What Your Outpost Did This Week.

We had our first Firing Squad Rehearsal at the Church Flag Pole, about a week ago. We worked on rifle Manual of Arms, then did about 3 “dry runs”, and then 3 Live-Fires, each with 3 volleys, with blanks.

It looked & sounded sharp.

(We did give the Police Department a “heads up” that there would be Ceremony Practice at the Church Flag Pole, about 20 minutes prior.)

Claymore wrote: We had our first Firing Squad Rehearsal...

Taking care of some business?

joecool wrote:

Taking care of some business?

Well, the Guillotine was down for Maintenance.

Our Ranger Outpost is responsible for maintaining the Flag Pole. We replace the flags and the spot lights. There are two halyard ropes & pulleys on the pole. One of the ropes is badly in need of replacement.

So, I asked the boys how we can tell how tall the flag pole is. We are going to install a rope with a wire cable inside of it. So it is rather expensive. We don't want to purchase more rope than we need, but if we get too little, it is useless.

The boys made several guesses, and I finally gave them a few ideas. One is the method of having a boy who is 5 feet tall stand next to the flag pole. Have the "measuring" boy a moderate distance away. He will then hold out a pencil or a stick and shorten or lengthen it, at arm's length, and that will give him a 5-foot increment. He can then see how many 5-foot increments are in the height of the pole (somewhat "guessing").

Another way is to measure your shadow. When it gets to be the time of the day that your shadow is as tall as you are, then measure the flag pole's shadow. If the distance of your height is accurate, then the distance of the flag pole's height will be accurate. -- Problem is that you can only do this, briefly, twice per day.

Then I explained measuring a Right Triangle, using the C-squared = A-squared + B-squared.

I just happened to have a laser rangefinder in my pocket, so we walked out to the flag pole, and took several shots on the distance to the pole and the angle (C) to the Truck on the top of the pole.

As the Rangefinder measures in yards, we had to convert the numbers to feet, and then work out the problem. These guys are mostly third to fifth grade, and their eyes were starting to glaze over. But what I tried to drive into them was that they will see this stuff again in school, so it is good to pay attention, because these things can have real-life applications.

(By the way, the measurement came to 45 feet of height. As we had to add 5 more feet to our answer, because of the approximate height of our eyeball, above ground, in shooting to the truck, it gave us a height of 50 feet for the Flag Pole. We will need 100 feet of rope.)

We do our own Bible Study, and I try to tie it in with the "Adventure" Project, that we have at the end of the meeting. I print a Bible Verse on small pieces of paper, and hand them to the boys (kind-of like big Fortune Cookie papers).

So, this week's verse was Psalm 23, Verses 1-4. The very last line was, "Your Rod and Your Staff, they Comfort Me."

We talked about how the Staff was a walking stick with a hook on it, and could be used to rescue a lamb that may have fallen in a ditch, and how the Rod was thicker, and used as a weapon, to fend off attacking animals or even people.

Then we pulled out the Pugil Stick equipment. They put on their Hockey Helmets & Hockey Gloves, went outside, did about 30 minutes of Drills, learning the moves, and then had 1-on-1 competitions, whacking each other (2 points for getting your opponent with the "Red" end, and 1 point for getting him with the "Gray" end; a Round ends as soon as you get a point; the Match ends when either boy accrues 3 points).

The boys loved it.

The Pastor said that we really bring the Bible to Life, and he wishes that there was an outpost, 50 years ago, when he was a kid.

I've livened up our generic Wed night program with RR merit work. 15 minutes each evening for a month, and then a new merit comes up. I've just booked the rest of the school year with guest merit teachers. And one of them is a man. Yeah, the response from guys was weak, but I'll take a small win.

I don't have an outpost, but I do have Sunday school. Our curriculum theme for the next 8 weeks takes the kids into outer space. I've added virtual reality goggles to let them get a taste of it. I just tried out a space station app...and I felt like a kid.

I had purchased a croquet set for the Rangers from Walmart, a few years ago. The mallets were flimsy and the balls were like a heavy "dead" plastic, that didn't go very far when you hit them. I remembered my cousins having a beautiful wooden set that would really let the balls sail, when you hit them.

Checking on Ebay, you're going to pay between $80.00 and $160.00 for one of those old classic wooden croquet sets. I found a set for a total of about $45.00 that was kind of beat-up, faded, and the balls were chipped, but it's going to be abused by the boys, anyway.

The croquet set arrived, I took them to church, we played a game, everything was fine. However, the balls were so faded that you had to search pretty closely to find one boy's particular ball; especially when it was getting close to dark.

