An Alternate to Cell Phones & iPods

Are you having a hard time prying those electronic devices—cell phones, GameBoys and iPods—out the hands of your scouts? Try replacing their tech-toys with the latest generation of land navigation tools, a GPS receiver. GPS units will enhance the map and compass skills you want your scouts to master and may become that killer device that will get your scouts hiking, exploring and navingating the outdoors rather than texting each other in their tents.

Considering cell phone users may easily drop hundreds of dollars for a phone and service, or an iPod, a GPS unit is relatively inexpensive. They start at $90. They're even user friendly. I'll bet you if you place one in a scout's hand in the morning, he'll be teaching you how to use it that afternoon.

Now ratchet it up to the next level. Introduce you scouts to Geocaching and you have involved internet and social networking. Geocaching may sound hokey until you have your scouts go treasure hunting for one. It's exciting to see your scouts practice scout skills, teamwork and leadership to locate a cache. Then they get to open it and exchange trinkets and leave a message in the log book.

Have I sparked your interest? Check out Geoscouting and the recent articles in Scouting Magazine and Boys' Life about Geocaching.

Win a patch!

At our last leadership meeting, we kicked around some ideas about our blog, and one of them really seemed to get everyone's attention: a patch contest. We liked it so much, that Steve Bunker and I both agreed to pitch in some patches from our collection.

How does it work? Well, here's the deal. Every month, at our chapter activity (or at the activity we attend, like the multi-chapter activity in March), we'll give away a patch to someone who has commented on our blog during the month and who's at the activity.

Every blog post that you comment on will count as an entry (just one comment per post counts though), so the more posts you read and comment on each month,, the better your chances of winning. We'll hold a drawing at the beginning of each activity, and hand out the patch to the winner right there.

So, wanna win a patch? It's time to start reading (and commenting on) the blog.

Election Goals

We have set a goal to hold 3 unit elections each month. Here is a graph showing were we stand so far this year:

Chapter Activity Feb 2009

It might have been the last day of February, but the chapter did hold its monthly leadership meeting and activity. Since a number of chapter members didn't make it, we decided to fill everyone in on what happened.

We started the leadership meeting with a review of the goals we'd set.

In our last blog post, we talked about one of these — Unit Elections. Our goal is to hold four elections each month in February, March, and April; so far, we're ahead of our goal.

We also talked about our goal to get the word out about our meetings. We're doing better at this, and thought we might see some benefits from it at the activity later in the evening.

After talking about our goals, we turned our attention to several upcoming events. Key among them is our May Fellowship. We decided not to try to form a brotherhood ceremony team at this point (we just don't have the resources). Instead, we will be working to form a call-out ceremony team.

As our leadership meeting started to wind down, two more chapter members showed up for the Activity. Since we've been hovering around two attendees, this seemed like an indication our publicity efforts have been working. After a quick opening ceremony, we talked about our calendar for March, April, and May.

In March, we're having a special Five Chapters event. One of the other Provo and Orem chapters has put together a game and movie overnighter. We'll meet at the Scout office at 6PM on Friday, March 6 and close things up at noon on Saturday. We'll also be making shirts that can be worn as part of ceremonies. We really want to see everyone possible there.

In April, the Section W2S is holding the 2009 Section Conclave on April 24-26. We're not going to hold a chapter activity this month, and hope that everyone will go to Conclave instead — take some time to register if you'd like to meet us there.

In May, we'll be holding a call out ceremony at the District Camporee on the 8th and 9th. The next week we'll be holding our Fellowship. We will be holding an Ordeal there, and if we can get things worked out, we'll hold a Brotherhood ceremony as well. If that's important to you, let us know.

After previewing the next several months, we organized our ceremony team and held a first practice for the call-out. The team will meet twice a month until the camporee to polish their parts and present the best ceremony that they can.

To close things up, we broke out the pizza and played 'Apples to Apples' while we ate. It was great to see everyone that came, but we missed the Lakota arrowmen that couldn't make it. We sure hope to see you next time.