Troop 6 Quincy

THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU!!!

It was a great turn out and a great night of fun, food, and racing! We had 51 cars racing and First Place was Leo Ladas Second Place went to Ryan Love, and Third Place was a shocker (and my favorite car) Jeff and Earnest! His car was a detailed copy of Chevy Chase's car from Vacation - complete with a dead Aunt Edna on the roof, and the leash from the dog on the bumper!

A HUGE thank you to all of the volunteers who helped set up, take down, staff the party, and to all of you who came!

A special thank you to Gail Freel and the Houghs Neck Garden Club for staffing the kitchen!

Thanks to Steven Holler and the November Gale for the gift certificates for the lobsters!

Thanks to Red Door Real Estate and Mike Cheney and Madelene Semeria Cheney for donating the Scratch Ticket Raffle and the prize money for the races!

And a huge, huge thank you to Louis and John Galligan for the amazing food, extra beer, gift certificates and t-shirts for the raffle! The after party at Louis was pretty great too!

A big chunk of the money we raised this year will go to help send Troop 6 to the Florida High Adventure Sea Base in August of 2016. Thank you all for helping to keep Scouting alive!

April was another whirlwind month with something going on almost every weekend! The bottle drive and Adult Pinewood Derby back on April 11th helped make a big contribution to the Troop’s funds and will make a nice dent in the cost of sending the Troop to the Florida High Adventure Sea Base in 2016. Thanks to all of you who donated bottle and came out to support us!

On April 19th and 20th, 30 members of Troop 6 participated in the Isaac Davis Camporee in Concord MA. We joined the other troops from Quincy, along with several hundred other scouts and scouters for this wonderful annual event. Sunday was warm and sunny and we played football and Frisbee and made a bunch of new friends. That night, there was a huge campfire and each troop did a song or a skit. It was early to bed, because we were up for 4AM and bused to Isaac Davis’s home in Acton and began the same march that he and his Acton Minutemen took after receiving the famous call that the “British are coming”. We learned quite a bit of history during the hike, including the fact that they never said the “The British are coming” since they were all British! We completed the 7 mile hike in the cold and the rain, and watched the reenactment at the Old North Bridge in Concord. It was a wonderful way to not only learn a little bit of Patriots Day history, but to help recreate it.

On April 25th, we held a Court of Honor to present Alex Samsel with his Eagle Scout award. Alex built the garden behind the Houghs Neck Congregational Church last summer for his Eagle project, and through that garden and his hard work, there were several hundred pounds of fresh vegetables donated to the Interfaith Social Services Food Pantry in Quincy. Alex received accommodations from the President, Vice President, US Senate, US House of Representatives, Governor, State Senate, State Representatives, Mayor, City Council, and the Houghs Neck Community Council all recognizing his amazing achievement. Congratulations Alex!

Next up is Cleaner Greener Quincy, another Eagle project, a Camporee to 6 Flags, all while we continue to work on advancement and merit badges. Currently, we are working on Chess Merit Badge while we take a break from First Aid!

Congratulations to Frankie Reich, our newest Life Scout, and to Ryan Laroche, Kevin Toler, Chris Donahue, and Jake Gordon for earning their First Class ranks.

Our next bottle drive is May 9th from 9-12 in Labrecque Field parking lot, and will continue to be the second Saturday of every month. Please remember that the bottle drives are our main means of fundraising for the Troop, and we really appreciate your contributions. Please feel free to call if you need a pick up!

Yours in Scouting,

Rob Gordon, Troop 6 Scoutmaster

While most of us are thrilled to see the snow finally going away, the scout wanted one last weekend out in the winter wonderland, and we spent the weekend of March 21-22 down at Camp Massasoit playing in the snow! The boys all worked together to create “Quinzees,” or snow shelters, and we even had two brave souls spend the night in them. Congratulations to Jake Gordon and Matt Mroz for having the courage and fortitude to spend the night in your shelters!!! The rest of us spent the night in the cabin. We also had a few epic snowball fights, built a pretty funny snowman, learned how to perform ice rescues, worked on our knots, and made survival bracelets. All in all, it was a great trip!

