Troop 524's Blog

Summer Updates

2011-05-19T13:30:00.000-05:00

Join Troop 524 this Summer on Twitter, Facebook and Blogger as we post updates and events. The troop website will be deactivated this Summer, so check back here and on Twitter and Facebook for the latest updates.

Mobile Website: m.troop524.org

2011-04-28T21:31:00.001-05:00

Now you can access our new m.troop524.org for all mobile devices. If you have a Ipod, Ipad, Iphone, or Android then you can simply enter in troop524.org on it and be brought to the m.troop524.org site. They will also be expanding this redirecting capability to Blackberries soon too. If you don't have one of these phones, you can go to m.troop524.org to still view the mobile site. This is another example of the continued upgrades wix is/has been doing with their investor money. This new site uses HTML5 the newest and "hottest" thing in the web development world today. I hope you all enjoy the new site and find it useful, and look for more upgrades to the mobile site soon!

Junior Leadership Training

2011-03-28T17:11:00.000-05:00

JLT is one of the most fun camps Troop 524 partakes in all year. Younger scouts (Scouts who have been to camp once, or this is their first time) will partake in leadership training discussing what type of qualities are important for leaders to have, and how to be a good effective leader. Older scouts (3rd and 4th time at camp) will partake in EDGE leadership training (Explain, Demonstrate, Guide and Enable) They will also have some discussion about how the Troop's leadership is operating what is going well/what could be changed.

The number one important thing to know about JLT is that the weather varies greatly (because it's in April). Therefore scouts and adults should be prepared for muddy/cold/and warm weather. Most likely it will be wet, and this can ruin an entire weekend for a boy, so water boots are a MUST!

The camp is also fun because scouts get to sleep in towers! Click HERE to see pictures of the Fort on Troop 524's flickr page.

Hope to see you all there April 8th!
Kyle Palzer

Welcome New Parents!

2011-02-25T23:48:00.000-06:00

Welcome to Troop 524!

Your scout is now beginning his journey towards the Boy Scouts of America's highest award- Eagle Scout. As an Eagle Scout from Troop 524, who has been in Scouting since Tiger Cubs, I assure you it can be done, and all of us in Troop 524 are committed to making that happen. As our Scoutmaster David Klemm pointed out there are some changes that are different with Boy Scouts compared to Cub Scouting. Most notable is that parents can't sign off requirements for their scout. That being said, your scout isn't being thrown into the sharks den, since we have almost a 1:1 adult to scout ratio, each scout has the opportunity to get requirements completed and signed off by Registered Adults. Patrol Guides (experienced adult leaders) have been assigned to assist your scout, as well as Youth Leadership (experienced scouts) who can also sign off requirements for them. The responsibility for parents is to be encouraging of their scout, and to help guide them along the way. I also encourage parents to read the Parent Handbook that is on our website (you will also be given a printed copy)

We also encourage parents to become involved with the Troop in becoming a Registered Adult Volunteer. We have many needs to fulfill with in the Troop, and we have an excellent training program to help you with this. In fact we will be having a 6 hour training day for parents who are interested in Volunteering on March 12th from 9 AM-5PM at the electronics camp that your scouts can attend. (more information can be found on our events page on the website)

Please also view our contact page on our website where you can learn more about the volunteer opportunities in the Troop.

Also please attend our Committee Meeting this Monday 2/28, as you will learn more about how our Troop adult leadership operates. This will be presented by a Northern Star Council Representative.

Feel free to email me with questions, and our Troop is very excited your scout has chosen to continue into Boy Scouts!

Have a great weekend, and we hope to see you Monday,
Kyle Palzer
Assistant Scoutmaster, Assistant Committee Chair
Eagle Scout #77 of Troop 524

Welcome New Scouts!

2011-02-25T23:25:00.001-06:00

Welcome to Troop 524!

You are just starting on your journey to the Boy Scouts of America's highest award- Eagle Scout. As an former Cub Scout from Pack 524, I know how mysterious Boy Scouts may appear at first, and I assure you that you will find it to be MUCH better than Cub Scouts!!

I started as a Tiger Cub in Pack 524, joined Boy Scouts and I am one of Troop 524's 88 Eagle Scouts. I guarantee you that it CAN be done! I and the other adults of Troop 524 are here to help you advance towards Eagle, and assist you along the way. As was mentioned by our Scoutmaster, you are in charge of determining how much effort to put into Boy Scouts, and I personally feel that I have gotten twice as much out of Boy Scouts as I have put into it. It has helped me learn leadership, public speaking, citizenship, responsibility, maturity, and many other valuable skills that I use every day. It has helped to make me who I am, and I know it will help you too.

