Hello everyone. I have to say I dropped the ball on the pre-campout website blast. I apologize for that, but let me sum up some things that are going on in Pack 83. First, thanks to everyone who came out to the Crossing Over ceremony. It was a huge success and very important to the boys. We are all excited about what next year will hold.

Speaking of next year: We’re moving! Yes that’s right, and I’m sure you’ve all heard it by now. Holy Spirit Church on Highway 16 has opened their doors and welcomed us into their facilities. We are thrilled to have such a great meeting space, and we’re beyond excited that they really want us there to be our partner. They have high regard for the scouting programs and are happy we are coming to their church. What this means for us in the short term is once school lets out we will need some help moving our existing supplies and stock to their facilities. Be on the look out for an email asking for volunteers. We would love to have some trucks or trailers help. This means long term your meeting space and drive will change. I added a link to their address above if you need directions.

Hold up! Our next activity after our move will be model rockets! We will NOT be meeting at Holy Spirit to shoot our rockets off yet. We will be at Rescue park next to the charter school on June 6th at 6:30pm. If you have not received your rocket kit yet please contact your den leader or any other leader on here to arrange to get one. You can reach us on the contact page or via leader pages. It’s best to start early on this one as it takes some time to build the rocket in stages between glue drying.

Moving on, I’d like to thank the parents and volunteers who helped make the spring camp out so successful. I’m not sure about you but I had an absolute blast at the camp. We tried having volunteers lead different rotations to give the kids a chance to pick things they’re interested in. Here is a list of some of the awesome rotations we had going at the camp:

• Mountain Biking
• Fire Building
• Basket Weaving
• Wallet Making
• Orienteering
• Hiking
• Canoeing
• Geocaching
• Cooking
• Fishing

I’d like to give a huge thanks to everyone who helped set each of those events up to make the trip so fun. From the feedback I received, I think everyone really enjoyed the facilities at Bob Hardin as well. There was plenty of space to play, swim, and just be scouts. Personally I enjoyed camping with the older boy scouts as well. It gave us an opportunity to see how the older boys prepare, act, and plan for their own camp outs. I’m not sure we’ve ever done that before. Again, thank you everyone who came and made this such an awesome trip. Please go check our Facebook page to see all of the pictures from the trip.

To close out this post, I’m updating the calendar as we speak for our next summer events. The next things we have scheduled are:

1. Rockets – June 6th – Rescue Park
2. Rain Gutter Regatta – July 10th – Holy Spirit Church
3. Space Derby – August 8th – Holy Spirit Church

If you have any questions about anything listed above, our recent meetings, BSA and our stance on co-ed integration for scouts, please reach out to the pack leaders. I hope to see you all again soon at the Rocket Launch Pad!

Hello!

We hope you had a great Spring Break!

Our Pack Meeting for this month is on Tuesday April 10th at 7pm. We will be meeting at NEW COVENANT CHURCH ( 14514 Lucia Riverbend Hwy, Mt Holly, NC 28120)

PLEASE bring your SCOUT CARD MONEY to this Pack Meeting
PLEASE consider bringing a snack that we can donate to our local schools
Thank you so much for your contributions last month, we were able to help St James Elem and Catawba Springs Elem!

We will be discussing the Pack decision regarding the changes to the BSA, our Spring Camp-out and our Crossing Over/Making Rank Ceremony.

A Couple of other things:
CubScout Odyssey 2018 is May 18th-20th in Rutherfordton, NC: https://www.piedmontcouncilbsa.org/csodyssey
CubScout Day Camp will be 6/18-22nd for the Heartland District: https://www.piedmontcouncilbsa.org/daycamps (rising 2nd-5th) $75 if registered by May 18th and $100 if after.

I recommend Day Camp as a great way to get some requirements completed for your Scouts new rank!

See you Tuesday!

Pack Members: We have had a lot of changes lately with the pack. I’d like to recap some of that here and remind everyone what to look for. Hills Chapel has encoutered severe financial hardships and can no longer support the program. Graciously New Covenant United Methodist Church (14514 Lucia Riverbend Hwy, Mt Holly, NC 28120) has allowed us to host some of our next meetings there. We will confirm each meeting before it happens to make sure that everyone knows WHERE we will meet. We will be finalizing the new recharter with Holy Spirit Church on business 16. We will begin the full transition this summer and will need some help during that process. Stay tuned for more info on this later.

In a week we have the Derby Setup and Race at Optimist Club Recreation Center (8160 Optimist Club Rd, Denver, NC 28037). The setup is Friday (3-16-18) night and the race starts at 8am Saturday morning (3-17-18). Make sure you come to the setup Friday so you can pre-weigh in your car and make sure it will pass inspection Saturday morning. We will also have concessions available for Saturday. Small breakfast and lunch items like hot dogs, chips, etc will be for sale for for nominal fee. Please bring several dollars. Please reach out to your den leaders or pack leaders if you have any questions.

Scout discount cards were handed out at the last meeting. These are extremely helpful for the pack. Please arrange to get your 10 cards if you haven’t done so already. If you sell all 10 you will get $10. We only have 1 month to sell them and turn in the funds at the next pack meeting. If you sell more than 10 we have several incentives setup to help offset summer camp.

Finally, we have rescheduled the crossing over ceremony to coincide with the May 1st pack meeting. Please make every effort to be here and support your fellow pack members. This is a big deal.

We will post more info about the spring camp out later too. Keep an eye out for emails about not only the camp out but also all the next meeting locations and changes.

EDIT: Please see the latest newsletter under the ‘Files’ section of the website for some important info.