Back on February 28th, all three patrols from the Troop made entries into the Houghs Neck Congregational Church Chili Cook Off. While none of the entries made it into the top 3, they did extremely well and the Task Force Patrol was the Troop 6 Champs! These guys received a medal for their patrol box and congratulations to Matt, Ryan, Shawn, Joe, Cameron, Andrew, and Brody!!!

During the past month we have been working hard at learning or brushing up on our First Aid skills and hope to complete the merit badge soon. We also attended a City Council Meeting as one of the final requirements for Communications Merit Badge. In addition, Ben Brownlow and John Bonfiglioli submitted their final paperwork for Eagle Scout! Only 1 in every 50 scouts makes it this far, so we are incredibly proud of these young men. Alex Samsel will officially receive his Eagle Scout Rank in a ceremony on April 25th. If all goes well, Troop 6 may be awarding 5 Eagle badges in 2015 – this is an absolutely incredible number for a troop our size!

Please mark your calendars – April 11th is going to be the 5th Annual Friends of Troop 6 Adult Pinewood Derby! This is a major fundraiser for the Troop, and is a lot of fun. Dust off your old car from your childhood, or make the car you always wanted to, but couldn’t as a kid. Or, just come down and have some food and drink and enjoy the fun!

Our next bottle drive is April 11th from 9-12 in Labrecque Field parking lot, and will continue to be the second Saturday of every month. Please remember that the bottle drives are our main means of fundraising for the Troop, and we really appreciate your contributions. Please feel free to call if you need a pick up!

Yours in Scouting,

Rob Gordon, Troop 6 Scoutmaster

Super Bowl weekend was extra super for Troop 6; it was our annual ski trip to Gunstock Ski Area in Guilford, NH! Nearly two dozen of us spent the weekend in the home of our good friends, Carol and Larry, and despite the very frigid conditions, we had a great time skiing and snowboarding. Most of the boys took lessons, and by the end of the day it was great to see the progress they were making. As an added bonus, we were home plenty early for that little football game on Sunday night! Go PATS!!!

February has gone by in a blur with us missing several meetings and a bottle drive due to snow, but we are right back at it trying to finish off Communications Merit Badge, attending a City Council Meeting, working on First Aid Merit badge, planning upcoming trips, and getting ready to build snow shelters towards the end of March.

The scouts are also competing in the Chili Cook Off at the Houghs Neck Congregational Church, and we will post the winner next month!

Advancement has slowed down a bit because of all of the storms, but we have 2 scouts that are right on the cusp of reaching eagle, and Jake Walsh has earned his Life Scout rank.

Please mark your calendars – April 11th is going to be the 5th Annual Friends of Troop 6 Adult Pinewood Derby! This is a major fundraiser for the Troop, and is a lot of fun. Dust off your old car from your childhood, or make the car you always wanted to, but couldn’t as a kid. Or, just come down and have some food and drink and enjoy the fun!

Our next bottle drive is March 14th from 9-12 in Labrecque
Field parking lot, and will continue to be the second Saturday of every month. Please remember that the bottle drives are our main means of fundraising for the Troop, and we really appreciate your contributions. Please feel free to call if you need a pick up!

Yours in Scouting,

Rob Gordon, Troop 6 Scoutmaster

Troop 6 News…

Always up for a challenge, the boys of Troop 6 decided that just camping in the cold wasn’t enough, and on November 15-16, the scouts build shelters with branches and leaves and pine boughs and slept the night in the woods of Camp Massasoit. You might remember that weekend, it was the first time this year that it got really, really cold. Like 18 degrees cold! Everyone was well prepared, and a number of the boys were convinced that their shelters were warmer than a tent would have been, and they are probably right! We also had the first ever Troop 6 Cook Off on this trip. Each patrol had to cook their own food over the open fire and present it to the judges for dinner. The Duct Tape Patrol made a nice Chicken Parmesan and pasta, the Task Force Patrol had a hearty American Chop Suey, but the winner was the Border Patrol with an amazing Beef Stew. Congrats to Jake Walsh, Patrick Lee, Chris Fournier, and Brendan Cavin!

