Blue & Gold Thanks

I hope you all had as much fun last night at Blue & Gold as I did! Those were some great cakes. I'm incredibly proud to see how hard our boys have worked to earn their ranks.

 

All credit for the hard work that made last night such a success goes to Dona Whitney and her volunteer committee: Cristina Carlson, Blake Kite and the whole Kite family, Chetan & Veena Nayak, and Kelly Meyer. Also special thanks to Ed Junod for his hard work on the rocket-based award delivery system, to Amanda Cramer for managing the broad spectrum of awards and badges earned, to Scott Wiegand & Eric Szeto for the slide show, Melissa Wiegand for early setup help, to the Scorpion Patrol for showing up early to help out, to the Boy Scout volunteers from Troop 818 for all of their help, and to the Color Guard from the Veterans Pride Battalion of the US Naval Sea Cadet Corps.

 

And as always, we couldn't make any of this happen without our volunteer leaders, and our parents.

 

Thanks, and I look forward to derby racing in 2 weeks!

 

Paul

Pictures, Pictures, Pictures

Our scouts have been busy over the past few months. Check out our Shutterfly web site at http://azpack618.shutterfly.com. We also have albums highlighted on the right-side of our web site.

If you have any photos you would like to have posted, contact Scott Wiegand or your den leader.

Pinewood Derby Date Changes

The date for our Pinewood Derby has changed to March 12, 2011. Paul sent an email to the pack with details about the change. Click here for a copy of the email.

See below for a link to the official rule and please do not hesitate to ask questions of your den leader, or to contact Paul directly.

Pack 618 Pinewood Derby Rules

We are also moving the dates for construction and qualification back one week.

Date	Time	Description
3/5/2011	TBA	Derby Car Building at the Kuiper Estate
3/9/2011	6:00PM - 8:00PM	Derby Car Qualification at the Kuiper Estate
3/11/2011	7:00PM - 8:00PM	Derby Car Qualification at the Kuiper Estate
3/12/2011	1:00PM	Pack 618 Pinewood Derby at Copper Canyon
3/19/2011	7:00AM	Four Peaks District Pinewood Derby

To find the Kuiper Estate:
17848 N 52nd Place
Click here for a map.

Blue and Gold - February 26

On Saturday, February 26, at 6:00 PM in the Copper Canyon multipurpose room, we will hold our annual Blue & Gold Banquet, a cub scout tradition since the 1930s. For those of you unfamiliar with this tradition, February is the month in which we celebrate the birthday of scouting, and the means by which we celebrate is the Blue & Gold Banquet. This year, we've chosen a military theme to honor America's service men and women. As the name implies, we'll be having dinner at this banquet -- pulled BBQ chicken sandwiches, with macaroni & cheese, coleslaw, and drinks. There will also be vegetarian options as needed.

Cakes

As is tradition, part of this birthday celebration involves cake! Each scout is being asked to bake (or at least decorate) a cake, with parents' help of course. These cakes will be auctioned off during our banquet. If your talents do not include baking, buy a plain cake and help your scout to decorate it. If you haven't experienced this before, check online for ideas (like this) -- we've had some amazing cakes over the years, including a fire-breathing dragon, and a smoking volcano that my family took home last year. Remember our military theme, and have fun with this! The cakes will be auctioned using bid sheets setup next to each cake. While bidding is open, anyone may write down a higher bid than previous on any cake. All cakes start at $5, and bidding should progress in one dollar increments. As in past years, kids will be frantic to bid -- please have a limit in mind and advise your children about appropriate amounts (Paul took home $75 in cake last year...).

FOR SAFETY REASONS, PLEASE DO NOT USE NUTS IN OR ON YOUR CAKES.

Entertainment

We will have special guests to conduct our flag ceremony, the Color Guard from the Veterans Pride Battalion of the US Naval Sea Cadet Corp. In addition, the Tiger den is preparing a skit, and we've also heard rumors that the pack committee members might have something in mind... There will be no Chinese Auction or other raffle this year as you might have experienced in the past.

Honor Wall

In honor of our military, please bring pictures of any veterans or active service men or women in your family, that we can include in our honor wall that will be displayed during the banquet. If you have any military memorabilia that you're willing to share for display at this event, please contact our Volunteer Committee Chairperson, Dona Whitney.

Attendance

As with every pack meeting, entire families are welcome. This is a particularly special occasion, so please feel free to invite grandparents, aunts & uncles, and any friends and family members who'd like to see how scouting serves our sons. Your den leaders may have already asked for a headcount for pre-pay by February 18; kids under 16 eat free, and 16 and over are $10 each. Adult price at the door will be $12.

This is a great cub scout tradition that many of our pack's leaders recall from our own days as scouts. We hope you all can make it.

Scouting for Food Update

We just received an update from district about the success of Scouting for Food this year. The Four Peaks district collected 6380 lbs of food and $20 for Paradise Valley Emergency Food Bank and approximately 200 lbs for St. Mary’s.  This year, we had 9 units participating which is nearly double the number of last year.

Way to go scouts!

The results are in...

Scouting for Food was an amazing success. Our scouts collected food door-to-door in the 60th and Bell area. We collected over 2500 lbs of food for the Paradise Valley Emergency Food Bank and St. Mary’s. Thank you to everyone who helped coordinate the effort and especially to the scouts who gave up their Saturday to do their daily good turn.