Wednesday Activity 1 December 2010

This week we will be having an joint activity with the Young Women this week and we are excited to announce that we will be ICE SKATING. We will be leaving the Church at 7PM. The cost is $3/per person for skate rental. Everyone should bring thick socks, gloves, and a hat. It should be an very fun, exciting activity.

If you have any questions or concerns please give us a call or shoot us an email.

See you there!

No Activities For this Week

Due to Thanksgiving and a series of circumstances beyond our control we will NOT be having Scout Activities on Wednesday and we will be NOT having our scheduled campout this weekend as well.

Thanks.

-Vance Johnson

Saturday Update

In order to help those young people who have a harder time getting out of bed than others we will be teaming up with the Ward's Young Women and having breakfast before the special-for-youth-only meeting with Elder Bednar. This should be a really wonderful experience that definitely doesn't come around every day.

Here is the schedule

We will be meeting at the Church at 8:00 AM to have breakfast beforehand.

9-11 AM will be the meeting with Elder Bednar.

Thanks for all your support and I hope that we can see everyone there. (Remember parents are welcome to come if the will sit in the back of the chapel) It will prove to be a very uplifting and enjoyable experience.

If your son needs a ride let us know as soon as possible and we will make sure that it happens.

Troop 222 Week's Activites - 17 November 2010

As many of you are well aware we have a special week coming up. We will be having a visit from an Apostle--Elder David Bednar. As a result we will be having most of our week's activities revolve around this special visit.

Tonight for the Young Men's Activity:

We will be setting up chairs and preparing the church with the other wards who use our building for the visit. We will meet at the usual time of 7:00 PM and will be done around 8:20 PM.

Saturday:

9 AM - 11 AM -- A special fireside for the youth will take place at the Stake Center. The boys are asked to be there, in Sunday best. Parents and leaders are encouraged to attend but will be asked to sit at the back of the chapel (allowing youth to sit at the front together) and limit their participation, as to enable the young people from interacting with Elder Bednar as much as possible.

If anyone needs a ride for this please contact one of us.

Sunday:

10-12 -- Stake Conference at the stake center. It is expected there will be a large number attending. Please plan accordingly.

Finally:

The day after Thanksgiving the 26th of November to the 27th will be our November Camp-out. We will be meeting at the church. Time: TBD

Quick Reminder: Court of Honor

Just a reminder to all scouts and parents, there is a court of honor this coming Wednesday, the 10th of November. The meeting will take place in the Relief Society Room on the East Side of the building.

This court of honor was planned by the boys themselves and should be a good one. The boys will be getting all of the awards that they earned from the summer scout camp that they attended as well as a the recent Merit Badge Clinic that happened just a few weeks ago.

We would ask that the boys arrive EARLY (about 15-20 minutes) to help us set up and prepare for the meeting, that should be really special. Remember all Scouts should wear their Scout Uniform. (If there is a problem with this please give us a call or send us an email.)

See you all there.

-Vance Johnson

Wednesday November 3rd

Congratulations to the 7 scouts who made it to the merit badge clinic on Saturday, per Tim Fulton this was a very successful event, boys earning 2-3 merit badges for their efforts.

We will have scout activities this Wednesday (including board of reviews and finishing advancement tasks for the upcoming court of honor). If the boys have a scout uniform it is important that they wear it this Wednesday.

Parents, the following Wednesday (Nov. 10) we will have our scout court of honor, and we REALLY need your support for this event. The court of honor will begin shortly after 7 PM that evening.

Also, just a reminder about the upcoming campout on November 26 and 27.

Thank you and best wishes. Tim

General Week to Week Plan

Just so there is no confusion among the parents and their scouts I thought it might be prudent to give a general plan for the month as to what type of activities we do each week. I will included it in this post and I also will put it on the sidebar of our blog so that it can be referenced in the future.

1st Wednesday -- Meet with the Young Women for a Combined Activity
2nd Wednesday -- Scouting Activities
3rd Wednesday -- Scouting Activities
4th Wednesday -- Scouting Activities
(5th Wednesday) -- Our Set Quarterly Service Project

Note: Each Wednesday we meed with the Young Women at the beginning for "Opening Exercises" in which we get together sing a song, say a prayer, have a spiritual thought, give announcements for the coming weeks and say the Scout Oath, Law, Motto, and Slogan.

Wednesday 27 October 2010

Scouts will be held at the normal time (7PM) and on the normal day this week (Wednesday).

