BSA Troop 191

Mr. Rob Alport of the NJ Boating Safety School has generously offered to provide the NJ Boating Safety Instruction and Certification course free of charge to scouts and leaders at the Bethlehem Township Community Center on Saturday September 17, 2011. Family members and friends may take the course for $75.00 per person. An online signup is now available on the troop website.

Mrs. Amy Bernick will begin the Robotics Merit Badge during the troop meeting on Thursday September 15, 2011. The scouts working on this merit badge will create a challenge course for their bots on Saturday October 15. Online signup is now available.

Reminder that the annual troop activity planning meeting is scheduled for Saturday August 6 at the Bethlehem Township Community Center beginning at 8:00 AM. Patrol Leaders are expected to attend and represent their patrols or arrange for coverage. Refreshments will be available.

Reminder that there is no troop meeting on Thursday July 28. Hope everyone had a great time at summer camp. See you on August 4.

Scout Day for America’s Grow-a-Row at Peaceful Valley Orchards AUGUST 8th 9-11 AM. Scouts should clear all service hour requests with Mr. Smith.

The event will most likely be held at Peaceful Valley Orchards in Pittstown starting promptly at 9:00am and run until 11:00am.  It's important to RSVP so that we can get in touch with everyone a few days before incase the location changes.  It's impossible to tell what crops will be mature at that time at this writing; that's why the exact location is TBD.  With a group this size, we need to make sure we have a lot of work for you so that we can take full advantage of all of these willing hands!

Please RSVP no later than Thursday August 4th, so that we can plan accordingly.
TO RSVP - please cut and paste these questions and your responses into an e-mail to leena@americasgrowarow.org (please be sure to answer all of the questions so that we have all of the info for you). If you are forwarding this onto anyone, you can have them send the responses to these questions directly to leena@americasgrowarow.org. It's really important that we know how many people are coming to organize the picking and also to have enough snacks and supplies on hand. _____________________________________________________________

CONTACT NAME:

CONTACT CELL PHONE:

CONTACT E-MAIL:

GIRL SCOUTS or BOY SCOUTS:

TROOP/DEN/PACK#:

LEADER NAME:

AGE and GRADE OF KIDS:

NUMBER OF KIDS THAT WILL PARTICIPATE (best guess):

NUMBER OF ADULTS THAT WILL PARTICIPATE:

NUMBER OF PATCHES NEEDED:

HOW HAVE YOU BEEN INVOLVED WITH AMERICA's GROW-A-ROW IN THE PAST:

Meet between 1:00 - 1:30 PM at the OSR Parking Lot. No scouts should enter the Campways site until cleared by an adult.

New troop photos have been published to the Dreamcatcher Album in the Media Gallery.

July 14 is our last troop meeting before summer camp, a couple reminders:

1. Medical Forms – There were over 20 medical forms that were missing or incomplete at the last update. Medical forms must be complete with physicals within the last year and a copy of your scout’s medical insurance card. Additionally we should have been provided with a copy of all forms and insurance card. If you are one of the families with missing documents please be sure you bring the document and a copy to the troop meeting tomorrow.
2. Summer Camp T-Shirts will be distributed to everyone attending camp at the troop meeting tomorrow.
3. Summer Camp Photos and Meal Tickets – If you have ordered either of these Bill Loeffler will be at the troop meeting to collect any remaining payments that are still due however at this time I can only accept cash or checks made out to Bill Loeffler. Can no longer accept checks made out to Troop 191 as cash is expected at OSR. Have since been asked if orders could still be submitted so the online submission form has been brought back online for these very last minute orders. As stated above any new orders must be paid by cash or check made out to Bill Loeffler at this week’s troop meeting.  The online order submission will remain online until Thursday at 7:00PM.
4. Merit Badge Cards – You know the drill here. Mr. Smith is back to accept and sign any remaining cards.

Regarding the Troop Website, the site URL is http://www.troop191nj.org. Last evening a significant update to enable support for mobile devices including the IOS, Android and Windows Mobile 7 platforms was completed. Users using these devices will now default to a mobile skin that suits the form factor of these devices much better than the default skin. The primary areas we have focused on initially are the features most likely to be used on mobile devices including the Home Page, Calendar, News, Signup and Program Area. We’ll continue to improve other areas of the site and features.

The website now has sufficient traction among our scout families that I’m looking to the site to be the primary means to communicate these weekly troop meeting reminders and other messaging that fills everyone’s email. Most communication of this type can always be found on the News area of the site. Additionally information about events and trips will be found on the Calendar Page by clicking on the event. All these features on the website support RSS feeds so that users can subscribe to this content as they prefer. That said if you prefer email communications you can opt-in by using the signup newsletter widget located on the home page (appears only when signed in).

These updates to the troop website are the direct result of parent and committee feedback so if you have any additional suggestions for improvement do let us know.

New users may now register on the troop website using their existing OpenID credentials from AOL, Facebook, Flickr, Google, Windows Live and Yahoo.

• Medical forms have been due. Please be sure you have handed in your medical form and a copy with physicals completed within the last year.
• If you want summer camp photos or extra meal tickets for Sunday meal at summer camp visit the Signup Page and submit your order. Payments will be collected by Mr. Loeffler at troop meetings.
• Scouts should be done or nearly done with summer camp pre-requirements.
• Merit Badge cards should have been completed. Mr. Smith is away on the Dreamcatcher trip so he will not be at this meeting to sign.