scouting activity or event. Sleep each night under the sky or in a tent you have pitched. You may use a week of long-term camp toward this requirement. If the camp provides a tent that has already been pitched, you need not pitch your own tent.
   2. On any of these camping experiences, you must do TWO of the following, only with proper preparation and under qualified supervision.
      1. Hike up a mountain, gaining at least 1,000 vertical feet.
      2. Backpack, snowshoe, or cross-country ski for at least 4 miles.
      3. Take a bike trip of at least 15 miles or at least four hours.
      4. Take a nonmotorized trip on the water of at least four hours or 5 miles.
      5. Plan and carry out an overnight snow camping experience.
      6. Rappel down a rappel route of 30 feet or more.
   3. Perform a conservation project approved by the landowner or land managing agency.
10. Discuss how the things you did to earn this badge have taught you about personal health and safety, survival, public health, conservation, and good citizenship. In your discussion, tell how Scout spirit and the Scout Oath and Law apply to camping and outdoor ethics.

 

Be Bold, Be Bald

On October 22, 2010, please join us and wear a bald cap all day to show solidarity with cancer patients, raise awareness to effects of this devastating illness and raise money for charity. For a small fee ($15) you will receive your own participant kit that incldes a bald cap, a tee-shirt and information on how you can help make a difference.

Members of Troop 175, their families and the entire community can help support this cause by ordering a kit or simply making an online donation to help this wonderful cause.

Be Bald! is a unique fundraiser to honor cancer patients and raise money to fight the disease itself.  Funds raised will go to The jimmy Fund, Lance Armstrong Foundation, Prostate Cancer Foundation and other well known cancer support organizations.

Click here to learn more and join the "I Can Make A Difference" team and receive your own Be Bold Be Bald kit or just make a donation.