We will be meeting at the church with the Young Women for opening exercises and then will be working on the Cooking Merit badge. What we will do is, we will be going to a grocery store in the area and will be pricing out what it would cost if we were to make three meals. We will be back at the church by 8:30 PM so that parents will be able to pick up their sons.

The scouts do not need to bring anything but it would be helpful if you could talk about how one goes to the grocery store and criteria by which one selects items to be purchased.

It is imperative that all the scouts arrive no later than 7:20-25 because that is usually the time when opening exercises are finished and we will be leaving. If there are any questions please give one of us a call.

-Thanks
Vance Johnson

Attention: Scouts Will Be On Thursday Night This Week

Scouts will be on thursday night this week and this week only. The church is going to have its carpets cleaned. We will not be able to get into the building so please be advised that we will be holding scouts on Thursday at the normal time of 7 PM.

Just to be clear:
Scout Meeting
Thursday 21 October, 7 PM
THIS NIGHT ONLY

Thanks

Just How Much We Appreciate "All the Good Ladies" Out There

As most of you hopefully know that we had a wonderful activity last wednesday night! We, as thescouts and young men of the church, tried our hand at cooking for the women in our lives. We did so to appreciate all of the effort and sacrifice that they perform for us on a daily basis.

The menu consisted of:

Garlic Bread, Salad, Rigatoni Pasta, and our secret-recipe Spicy Italian Meat Sauce.

W

e took great care to set up everything carefully...

Here is an excellent illustration of our faithful service with a smile!

All of the mothers, sisters and friends seemed to enjoy themselves.

And the scouts did too!

We want to thank everyone who came and all of the women in our lives for all that they do for us!

SERVICE PROJECT TONIGHT!!!

This is just a reminder for everyone that we will be meeting EARLY tonight for scouts! Scouts will begin tonight at 6PM at the chapel. It is important that everyone wear work clothes and anyone who can bring gardening tools. We will be doing some end of the season yard work for some of the members of the ward that are in need. It should be really fun and there will be brownies and ice cream at the end of the activity.

See you there!

Personal Management Merit Badge

Greetings all!

Tonight we began the Personal Merit Badge! We had a great time learning about interest and saving and investing as well as what a budget is and how one can use it.

A list of the requirements can be found here. (Feel free to work on ANY of the requirements separately with your boy for this or any of the other merit badges on the site. If you need help with a counselor for another merit badge give us a call or shoot us an email and we will find someone for you.)

We do need the help of the parents. One of the activities that we had tonight was to talk about something that your family or the boy himself could save for. One of the requirements is to talk about this item with your family. We would like for you to talk about what your boys came up with as well as their plan for accomplishing it. '

(See the first requirement from the link above.)

Secondly, they are required to keep a budget for the next 13 weeks. We will be updating the budget each week at scouts. We would also ask that each of the families help the boys keep track of the money that the boy spends during the next week. If this isn't any money than that is fine too and makes accounting work very simple. ;)

(See the second requirement from the link above.)

We feel like it is a privilege to work, learn and have fun with your sons. Any help that you could offer with this merit badge would be appreciated by us and your boys!

Thanks!

TROOP RULES

As most of you are aware, with the changes in troop leadership and in light of recent events, we have increased our efforts to create a troop in which the boys can have fun and learn in an environment of structure, order and acceptance. We want all of the boys to feel comfortable and have an environment, in which they can grow into the fine men that they can become.

After our discussion this is the rules which the boys themselves established that we all feel will cover any type of misbehavior that will arise.

Troop Rules as Established by the Troop:

1. Don't Speak Unless Called Upon

2. Show Respect

3. Don't Touch Things That Aren't Yours

4. Don't be Lame; Be Positive!

Please discuss these rules with your sons and if there is unclarity to you ask them what they mean. There is a system of rewards and consequences in place that we have established and is worth discussing with your son. The most severe consequence is a phone call home if the boy is unable to comply with the rules established by their peers and themselves.

These are rules that they established in order to create the setting that we all want for our scout troop.

Meeting This Wednesday and other Announcements

The Wednesday Activity for scouts will involve the Personal Management Merit Badge. We will begin this merit badge on Wednesday. The merit badge requires the scout to keep track of their finances for three straight months, we wanted to let you know so that you all could assist your scouts in this. It is a required merit badge for the eagle scout award and we will be working hard over the next few months to get as many of the boys this merit badge as possible.

