What Your Outpost Did This Week.

Are more Pow Wows held in the spring, or fall? South Carolina's is held in May. We haven't attended one yet, but we're looking forward to it next spring.

What a night!

22 boys total between RK/DR. DR boys started work on ropecraft.

Leaders under spiritual attack already... One called in sick this afternoon. One of the RK reminded me why we are doing Rangers. Every time I was around this boy, he had his arms around me. He does not have an active male role model in his life. This is why we do Rangers.

That... is.... AWESOME!!!

Super stoked for you guys! Enjoy every minute of the newness and have someone take lots of pictures at the meetings if they can do it without too much disruption. Y'all are history in the making and you'll enjoy being able to look back on this time in the years to come. I love looking back at the pictures from early on in our outpost. My sons look like little babies compared to their looks now, just a few short years later. I see boys that no longer come, some that I know where they are and other that I have no idea where they are. And of course I see the boys who still do come and how much they've grown up. Who knows, you might one day have one of those RK's that you poured your heart and time into either bring his son to outpost meetings, and/or maybe even be a commander too one day.

Yes you're right, this is why we do Rangers!

Good meeting tonight Had our usual 2 RK & 2 AR
we did lesson 1 of 1st Thessalonians & lesson 1 of Fire Craft (paired them up 1 RK & 1 AR per team)
For fire craft we did the usual:
elements of fire (fuel, oxygen & heat)
Camp site fire fighting
A-frame fire
PLUS we did the rules of Fire Safety (normally lesson 2)
And then we piled some more leaves, sticks & burnable debris on those A frames & lit em up  
I purposely had them build the fires (piling debris) poorly so they wouldn't take off well...so that next week they can see how much easier it is with a teepee fire
They did get their fires burning but had to blow, fan & feed constantly to keep them going.

ccm2361 wrote:Good meeting tonight   Had our usual 2 RK & 2 AR    
we did lesson 1 of 1st Thessalonians & lesson 1 of Fire Craft   (paired them up 1 RK & 1 AR per team)

How does that work?? RK doing AR merits??

We had 3 older boys and 2 RK's, and we worked on building (painting) a model rocket.

The older boys painted the rocket body. The parachute was uncolored (because of some government regulation about the ink), so we divided the parachute into 8 sections, and the RK's colored the sections of the parachute with Magic Markers.

Canadarangers wrote:

ccm2361 wrote:Good meeting tonight   Had our usual 2 RK & 2 AR    
we did lesson 1 of 1st Thessalonians & lesson 1 of Fire Craft   (paired them up 1 RK & 1 AR per team)

How does that work?? RK doing AR merits??

It does & it doesn't. Technically, Fire Craft is a DR merit  

I only have 4 Rangers in the outpost & I am the only Commander. So we have to run 1 room school house style

The RK's have fun doing Fire craft ,but don't actually earn the merit as they don't complete all the requirements.  When possible, I pair a merit with a RK achievement award such as cooking & cooking (RK) so they still get an award but not always possible.

So how do your RK earn their achievements?

Canadarangers wrote:So how do your RK earn their achievements?

we do a bit a both RK & AR I make sure both groups have an opportunity to advance if they want to.

Had another good outpost meeting tonight continuing on with Archery for both the girls in AHG and the boys. Came to realize tonight that we either need more bows and targets, or to have them go out at alternative times in the evening. Personally I'd like to have more bows and targets so that we can all be together. I guess we'll see how that goes.

I'm also thinking that we need to go back to a two hour meeting instead of the hour and a half that we went to. We're just not able to do everything we want to do without rushing through and cutting things out...

We've had rain for the past several days, today included, so we couldn't go outside to continue shooting the bows. We used the rainy day as a chance to get any boys caught up on the paperwork side of the merit. All in all it was a good meetimg.

Finished most of the paper work and going over safety and such. Hands on wood working starting this next sunday night. Have to joint and straight line boards for glueing up for the unabox.

This is the second time for us to do this. Here is a report and pictures and plans from the last time.
http://readyrangers.tzo.com/2012unibox/Unibox2012.htm

Mark Jones

This week, I was zeroing my .35 Whelen Rifle for 2015 Deer Season.  After firing 4 shots, I noticed that I couldn't pull the hammer back on the rifle.  The heavy recoil had allowed the scope to move forward to the point that the "bell" of the scope wouldn't let the hammer clear it.

