What Your Outpost Did This Week.

I had fun doing color guard in my old Royal Rangers outpost.

Last night the ar boys finished up the 37 rubberband guns. ER did some lashing for pow this week.

We leave Thursday at 9:00 am will be back on sunday at 1pm.

My part this year is to build the council fire for Saturday nights service western days and do a remote light off of a hot shot. I am mixing in some green flames to add the hoorah.

Saturday 5 kayaks running 6 hours and one matchfires. giving the boys a batton, sheath knife and a old cedar fence board about 6 inches long.

Rest of the camp I am 2nd camp commander for our outpost.

Just a bunch of great memories and life long friendships that we develop with each other and our Lord and King Jesus. Pow Wow is one of those camps I would cry if I missed it.

Mark Jones

Forgot a dozen other things, cut n chop cert and recert. Entry way, costumes.
FCF call out list and preFCF call out ralley MC #2 I just help out.
Dues lifetime memberships, Pictures. Phew and a lot more so many I can't remember them all..ha!

Wooo hoo! It's time for Pow Wow 2015. All packed up and ready to leave out in the morning. Picked up 2 western hats tonight at Walmart...who'ed of thought straw hats at Walmart.

Last time 6 years ago we made paper mache hats...oh what a mess that was. It was fun but it was a lot of work.

ready!

We talked about Ticks, Chiggers, Horse Flies, and other crawling/flying critters that make us miserable in the woods.  We spoke of how they can crawl up your legs or brush onto your clothes and how to protect yourself by blousing your clothing, and how to use protective/treated canvas leggings.

I then showed them Permethrin Spray and Permethrin Concentrate.  We mixed up some 48/1 from the Concentrate.  We talked about how to mark their clothes that are treated (I keep a couple of pair of clothes specifically to be treated, and mark the tag with the current year; so the jeans with "15" written on the tag will always be treated in 2015).  

Our Outpost has Canvas Leggings that we use for when we camp out. I broke out the leggings, and each boy had a chance at putting them on.

Then we laid out a pair of jeans, work boots, canvas leggings, and a hat, & the boys took turns at spraying the items with Permethrin.

And Commander Claymore has his clothes treated for going down to the Shooting Range for the next couple of weeks.

we did.........nothing! worked late again

Unloaded from Pow wow and placed our 1st place over all trophy in the trophy case.
Then went home sick with sore throat.  It's hard to be in first place.  devil likes to give out all kinds of bonus illments.  That's ok..altars were full.  60 some made salvation call.  YES!

Mark Jones

This week I decided we would get outside & go for a short hike in the neighborhoods around the church & see what sort of critters we could see. We walked about a mile.
We have never done this sort of thing  on a Wednesday before.
Our youngest RK started complaining about his feet being tired about 4 blocks into our walk  
RK My feet are tired, can't we go back to the church & play a game? (most of our games are the running around sort of games )

Me We just got started
RK I know, but my feet are tired...can't we go back & play a game?
Me If your feet are tired we can go back to the church & sit down for a while, but if your feet are tired, you wont be able to run around & play a game

That silenced him for a few blocks & then he started in again.
Me You know, I think there is a park up ahead a few blocks...maybe we could stop there for a bit.

RK A PARK? with a playground?
Me yep
RK can we go there?
Me yep sure can  

about a block later
RK  my feet aren't so tired any more
Miracle Cure!
Foot sore Ranger 2nd from left

We worked at putting Pow Wow gear away. 12 Coolers, 24 tents, 45 chairs. Also cleaned up the back shop room for bbgun merit and put the paint booth and car curing box up in the attic.

Fathers day no Rangers on sunday night. I have been working 9 plus hours a day since pow wow going on 2 weeks now. Paying uncle sam 35% taxes due to the over time. Nice to have some mad money again.

My son and his friends are going backpacking tonight. We are in moderate flood warnings due to tropical storm bill. rivers are all in moderate flood warning stages...going out of their banks. We have 50 road closings due to high water. It would be fun to have a rubber raft and go down some of these wild rivers... NOT ME Thanks but no thanks.

Mark Jones

We are getting ready for the Frontier Adventure this coming Friday - Sunday.

Looking forward to some laid back camping using the early 1800's as our model.

We have about 26 slated for our Frontier Adventure as new members. Should be 100 plus camping there.