So on an evening when it was too hot to go outside, I brought in six jars of acrylic paint and some little paint brushes. Each boy was given a faded mallet and matching croquet ball, and they were shown where the stripes on the mallets and balls should be painted, in order to identify them.

Well, it turned out to be interesting. The mallets didn't turn out too bad, but some of the balls looked like they were painted by Pablo Picasso.

But one thing is for certain: you can tell who has what color mallet and croquet ball, now.

Well it's been a busy couple of months and lots of Royal Ranger happenings and I am way behind posting links. So here you go. Some of our Fun in So. MO District Royal Rangers SW Division.

Just a local outpost FCF Style campout with my new wood stove in the tent.
http://readyrangers.tzo.com/2023FCFWinterCampout/2023FCFWinterCampout.htm

We had 30 camping over night in this cave. Yup we had 85 just before Covid!!!
http://readyrangers.tzo.com/2023batcave/2023Batcave.htm

Lockin at our Church for SW Division FCF Winter Outing.
http://readyrangers.tzo.com/2023SWDWinterOuting/2023SWDWinterOuting.html

Ranger Day Kid Camp with a new twist called Family Fun Days!
http://readyrangers.tzo.com/2022SWDFamilyFieldDay/2022SWDFamilyFieldDay.htm

Wow. Those aren’t tents; those are barracks.

I love Marquee tents. The sides can be left off or a door put in any place you want to or even 4 doors. You can use half of one of them for your sleeping area and leave the other half open with no sides on them. They are $4000.00 when you go to buy them new with all the trimmings. (Hence only a fool would leave a bunch of boys un supervised all night long to camp alone in them.) Sometimes I really wonder if the people that make these rules of No Leaders and Boys in tents have even a clue on what we do on these events. Let them layout 5000.00 of their own personal funds and watch the boys unsupervised tear it up. Then go home to their wives and explain what a fool they have been telling Leaders to to leave boys unsupervised ANYWHERE!

Our campground is following the models of the working models where men and boys share the same bathrooms and have doors on the stalls. This keeps the boys from doing all kinds of really gross stuff to the bathrooms. Poop smeared on the walls, TP rolls in the bowls and busted toilets to name a few. Ranger Leaders are screened and if the Pastoral Staff has done their job on this all we should have in these bathrooms in men that are safe to work with boys. Keeping a eye out for anything out of normal for sure. Boys left unsupervised is a menu for a lot that can go wrong. Supervision is key when working with boys.

If it was just me I would go with a one of the pyramid hunter tents often called a one poll tent that gets staked down at the ground then a single pole makes it look like a square Tepee. They can be setup by one person. A marquee can as well but it's a job. A group of 5 can put up a marquee in 15 minutes if they are in to it.


I enjoy camping all kinds. RVing is making me soft though!

Mark Jones wrote:   Boys left unsupervised is a menu for a lot that can go wrong.  Supervision is key when working with boys.

Oh, Indeed!

I just had that talk with our Pastor, this week.

We had an inspector from the insurance company coming through. I normally leave other folks' classrooms alone (as our own room can get messy, and I don't want other people going through it), but this was an exception, because of the insurance inspection.

I found that someone had been in the pre-school room (a huge play and class room, probably 40 feet long by 20 feet wide). It has a stage, a play area with the interlocking rubber mats, a slide that goes into a pool of plastic balls, a pretend kitchen, etc.

Someone had gone through it and just tore up toys, ripped the play food, milk, and cereal cartons from the kitchen set, and threw about 80 (I counted them as I was picking them up) plastic balls from the pool, all over the room.

I told the Pastor that, I didn't know WHO did it, it was almost definitely a boy between 4 and 10 years old, who was left unsupervised. The room had been left unlocked, because it was connected to the Children's Church.

It got cleaned up, broken and torn toys thrown away, but unfortunately, now it is locked.

Mark Jones wrote: Boys left unsupervised is a menu for a lot that can go wrong.  Supervision is key when working with boys.

I have taken boys hiking, winter skiing, climbing, rappelling, shooting BB-Guns, Air Rifles, .22 Rifles, & Shotguns, built expedient shelters, and launched model rockets.

Never had a serious injury, except....

When we were in the church parking lot, all waiting for the last vehicles and kids to arrive to go to the .22 rifle range, one boy picked up a stick, held it out, twirled around, and knocked his cousin's front tooth out.

Nope, it wasn't the rifles, it wasn't the shooting, it was a kid with a stick, when I was looking at something else....