Starting Monday we will be helping you advance in rank, and I am excited to get to know all of you. The best advise I can give you is to have determination, and most importantly HAVE FUN!

Have a Great Weekend, and I'll see you Monday,
Kyle Palzer
Eagle Scout #77 of Troop 524

The sounds of camping in winter!

2011-02-19T01:35:00.000-06:00

Want to hear the sounds of camping any time? Even in winter? Now you can with Natural Sounds Click Here to make and save your own favorite camping sounds. Enjoy!

There are also some fun, different ones under the various tab, like Darth Vader.

Biography of Martin Luther King

2011-01-14T08:52:00.001-06:00

Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr., (January 15, 1929-April 4, 1968) was born Michael Luther King, Jr., but later had his name changed to Martin. His grandfather began the family's long tenure as pastors of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, serving from 1914 to 1931; his father has served from then until the present, and from 1960 until his death Martin Luther acted as co-pastor. Martin Luther attended segregated public schools in Georgia, graduating from high school at the age of fifteen; he received the B. A. degree in 1948 from Morehouse College, he enrolled in graduate studies at Boston University, completing his residence for the doctorate in 1953 and receiving the degree in 1955. In Boston he met and married Coretta Scott, a young woman of uncommon intellectual and artistic attainments. Two sons and two daughters were born into the family.

In 1954, Martin Luther King became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Always a strong worker for civil rights for members of his race, King was, by this time, a member of the executive committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the leading organization of its kind in the nation. He led a bus boycott that lasted 382 days. On December 21, 1956, after the Supreme Court of the United States had declared unconstitutional the laws requiring segregation on buses, Negroes and whites rode the buses as equals. During these days of boycott, King was arrested, his home was bombed, he was subjected to personal abuse.

In the eleven-year period between 1957 and 1968, King traveled over six million miles and spoke over twenty-five hundred times, appearing wherever there was injustice, protest, and action; and meanwhile he wrote five books as well as numerous articles. In these years, he led a massive protest in Birmingham, Alabama, that caught the attention of the entire world, providing what he called a coalition of conscience. and inspiring his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail", a manifesto of the Civil Rights revolution. He directed the peaceful march on Washington, D.C., of 250,000 people to whom he delivered his address, "l Have a Dream", he conferred with President John F. Kennedy and campaigned for President Lyndon B. Johnson; he was arrested upwards of twenty times and assaulted at least four times; he was awarded five honorary degrees; was named Man of the Year by Time magazine in 1963; and became not only the symbolic leader of American blacks but also a world figure.

At the age of thirty-five, Martin Luther King, Jr., was the youngest man to have received the Nobel Peace Prize. When notified of his selection, he announced that he would turn over the prize money of $54,123 to the furtherance of the civil rights movement.

On the evening of April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of his motel room in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was to lead a protest march in sympathy with striking garbage workers of that city, he was assassinated.

-From Nobel Lectures, Peace 1951-1970, Editor Frederick W. Haberman, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1972

Merit Badges Go Mobile in 2011

2010-12-26T01:17:00.000-06:00

Beginning in early 2011, Boy Scouts will be able to manage their merit badges with an interactive application for the Apple iPhone. The application which will be available for $1.99 through the iTunes Store, will let Scouts review merit badge requirements, keep track of their progress by requirement, and even share their success on Facebook.

“Boys are notoriously bad at paperwork and famously good at technology. This app will help Scouts keep up with their advancement and undoubtedly spur them on to achieve even more,” said Bob Wiemers, team leader for Publishing & Printing Solutions.

The app’s home screen shows the total number of badges the Scout has completed and started. With a few taps, he can check the requirements for any badge, find links to related websites and resources, and record the requirements he has completed. He can also post his results to Facebook from within the application.

If a Scout has already purchased The Boy Scout Handbook – Boy Scouts of America app, which appeared in 2009, it will automatically be imported into the new app. The handbook app is also available for purchase through the merit badge app for $7.99.

The merit badge app is about more than just merit badges. It also includes an RSS aggregator that pushes Scouting news to the owner’s phone.

Source: ProSpeak Best Practices Dec 2010

History of Veterans Day

2010-11-10T00:42:00.002-06:00

Veterans Day is an annual US holiday, and is both a federal holiday and a holiday in all states.

Veterans Day is always celebrated on November 11 unless it falls on a Sunday.

In other parts of the world from the US, Veterans Day is commemorated as Remembrance Day or Armistice Day, the anniversary of the signing of Armistice which ended World War I. The Germans signed the Armistice at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918.