Mark Jones

We had Council of Achievement last week
Awarded 2 Caribou, 2 Buffalo & 2 Elk Trail awards & for AR 2 Tomahawks

took a few pics

Awesome

Two weeks ago we started our annual Fencing unit. Its runs for about 6 weeks & is one of the high points of our Ranger year.
I posted about it Wednesday, but something happened & my post is not here  

We started this in 2011 & it has been a favorite of the kids since. We use "swords" made out of PVC pipe (1/4" pipe for RK & DR; 1/2" pipe for AR & ER. We also have a few 3/4"  2 handed swords) Then we pad the blades with foam pipe insulation. I cut the insulation about 1" longer than the blade & then pack the extra inch with plastic shopping bags to make a soft point. Then the blades are wrapped in duct tape. Then the tip of the blade is wrapped in orange duct tape to aid in keeping track of the blade

We use a simplified form of Fencing rules with the legal targets being Chest (above belt or waistline), shoulders & arms. 1 point is awarded for a legal hit.
hits to other areas are fouls & 1-3 points awarded to the opponent depending on the area hit.
Hands leg or feet 1 point
"Privates" 2 points
excessive force 2 points (2nd offense-forfeit match)
Head or neck 3 points (2nd offense-forfeit match)

5 points wins the match
2 Ranger fight at a time with the others assisting as score keepers or junior referees

2 weeks ago






last week were were indoors due to bad allergies on my part & 2 of the Rangers





Me refereeing in background-its hard to see those blades when they move so fast.

Regatta is coming up in one month so we will start building cardboard boats sunday night. Always fun and a good way for boys to learn basic skills close to carpentry type stuff.

Doing BAC this week with the District. Thursday - Saturday.
Backpacking Action Camp is always fun. Cliff jumping makes it even better.

Sad to say no one from my 0utpost is going except me. Too young or already been.

Mark Jones

This week we continued on with lesson 3 of Colossians
Then we broke out the swords.
First a bit about the fencing lane. (see pic below)

The large cones are to warn the fighters that they about out of space. stepping out of the lane is a 1 point penalty

We drilled on attacking & defending for a bit






then hit the lane for some fencing

Here you see the fighter on the right (my son Andy) is keeping his off hand in his back pocket. A good technique. This keeps you from accidently using the hand during the match. (1 point penalty) As you see in the next pic...his opponent got his off arm in the way of Andy's hit & got a penalty called on himself.

That looks like a good time!

We had our first "unofficial" event last week. Basically my DR son and I went down to Ranger Camp in WA. We hooked up with another outpost and had a great time. I took back lots of great ideas and inspiration, and My son had lots of fun. We represented Canada well, and I even took home 2nd place(missed by one shot) in the .22 top shot category for adults. (I was as shocked as everyone else when I heard my name called. The Canadian can shoot better then most of the American's present.) Not what I expected.

Now we are going to sit down with the rest of our leadership here and get Rangers going in our city.

Glad you and your son had a good time!

I'll be praying that they all catch the vision that you're representing and get fired up about it all. As Mark Jones always says, it's the events that build the relationship and great memories so the ministry can take place.

For years our church has not had mid-week kids ministry other then the daycare. Last week I got pulled into the pastors office where they began to express thanks for bringing to their attention the fact that their is a need for kids stuff mid week and that my desire and efforts to see Rangers up and running has also lit a fire in them to see something for the girls too. They are looking at some different options. So the vision had been caught and taken hold of very quickly.

Good job. Pathfinder!

We enjoyed a night of cardboard boat building and then Tuesday from 3:30 to 8:30 pm we went on a kayak trip with 2 leaders and 3 boys. It was a lot of fun. Water was up and higher than we had floated it before and it was a easier float with no rocks to hit. Just had to avoid the usual strainers and root balls. '

COA to night. Giving out 267 awards with Power points on the award receipients. Some boys have 2 screens of merits displaying.

Took the Snapper transmission assembly out of my 3rd junk lawnmower and put in a old one from a farm field I found. It all bolted up even with 10 years between them. I love stuff that doesn't change that works. GRIN! I wished the AG would take a leasson from Snapper. GRIN!

Mark Jones

We worked from 12:30 pm to 8:00 pm building 3 boats. It was a long day. The AC didn't work in the room I was working in building 2 boats. We were all tired.

Work night wed night and then next sunday 12:30 to 4pm then the race is the following saturday.

Here is a boat build in progress.
http://readyrangers.tzo.com/2015regattacrafting/2015regattacrafting.htm

Mark Jones

Everyone receive their camporama packet? Happens that the event is concurrent with our church camp so its a no go.

We were short on Rangers this week. We have a bunch of compasses, so we went outside, I would shoot an azimuth on a landmark, then tell the boys to set the azimuth on their compasses and tell me what they were looking at.

We also showed how a compass will deviate from North by getting close to a car, electrical transformer, or steel fire escape. Interesting, some of those would pull the needle from 90 to 180 degrees off course.

RRCmdrBennett wrote:Everyone receive their camporama packet?  Happens that the event is concurrent with our church camp so its a no go.

Ridiculous price, and it doesn't cover transportation. No way do you even get close to getting your money's worth. I remember way back when the very first camporama was scheduled. I planned to drive from southern CA, and let the wife visit relatives while my boys and I enjoyed the experience. My district said "NO WAY. You have to fly there with the rest of us in a group."

Tired of all the fundraisers for the big shots.