Good news, scouts! Our popcorn is in, and is ready to be distributed to those who bought it. Please contact Mrs. Koes for pickup.

Our trusty SPL, Cole, has begun the process of earning his Eagle rank. He needs your help to help complete this involved process. To do this, all he needs is for you to sign up to go to work at selling hot dogs during the Festival of Trees. This helps our SPL, and it also helps Pelham support non-profit groups in our community. But you have to be quick, so Cole can secure the funds and achieve the epic Eagle Scout rank.

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/30e084dafa829a5f49-eagle

Great news, Scouts! Daniel Webster has put together an exciting merit badge workshop series. There are 5 opportunities during the winter and spring to earn many merit badges, including Eagle-required merit badges! The merit badge counselors do a great job on these workshop series. These spots book up fast. If you are at all interested, book them today. Your webmaster has booked for spots in April, and will be happy to carpool for anyone in Troop 25.

https://nhscouting.org/mbseries

On November 10th and 11th, Troop 25 joined with Troop 610 to participate in the annual Food Vigil at St. Patrick’s. The point of the Food Vigil is to help restock the food pantry, and help get the word out to members in our community who might need the food pantry or be able to help support it. Scouts went door-to-door and passed out dozens of brochures requesting food for Scouts to pick up. Big thanks to Mr. Helgemoe for organizing the brochure distribution and food pickup for both troops. Not only is this good to help stock the food pantry, but it also helps us remember how fortunate most of us are that we have something to eat in our own homes.

Troop 25 recently visited Camp Greenough. By our camp site we noticed an interesting wood craft building. We briefly stopped and visited with a gentleman who has been involved in scouting for over 75 years! He went simply by the name Uncle Ed.

As a master carpenter, Uncle Ed became involved in teaching woodcraft to Scouts in his retirement. There were no store bought wood crafts in his shop. He goes home and makes amazing kits for the boys to put together during camp. He usually teaches a dozen children at a time. When we met him he was there in the early morning hours expanding a table to fit more kids on.

The program is a complete success, and Uncle Ed has helped recreate this success at other camps, including one in Canada! Scouting is made up of many amazing leaders that quietly give their time and talents. We are so grateful to have these unsung leaders in scouting!

We went down to the Cape and Nantucket for our end of summer Troop 25 trip. Most of us got an early start on Friday and left at 11ish. We beat the traffic and found our way to our second stay at beautiful Camp Greenough in Yarmouthport. Camp Greenough was amazingly tranquil, as only another party of campers was there. We mountain biked around the camp and saw lean-tos, athletic fields, an enormous osprey nest, a huge pond, and looked in an interesting wood shop (more on that in the next post).

After the excitement of catching the ferry out of Hyannis, we landed in beautiful Nantucket. The weather was perfect, and everyone was happy. There were many high-end stores in Nantucket’s historic district. Our fellow shoppers and their Land Rovers seemed more than well-heeled. Our bikes made it safely across and we rode all around Nantucket, from the hills to the coasts and saw their lighthouses and wildlife.

After that, we went back to Cape Cod. We took another bike trip, going all the way to the very tip of the Cape and back to Greenough, along the National Seashore. One member of the troop didn’t hesitate to swim in said potentially shark-infested seashore. Thankfully, he made it out without a bite. The seals bobbed their heads out of the water, and the seashore was visible along every stretch of that ride. We went to Provincetown, and then went home!

At 4:30 PM on Friday, the steeple of our charter organization took a direct hit of lightning. Thankfully, the church was empty at the time, and it did not take long for the Fire Department to put out any flames. $50,000 worth of damage, but it should be covered under insurance (and the steeple needed to be painted anyway).

The WPI Merit Badge University is going to start registration in late August. If you would like to take advantage of this great opportunity to earn numerous merit badges, please go over the information below. We’ve had scouts go for the past couple of years and we usually carpool to make it easier for everybody.

Disclaimer: The following has been taken from the WPI Merit Badge University’s emailing list. The link to be added to this list is below.

Dear Scouters,

As many of you know, the next WPI Merit Badge University is this fall on November 10th and December 1st. Registration will open in late August. An email will announce the opening of the registration period. If anyone wants to be added to the emailing list to get this notification have them fill out this Google Form: here. Please distribute this link to anyone who would be interested. If you received this email, you are already on the list.

The offered merit badges will include:

• Animation

• Art

• Astronomy

• Chemistry

• Citizenship in the Community

• Citizenship in the Nation

• Citizenship in the World

• Digital technology

• Electricity

• Electronics

• Emergency Preparedness

• Energy

• Engineering

• Environmental Science

• Fire Safety

• First Aid

• Geology

• Inventing

• Music

• Painting

• Programming

• Robotics

• Space Exploration

This year we are also excited to announce that we will be offering two of the STEM Nova awards, “Designed to Crunch” and “Start Your Engines!”. You can sign up for this course through the regular registration link. For more information about the STEM Nova Awards, visit the boy scouts website here.

When it becomes time to register for badges, have a list of badges prepared that you would like to take, as well as potential alternatives as some badges fill up quick.

More information will be posted on our website in the following month: here. If you have any questions or concerns, please direct them to MBU@wpi.edu. If you have had any outstanding problems with blue cards in the past please direct them to apo-bluecards@WPI.EDU. We hope to see you in the fall!

Sincerely,

The WPI MBU Committee

https://nhscouting.opendrive.com/file/NjRfMTAwMTYxOTVf

The attached guide is for parents, leaders, and scouts. Please read it over, as it is very relevant to anyone who is going to camp this summer at Hidden Valley. Above is a packed supply trunk for camp. Make sure to put your name on everything. There is a recommended supply list included in the guide, as well as updates and changes made to the camp since last year, as well as times for drop-off and pick up. Bring your medical forms, and have fun!

P.S.: If you have ANY partials that need to be taken care of, run the workbooks/blue cards by the Scoutmaster and you may be able to get them completed at camp.