US President Woodrow Wilson originally proclaimed Armistice Day on November 12, 1919. It was changed by Congress to November 11 in 1926. In 1954 President Dwight Eisenhower signed a Congressional Bill changing the holiday from commemorating the end of World War I to remembering all Veterans, and renaming the holiday Veterans Day.
-associatedcontent.com Published November 01, 2010 by: Jeffrey Weeks

2010 Veterans Day Poster

2009 Veterans Day Poster

2008 Veterans Day Poster

2007 Veterans Day Poster

Troop 524 Annual Fall service Project

2010-10-27T16:33:00.000-05:00

This Saturday we will once again be doing a good turn by helping out Tony Blake. Tony has been involved with the Epiphany community for many years, and helping him with his leaves is great way to help someone within that community. Please bring any rakes, leaf blowers, tarps, etc. to help with the event. Since this is one of our largest service projects of the year attendence is highly encouraged for both scout and parent. We will also be having hot dogs for lunch, and I'm guessing some hot cocoa too. We will need a lot of assistance transporting leaves (this is usually what takes so long) so if you have a truck and can pull a trailer, or have a trailer the troop could borrow talk with Mr. Klemm. Hope to see all of you there! p.s. This counts for service hours!!!

International Blog Action Day: Water

2010-10-14T23:58:00.002-05:00

Blog Action Day is an annual event held every October 15 that unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day with the aim of sparking a global discussion and driving collective action. This year's topic is water. Please read the information below, and learn about this important world problem.
-Kyle Palzer

Right now, almost a billion people on the planet don’t have access to clean, safe drinking water. That’s one in eight of us.
Unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation cause 80% of diseases and kill more people every year than all forms of violence, including war. Children are especially vulnerable, as their bodies aren't strong enough to fight diarrhea, dysentery and other illnesses. The UN predicts that one tenth of the global disease burden can be prevented simply by improving water supply and sanitation.
But, water moves beyond just a human rights issue. It’s an environmental issue, an animal welfare issue, a sustainability issue. Water is a global issue, deserving a global conversation.
Visit the charity: water site to see how people are making a difference to solve this problem.
Click to watch the powerful charity: water video-
http://www.charitywater.org/media/videos/?video=video1
Click on the link to the video below to see why water is an important issue-
http://vimeo.com/15336764

Purpose of a Blog

2010-09-22T22:57:00.001-05:00

The purpose of the Troop 524 blog is to provide more in depth information the event page doesn't provide. Read the blog post below for an example of this, related to the popcorn sales. The Blog can be used to provide more information about upcoming campouts, ex. Fall Camporee is CSI Themed (blog would provide information on activities for the camp) the events page would only provide the date and time for the camp. Please answer the poll questions to the right regarding the Blog.
Thanks,
kyle

Popcorn Sales 2010

2010-09-22T20:58:00.004-05:00

Now is the time to sell, sell, sell; for earning money towards your scout fund! Popcorn sales are a BSA form of fundraising, which gives you the opportunity to wear your scout field uniform (class A). Now is also the time for wreath sales (not a BSA form of fundraising) so you can't wear your field uniform while selling wreathes. However if you sell both popcron and wreath's at the same time you CAN wear the field uniform!! Plus if someone doesn't want to buy a wreath they may buy popcorn and vice versa, or they may buy BOTH!! Good luck as you hit the neighborhoods this fall. NOTE: Always use the buddy system while selling, and NEVER ENTER INTO A HOME!!!! Stay safe and have FUN!

Fall Camporee

2010-08-04T16:34:00.001-05:00

A unique new feature of this camporee is that the Dan Patch District will be joining us. Three Rivers has not done a district event in conjunction with another district for many years so this should be a neat experience. Not only will their units be participating but their adults will help staff events, and organize the activities so this is chance for our adult leaders to network with adult leaders from outside our district.
Police officers from the Stearns County, Anoka County, and Hennepin County Sheriff’s Departments helped make this camporee possible. They served as advisors and helped develop the activities, secure materials, and create a realistic storyline. Some officers will also be volunteering their time at this event.
On Saturday, the Scouts will encounter a crime scene and will be taking on the role of a CSI team. After each event, the patrol will collect evidence that will help them solve the crime. Three Rivers District is deliberately not providing many details regarding the “crime”, clues, and storyline to keep the experience as authentic as possible. They say, this camporee is going to be very exciting and challenging.

David Trudeau's Eagle Project

2010-07-19T12:27:00.001-05:00

David's project consists of making Field Desks for the MN DNR. The project will take place at Mr. DeRusha's house at 8:30 AM on July 24th. He is looking for 6 adults (using table saws, and routers) and 12 scouts (gluing and nailing boxes together) Lunch provided, everyone bring work gloves, (adults) tape measurers, and (scouts) hammers.

Mr. Derusha's address

2460 139th Ln Ne, Andover, MN 55304