On Wednesday we will also be choosing the merit badges that the scouts will be doing for the upcoming LDS Merit Badge clinic on the 30th of October. I have included a list of the merit badges and would encourage you to look over the list with your scout(s) and choose ones that would be of interest to them and would help them in their quest to eagle scouts. I might suggest that you take special consideration to the Pathfinding and Tracking merit badges. They are a special part of the 100 year celebration of the Boy Scouts and will only be available until the end of 2010 and then will go back into retirement. This is really a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Art

Carpentry†

Chemistry

Citizenship in the World*

Coin Collecting

Computers

Communications*

Engineering

First Aid*

Geneaology

Law

Nuclear Science

Pathfinding†

Tracking†

Finally, we will be having a special "service project" activity on Wednesday the 13th of October. We will be making and serving dinner to the young women of the ward. We wanted to make sure that ALL young women of the ward came, including of course the mothers of the boys in the troop. The boys were very specific about this and wanted their mothers to come so that they could serve them and clean up after them. (I am not making this up.)

Please clear your schedules so that you will be able to attend. We will be serving dinner around 7:30 on the 13th of October.

MENU is TBA!

Wednesday's Activity

Hello everyone!

We have an exciting activity planned for tomorrow night! We will be learning all of the things that we need to know in order to do a flag ceremony properly as well as how one correctly retires (permanently) the colors of the United States of America. It should be a very educational and informative activity for everyone. In addition to that we will be planning the meals that we will be eating for the upcoming campout on Friday to Saturday evening.

With the addition of a new scoutmaster, things will inevitably change slightly in the troop. We look forward to this change in leadership with great anticipation because we know that it can lead to a great deal of positive change and an overall betterment of the troop. We are asking that as many parents as possible to come to the latter part of the activity to help us discuss with your boys ways we can help improve the discipline and structure of the troop. We feel that this could really help us have more fun during our wednesday meetings and be much more productive. So, if you could be there around 8 PM tomorrow at the church building it would be very helpful.

See you all tomorrow!

Plan One; Plan All

Tomorrow, Wednesday September 7th, is a very important day for the scouts of Troop 222. It is surely a day one will not want to miss.

Why would that be?

We will be planning the activities and helping the boys make plans for themes and campouts and activities based on those themes. Hopefully it will be exciting for them to get an idea of what is going on in the next year or so and look forward to events that they have planned.

Please come with a list (either physically written down or mentally prepared) of activities, merit badges, that you would like to participate in. These can be anything that you are interested and we will work together to explore ways that all of us can have a great time scouting together this year.

Refreshments will be provided to ALL boys who PARTICIPATE.

That's right, were talkin' brownies!

Troop 222 Welcomes Tim Fulton as Scoutmaster!

We've had a few changes in troop leadership. Most importantly, we'd like to welcome Tim Fulton, formerly of the troop committee, as the new Scoutmaster of Troop 222. Tim brings a wealth of organization, ability and experience to the position. We are grateful to have him.

Vance Johnson, our former Scoutmaster, will continue to help out as an Assistant Scoutmaster. He is truly an inspiration to the boys and leaders in the troop. Vance has really helped move our troop onward and upward. (He is also in medical school, so we thought we'd give him a bit of a break. :) ) We are grateful for his many contributions and look forward to his continued leadership.

Reminder: No Troop Meeting 28 July 2010

We will not have a troop meeting this Wednesday due to the Nauvoo trip on Friday.

Preparing for Nauvoo Trip

Our last two meetings were used to prepare the young men for the upcoming Nauvoo trip. We reviewed church history and had activities related to that. The Sister Missionaries reviewed the story of Joseph Smith's first vision and events surrounding the organization of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The young men then played Capture the Golden Plates, pulled sticks and leg wrestled. We learned more about what happened when Joseph Smith was tarred and feathered. We learned about Zion's Camp and the Mormon Battalion. We then had an obstacle course competition. The young men all proved themselves to be strong and flexible. Enjoy the pictures of some of our strapping young men!

Bishop Fernandez has asked that all the youth read the following scriptures from the Doctrine and Covenants in preparation for the trip: Section 124 verses 27-44, Section 127 verses 5-12 and Section 128 verses 1-18, 24.

Fulfilling our Duty to God

As any of you who heard any of several talks at the most recent General Conference know, there is a new Duty to God program for the Young Men and Scouts in our ward.