We have had some date changes for our events come up due to unforeseen reasons. Please see the email that was sent out. The highlights are that the Derby Setup and Race day have changed respectively to March 16 and 17 at East Lincoln Optimist Club complex at Optimist Club Road.

The Charlotte 49er’s are holding a Scout Night on Saturday Feb 3rd at 7pm. You attend the game OR you can attend & sleepover! We would like to make this a group event! If we get more than 10 scouts to attend they will announce over the scoreboard and if we get 15 or more, they can have their picture taken on the court.

Also stay up to date on our communications by visiting our Newsletter Page where we keep a running of all of our old correspondence.

If you have any questions please feel free to reach out via the website contact form or call your leaders.

Families,
We have recently added an archive to the website of all of the newsletters we have sent out regarding upcoming events and other important info. Unfortunately, we spend a lot of time answering emails and calls about things that have been covered in our newsletters. We all donate our time and energy to the wonderful organization of scouting, but we’d like to cut back on the repetitiveness of some of our duties. Please follow this Newsletter Link to find answers to view all of our old newsletters and communications. You can also navigate there yourself by going to the upper menu above to “Files -> Newsletter Emails”. Thank you for understanding.

Adam

Calling all Scouts!  We have several upcoming events that just went out in our newsletter.  First and foremost we need a LOT of help to pickup all of those food bags we delivered last weekend.  I know several families spent a long time last weekend delivering to all the neighborhoods.  Please show up at 9 am this Saturday the 18th for maps and pickup instructions.  If you attend both Saturdays your scout will earn the Messenger of Peace badge as well, so please remind us if you qualify.

Our class B shirts came out perfect!  Congrats to the Fields family who created the masterpiece.  We have some availability to order long sleeve shirts and sweatshirts as well.  Please see the newsletter link if you’d like to get one.

The Denver Christmas Parade is around the corner.  Please get your thoughts and supplies together for this fun event.  Our theme this year will be the 12 days of Christmas.  Please see your den leader for specific instructions.

Finally, don’t forget to bring in things you’ve been doing for the presentation table.  We want to continue to see what you’ve been working on individually, as a den, and as a pack as the year progresses.

See everyone at the next pack meeting!

Our annual Fall Camp-out has come and gone but what a great event it was!  We started something new this year at Pack 83 by having each of our Dens lead our different events throughout the year.  The Wolf Den was up to bat first with the Fall Camp-Out, which if we think about was a pretty daunting task as they have only attended one since they started as Tigers last year, but that didn’t stop our Wolf Den!  They came up with great activities, involved the whole den and created options that ranged in interest level from Kindergarten (Lions) through 5th Grade (Arrow of Light). They teamed up with Troop 83 to provide help, cooking and even a lesson for the Bears on Dutch Oven cooking at a camp out! Delicious!

The camp-out started with a new Wolf parent leading a hike through the woods.  This is our first time doing it and what an extra special treat to have someone as experienced as Jason leading the scouts!  He had a large group of scouts and parents but he took special care to discuss the BSA Buddy System and he utilized the Boy Scouts, with Troop 83, to serve as markers (when he found something he wanted everyone to be able to see), as branch holders (so no little scouts got pummeled by branches) and as barriers to keep kids from going off path.  The scouts were able to see many different things in the woods.  For some this was their first official scout hike, but we promise it will not be their last!

When the scouts returned from their adventures in the woods they made marshmallow catapults and painted kindness rocks to spread around Denver!  Our older scouts, (Bears and above) who have earned their whittling chip, made their own pencils using parts of a tree! They carved their pencils carefully and even followed the Blood Circle! In fact, I got too close to a scout, he looked at me, stretched his arm out and got up and moved! I guess I should have paid more attention to his blood circle but kudos to that scout for knowing the right thing to do!  With their pencils the scouts wrote thank you notes to local police officers and firemen that will be delivered as a group!  All these activities helped many of our Scouts earn their Cub Scout Outdoor Activity Award for the year!

And of course Kickball!  Troop vs Pack!  And our scouts hung with the big boys!  Kickball then, of course turned into Dodgeball!  It’s not a Pack 83 event without Dodgeball!

But alas it was dinner time and the Troop was called in to put to use some cooking skills they had recently learned!  Hamburgers and Hot dogs were on the menu and the Troop prepped, cleaned, cooked, served and helped clean-up AND entertained some hungry scouts before it was dinner time!

Right before our campfire program started a couple of the Troop Leaders worked with the Bear Den to show them how to cook with Dutch Ovens and they made AMAZING Cobblers and Brownies!  This helped the Bears complete their Bear Necessities Requirement.

After the Webelos got a great fire started Cub Master Ryan started his Campfire Program!  Did you know Ryan Blionson holds the record for kicking the fastest soccer goal in his high school?  In 8 secs he had a goal scored!  Did you know that Webmaster Adam Coleman could fly before he could drive! Did you know that Bear Leader Josh Yarbrough makes and INCREDIBLE mooing sound? Just like the real thing!  Our treasurer Jeff did scouts at Hills Chapel! Now his son does, how awesome is that!  Pack Trainer Paul Jacob used to have a pet Kangroo…I guess it helps being from Australia!  Matt Shipman, Tiger Leader, is a 4×400 high school champion!  Webelos Leader Brandon McConnell was President of Lake Norman Toastmasters (public speaking)! Arrow of Light Leader Mark Grabants has seen 2 of the 7 Wonders of the World!   We have a great group of leaders that work hard to create a great program at Pack 83!

After learning some interesting facts we sang a song, watched our scouts perform skits, played reverse charades and retired flags!

This was a great camp-out and great start to our year! We are looking forward to our next events!  Thank you to everyone who came, pitched in, brought items, planned, laughed and most importantly, had fun!