Good evening,
This has been a heart-breaking week, as we have joined with our nation in sending thoughts and prayers for Prescott’s grieving families as details continued to become known surrounding the tragedy involving the Granite Mountain hotshots. Coincidently, as this is career theme month for our troop meetings, we were blessed to have had the uncle of one of our scouts who is a retired Mesa firefighter speak with us Tuesday night. His descriptions of the process of becoming a firefighter, and the satisfaction and challenges of the job were riveting, and somewhat eerie in the context of the news from up north. Please continue to join us in upcoming July meetings, as additional interesting people will be joining us to share their career experiences.
In less than two weeks, we will be on the road to summer camp outside of Colorado Springs. The way that we are configured as attendees this year, we will have three patrols at summer camp – the Pirates, the Royals, and a combined patrol of the Yetis and the Phoenix. As it also works out, we will have none of the current patrol leaders attending camp, so we will have to identify leads for each of the patrols in the next two weeks. As discussed in PLC last week, each of the three patrols will also need to have a patrol flag and a patrol yell, so during patrol time in the upcoming weeks, those items will need to be finalized. The evening of 7/16 will contain extended patrol time to be focus on final preparation for camp.  Please see your doctor to complete your medicals, and ensure you have your merit badge books and are working on your prereqs so you can come home with badges for all the courses you take at camp.
As mentioned by Mr. Murphy Tuesday night, the troop is having a fire sale on our Class B t-shirts. Our red field uniforms can be obtained during the month of July for a mere $4. Stock up now in preparation for summer camp, or for upcoming outings (the August outing is going to be a fabulous trek through the coolness of Sycamore Canyon up by Williams).  You can also obtain a troop hat for $15 if yours has gone missing – that will be a part of our complete uniform, as well.
For adult leaders, we will be having an adult leader meeting at SWC on 7/15 at 7PM with a focus on summer camp, honor patrol, boy leadership, and PLC retreat planning. Â See you there!
And I’ll see you Tuesday night at the troop meeting!
Mr. Cole