This program is incredible! It focuses much more on helping the young man become what he needs to become. It is not simply a checklist of requirements to be completed, it is an opportunity to grow and progress as a worthy priesthood holder. The program focuses on helping the young man first Learn his duty (D&C 107:99), then Plan and Act on what he has learned, and finally Share with others how he has grown and changed from the experience.

The program booklet and other helps are also now all available online.

In addition, in order to help us as parents and leaders, the Bishopric, in conjunction with the presidents of the Aaronic Priesthood quorums, is holding a special meeting about the new Duty to God program. This meeting will be on Sunday, August 1st at 11:00am at the church. (This will be during the third hour of church meetings.) We want everyone to be there! President Lunt, in speaking about this meeting, said that every parent who has a boy under the age of 18 (even if they are only a 1-year-old) should be included.

Please come out and learn about this wonderful new opportunity to help our young men. In teaching about this new program, President Lunt testified, “I testify that if we do that, we will be doing a much better job at saving our boys and our girls and we'll be doing what the Lord expects of us.”

Thanks, and we'll see you there!

Combined Activity on July 7th, 2010

We had 17 youth and leaders attend our combined activity July 7th. We played Double Dare. The theme was on Faith. No one was brave enough to do a double dare, so the game was tied. To break the tie we played a game where the teams had to reach into a circle and grab hands with eyes shut; then they had to untwist themselves. The first team to untwist themselves into a circle would win. The all-boys team won, but they did have the advantage of having played that game before. For treats, we had ice cream on a stick. Next week we'll have a regular troop meeting.

Please Ignore Last Post

Sorry about that last post everyone, I meant to post that on another blog and I inadvertently posted it on our Troop's blog. I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience it may have caused. Like I said please ignore the last post. Thanks.


Vance Johnson
Scoutmaster

Troop Court of Honor

Troop 222 will be having their Spring Court of Honor this Wednesday (June 2nd) at 7pm at the Church. We will be meeting on the back lawn behind the church. (In case of bad weather, we will be inside in the gym.)

Thanks,

Bill Evans
Troop 222 Committee Chair


Update: The court of honor will start at 6:30pm on Wednesday. Thanks.

Monical's Night with Troop 222 - May 17th

Join Troop 222 to enjoy great pizza and support a great cause. Visit Monical's for lunch or dinner for the scouts "Community Day" fundraiser. Monical's will donate 20% of your lunch or dinner check to Troop 222. For more information, visit (www.monicals.com).

Fliers will be available during Priesthood/Relief Society May 16, or you can print out your own flier with the link below.

Download Flier.

Camp-Out This Weekend

As listed on the calendar we are going on a camp-out this weekend! We are headed to Tim Fulton's cousin's property south of Arcola and it should be a very exciting event.

Here are the details:
The boys need to be at the church ready to go NO LATER THAN 4:30 PM! The troop will be leaving at 5:00 PM sharp. If there are any conflicts let us know now so that we can possibly do something about it.

The menu is to be determined (decided on tomorrow evening at scout meeting). From there we will make assignments for food.

We will be eating dinner and breakfast on the camp-out and should be home before noon tomorrow to accommodate the other activities on Saturday. (We are shooting for about 10 or 11 AM, but that time might change.)

Thanks and we look forward to seeing you this weekend.

-Vance Johnson
Scoutmaster

Last Minute Change!!!

Due to a lack of ability to schedule a gym for Thursday we WILL be holding scouts tonight at the church at the regular time. (7PM) Sorry for the confusion thanks for all your support.

-Vance Johnson

A Few Calendar Items

Hello Everyone!

It looks like this is going to be a busy week for Troop 222. I wanted to post this to help you know everything that is going on, as there will be some changes made to the calendar soon.

First, unfortunately will have been forced to cancel the camp out for this month due to scheduling conflicts of which I was unaware. There is, however, a stake basketball tournament at 8AM on Saturday that we will be participating in instead. This would be a great chance for all of you to get out and support the troop and see them win the stake tournament (hopefully)!

Secondly the boys in troop leadership have decided that doing well in this tournament is a high priority to them so we have rescheduled scouts to THURSDAY night this week to allow for us to have full access to the gym and so that the boys can learn some things about playing basketball as a team and various coverages and strategies. Scouts will be at the same time, 7PM just one day later on Thursday.