The boys are studying for their Aviation Merit. I was a licensed pilot, and so I can dumb-down basic concepts of propulsion, lift/drag, balance, etc.

So the first concept that we looked at was propulsion. The boys pretty-well figured out that the basic types of aircraft propulsion were Propeller, Jet, and Rocket.

It took a bit more coaching to show them that there is also "inertia" propulsion: essentially, the energy is stored up in an aircraft by bringing it up to speed or altitude, and that energy is used to create lift and to propel the aircraft for a distance (as a pilot, I was surprised to find a large lead weight in the nose compartment of a manned, cable-lift glider).

We had a toy balsa glider with a propeller, and we showed how the rubber band is a "motor", and it operates the propeller to create forward lift, which pulls the aircraft, which creates airflow over the wings, and makes it fly.

Then we talked about "jet" and "rocket" power (and touched into Newton's Law). As part of the demonstration, I took a moderately large balloon, blew it up, and asked what would happen when I let it go. After the boys answered that, I also asked what would happen, if we harnessed that energy into pushing an airplane.

At the end of the lesson, I handed out moderately large balloons to all of the boys, and let them demonstrate jet propulsion, for themselves.

Balloons were flying through the Ranger Room at random..........

It has been Hot, Hot, Hot in Mississippi. We have, mostly, remained inside and working on our Aviation Merit.

One evening, it got moderate, and so we ventured outside with some Chinese Styrofoam gliders that I purchased. All of them tended to have some degree or "warp" to the wings, and so they varied from making a slow, turning crash to an immediate dive and crash.

I went in to the secretary's office and obtained about a half-dozen Post-It Notes and a scissors. I cut the notes so that they retained the adhesive, were full-width, but were only about 3/4 inch long.

I told the boys that ailerons lift or depress the wings, by changing the airflow over the wings. If a wing goes up, the plane will turn in that direction. Also, if the tail pushes up too much, the plane will nose-dive. If it pushes down too much, the plane will stall.

So by watching how the gliders flew (crashed) and noting what we wanted to correct, we put Post-It Notes on the trailing edges of the wings and on the Tail Elevator surfaces, and bent them up to adjust the airflow over the control surfaces.

Eventually, we had a few straight-flying gliders.

Claymore wrote: It has been Hot, Hot, Hot...Eventually, we had a few straight-flying gliders.  

If I ever crash-land in Northern Africa, with no hope of rescue from the outside, I want you to be one of the passengers. (Let's see if the younger Rangers on this site get it.)

joecool wrote:

Claymore wrote: It has been Hot, Hot, Hot...Eventually, we had a few straight-flying gliders.  

If I ever crash-land in Northern Africa, with no hope of rescue from the outside, I want you to be one of the passengers. (Let's see if the younger Rangers on this site get it.)

YOU were only 10 years old, when Flight of the Phoenix was made......

Mark Jones wrote: Boys left unsupervised is a menu for a lot that can go wrong.  Supervision is key when working with boys.

Truth there

This week was an "easy" meeting, but a couple of hours of preparation.

The weather was perfect. Dry, clear skies, no wind, temp at/about 58 degrees.

I loaded firewood, matches, hot dogs, buns, Hershey Bars, marshmallows, graham crackers, and milk into the truck, and the boys unloaded the wood and started up a campfire.  

After the fire burned down to a reasonable level (or maybe before), they started roasting & eating hot dogs, and then making s'mores with milk for desert.  

This fulfills one of the requirements for their Firecraft Badge (prepare and cook your own meal).

I then told them the meaning of the song "Vive le Compagnie", that it was about having Love for the Organization that you belong to, and that your love for IT and for your Comrades is for Life.

We passed out the words for the song, gathered around the fire, and sang it.


Vive La Compagnie

Let every good fellow, now join in our song,
Vive la compagnie!

Success to each other, and pass it along,
Vive la compagnie!

Chorus:
Vive la, vive la,
Vive l'amour.
Vive la, vive la,
Vive l'amour.
Vive l'amour, vive l'amour,
Vive la compagnie!!

A friend on your left, and a friend on your right,
Vive la compagnie!
In love and good fellowship, let us unite,
Vive la compagnie!

Repeat chorus

Now wider and wider, our circle expands,
Vive la compagnie!
We'll sing to our comrades, in far away lands
Vive la compagnie!

Repeat chorus

With friends all around us, we'll sing out our song
Vive la compagnie!
We'll banish our troubles, it won't take us long
Vive la compagnie!

Repeat chorus

Should time or occassion, compel us to part
Vive la compagnie!
These days shall forever, enliven our heart
Vive la compagnie!

Repeat chorus