All the pictures will be up on our web site: www.troop6quincy.com

The troop continues to work hard on advancement, with Brody Gillespie and Andrew Engren making Tenderfoot, Jake Gordon, Kevin Toler, and Ryan Laroche all earning Second Class and Jake Gordon, Ryan Laroche, Brendan Cavin, Kevin Toler, and Chris Fournier all earned both Rifle and Archery Merit Badges, thanks to Dick Striano and the Weymouth Sportsman’s Club (THANKS!!!) Congrats as well to Jake Walsh for completing his Family Life Merit Badge. He should be a Life Scout soon! There is also a big group of boys that are coming to the meetings early every week to work with Rich Sutherland on Communications Merit Badge as well.

In addition, John Bonfiglioli completed the majority of his Eagle project last month! John raised over $800 through an 11+ mile Hike-A-Thon that the scouts participated in. He then worked with Carl Reich to build an Osprey tower for the marsh by Broad Meadows. On November 29th, with the aid of a team of scouts and leaders, we put the tower up on the island in the middle of the marsh. The tower stands over 12’ tall and will hopefully provide a safe and secure nest for a family of Osprey this spring. You can see the tower clearly from the end of Moffat Road. As part of the project, John is also providing Broad Meadows Middle School with 3 pairs of high powered binoculars and a teaching guide about why Osprey are important to the marshes and our ecosystem. Congrats John!

We closed out 2014 with our biggest ever Christmas/Holiday party, with 20 pizzas and a Yankee swap among 45 of us! It was crazy, but a lot of fun! We were also proud to present the “Pop Josselyn” Award to Don and Barbara Oakes for their years of dedication to the Troop and Pack. They exemplify the type of service that Pop would have been proud of, and we are going to miss them, and wish them well in their next great adventure in North Carolina.

Our next bottle drive is January 10th from 9-12 in Labrecque Field parking lot, and will continue to be the second Saturday of every month. Please remember that the bottle drives are our main means of fundraising for the Troop, and we really appreciate your contributions. Please feel free to call if you need a pick up!

Yours in Scouting,

Rob Gordon, Troop 6 Scoutmaster, 617-479-7412

Troop 6 News…

Wow!!! What a week of summer camp we had! We took 22 scouts, ranging in age from 11 to 17, to T.L. Storer Scout Reservation in Barnstead, New Hampshire. The boys had a great week of nice weather with only a little bit of rain, and that is a miracle for summer camp! The scouts worked on a wide variety of merit badges, including Horsemanship, Swimming, Wilderness Survival, Art, Environmental Science, Safety, Animal Science, Kayaking, Emergency Preparedness, Painting, and Automotive Maintenance. After lunch, we kept busy with climbing the giant inflatable K2 on the pond, throwing tomahawks, shooting rifles, water trampolines, climbing towers, and an epic water melon tussle. We also had an excellent showing during the camp wide games, participated in the Order of the Arrow hour of service, and managed to get a few perfect scores on our camp site inspections as well. Not quite a relaxing week, but it was a ton of fun! A special thanks to the leaders who gave up a week of vacation to spend with the troop – Mike Berry, Shawn Donahue, Rob Gordon, Brian Laroche, Carl Reich, and our pro-golfer John Toler. Thanks also to Jack Bonfiglioli and Aaron Cavin who came up for part of the week and brought us news of the outside world. Please check out our website for lots of photos.

We are also extremely proud that two members of Troop 6, Matt Mroz and Gaelin Kurtzman, were working on staff at camp, and we had two boys, Paul Donahue and Matt Hanly, attend a special week of camp for youth leadership training.

August is going to be a quiet month for us, but we start September with a bang! We will be hiking Franconia Notch and Mt. Lafayette and staying overnight in the Appalachian Mountain Club’s Greenleaf Hut on the first weekend in September.

Registration for the ‘14-’15 Scouting season is Monday, September 8th and 15th at 7PM at the Houghs Neck Congregational Church - hope to see some new faces this year!!

Our next bottle drives are August 9th and September 13th from 9-12 in Labrecque Field parking lot, and will continue to be the second Saturday of every month. Please remember that the bottle drives are our main means of fundraising for the Troop, and we really appreciate your contributions. Please feel free to call if you need a pick up!

Yours in Scouting,
Rob Gordon, Scoutmaster Troop 6

The Scouts and leaders had an incredible time whitewater rafting on the first Sunday of April.  Here are links to some photos and a video.  The video was provided via Carl Reich and the photos were provided via Patrick Walsh as well as Crabapple Whitewater Rafting.

video

photos