I hope everything is going well with your boy's fund-raising efforts.

If there are any questions or concerns about the information in this post feel free to email me:
troop222scoutmaster@gmail.com

-Vance Johnson
Scoutmaster

Papa John's Fundraiser

We are excited to tell you all about a great opportunity to not only help the boys get to scout camp but also get some great pizza as well!

We will be selling Papa John's Discount cards with pizza included as well as free items that you can get in when purchasing pizza. It works out to be a value of about $100! I have listed what you get below.

There are 12 Discounts/Free Items on the Card:
-(1) Free Large One Topping Pizza
-(2) Free Medium Pizza with purchase of Extra Large @ Regular Price
-With a purchase of a Large, regularly priced pizza get a free order of:
-(2) Breadsticks -(2) Cheesesticks -(2)Dessert -(1)Wings -(1) Chicken Strips
-(1) 2 Free Soft Drinks with Purchase of a Medium Pizza @ Regular Price

They are valid at the following locations:
Champaign, W. Champaign, Urbana, & Danville

The cost is $10 and you can sign up to get one from your favorite Troop 222 scout or by signing up at the link below and we will get one to you as soon as we can.

Link to Sign Up for Papa John's Fundraiser Card

We do have a limited number so hurry and get yours now! And tell your friends!

Court of Honor

Troop 222 is holding a Court of Honor this Thursday, February 11th at 7:00pm at the church. This will be a really exciting event as the boys have all been working very hard. We will have awards, a special guest speaker, and of course plenty of refreshments. All scouts, scouters, families and other people are invited to attend. Please come and support our troop. We'll see you there.

Klondike Fun

Matchless Fire Event -- (41 minutes)





The Race is On!

Klondike Derby

I want to sincerely apologize for the lateness of this announcement. I have had a crazy week and as a result this slipped my mind until now.

As all of you are, no doubt, aware, we will be going on the Klondike Derby this evening and tomorrow at Camp Drake BSA Camp. We are looking forward to "roughing" it and have just a few things that we wanted to remind you all about before heading out into the cold, cold wilderness.

We will be meeting at 4:30 PM at the Church and getting home around 3:00 PM tomorrow. (We will have the boys call you on the way home to make sure you know exactly when.)

A few words of advice/instruction:

First of all, dress warmly.
Second of all DRESS WARMLY. Please avoid fabrics such as cotton, as they do a poor job at insulation, especially when wet. Please send your son in warm boots/shoes. We really wouldn't want someone to be uncomfortable (or worse) because of inadequate footwear.

Thirdly, I hope that your boys informed you of the fact that they are responsible for dinner tonight. I plan on eating before we leave and bringing a snack with me. Due to logistic factors it is difficult to cook in the cold and we are trying to limit that to our warm breakfast that we will be serving. There will also be lunch provided as a part of the Derby festivities.

We will, however, have plenty of hot cocoa both tonight and tomorrow. We do ask, if possible, that the boys bring a plastic mug with them so as to limit the amount of waste that is produced with plastic cups. Also if your boy wants to bring a small (I repeat small) amount of chocolate to keep with him at night, nibbiling on some is a good technique to keep warm if you wake up at night.

Finally, if possible, see that your boy brings a pad to sleep on. Pads help provided a valuable insulating layer between your boy and the ground. He will sleep much better if this is the case. Please also encourage your son to not sleep in a tent by himself. It is much better if he finds a tent buddy. (He will be MUCH warmer)

Thanks for all of your support and if there are any questions or things that we can help you with please give me a call or email me.
-Vance Johnson
217.689.1207
troop222scoutmaster@gmail.com

Eagle Court of Honor

As we posted before, Nathaniel Anderson has earned the rank of Eagle Scout, the highest rank in the Boy Scouts of America. His Court of Honor will be held Sunday, January 31st 2010, at 7:00pm at the LDS Church at 604 Windsor, Champaign, IL. Everyone is welcome and invited. Congratulations again to Nathaniel!

Parents' Night

We're excited to announce our 2010 Program Kickoff and Parents' Night on Wednesday, January 20th at 7:00pm. We will be meeting in the Relief Society Room at the church. We will be talking about all the great plans the troop has for the coming year. We will be talking about the upcoming Klondike Derby, our exciting plans for Scout Camp this summer, some fundraisers we will be doing in the coming months, and much more. This will be a very important meeting for all parents of scouts in the troop. We'll see you there.