I got the parts to fix it, and was going to do it in my basement, but decided against it.

I packed up my Rifle Vice, the Rifle, and Armorer's Parts into the car.

Tonight, after the Bible Merit Lesson, I locked the rifle in the gun-vice, took the scope off of the rifle and showed the boys the scope rings.   We could see where the inside finish was worn where there were high marks in the rings where the scope was only being held by about 10% of the surface of the rings (I demonstrated that it was like trying to hold another kid's wrist by just using your thumb and one finger, rather than your whole hand).

So we used a "lapping" kit.  It is a perfectly machined steel bar, the same diameter as the scope, and you put abrasive compound on it.  You put it in the rings, slightly tighten the screws, and move the "lapping" bar back & forth and allow the abrasive to remove the high points from the inside of the rings.  As you remove material from the inside of the rings, you tighten the screws a little and repeat.  All of the boys got a chance to help to lap the rings.

At the end of the meeting, we used some lighter fluid to clean up the abrasive compound, and the boys could see that they had the job about 70% done.  The worst of the high points were honed away, and it took me about another half hour at home to finish the job.

Now the boys know what needs to be done, if they have a rifle that moves the scope from recoil, and I have a deer rifle with a securely mounted scope.

We wrapped up 1 Thessalonians & Fire Craft.
Kids built a fire & made a bunch of Smores

sent kids home all sugared up   but.....half of them are my kids

We are cutting out Unaboxes. Boys were taught how to use the bandsaws and they got to cutting on their puzzle box.

Spread out wet canvas all over the Ranger Annex. Territoral Rendezvous was a fun with a lot of rain and a cooper head snake bite. Report to follow.

Mark Jones

When we moved to our present location, we became church members right away. The church had a rule that you needed to be a member for a year before working in any ministry. Because other members had known us for years, they ended up breaking that rule. Nothing is written in stone.

ccm2361 wrote:We wrapped up 1 Thessalonians & Fire Craft.
Kids built a fire & made a bunch of Smores

sent kids home all sugared up   but.....half of them are my kids

Do you have a PPT slide for firecraft??? can you email it to me clfrangers@gmail.com if you do. we are starting that next week.

Thanks

We are going to finish our first Merit this week. Boys are excited to get their first badge, ropecraft.

Congratulations.

Are you giving out the Ribbon Bars, also, or just the Vest Patch?

Oh how I wish the ribbon bars were still available other than a few here and there on ebay....

I do, too. But I was referring to the current ribbons with the numerals for merits in each color group.

My church broke the six month rule for me when I was appointed sr cmdr. They considered my letter of recommendation from my A/G pastor and time involved there sufficient. I thought I was a member till once I showed up at the annual meeting. Back home membership was a requirement here other factors seem more important.

The only change to the ribbons I would make is assigning a color to the ER spirit challenges so each of the three top groups have 3 ribbons each.

Claymore wrote:Congratulations.

Are you giving out the Ribbon Bars, also, or just the Vest Patch?

We are going with the vests

We do not require our commanders to be members of the church, although I have asked the ones that are not to consider it. The must have requirements for our commanders are a Minimum 6 months church attendance or be well known by someone in the congregation, Criminal record check, and Plan to Protect training (PAOC program).

I was glad for the 6 month rule becuase when we first started gathering names of who would be interested in helping with rangers we had a guy walk in off the street to the office one day. He was looking for some assistance and he saw the Ranger poster I had up advertising an information session. He showed up to the info session and asked a few odd questions but was otherwise very quiet. He didn't really talk to anyone else. So he puts his name down as being interested in helping out. Well, I took his name to the pastors and they didn't really know what to make of him. One of the pastors had taken him out for coffee to try to get some details on who he is etc...None of us got a good feeling about this guy. I mean, who walks into a church for the first time and says let me be in your kids ministry? I had to tell him not to show up for the training, but encouraged him to get involved in the church, by starting to come to the Sunday service, and join the men's group. Well he started to come to the morning service for a few weeks but hasn't been back in about 2 months. Saved by church policy!!