Backpacking 2024 Trip
2024 Recruitment Trip Write Up by Alex Bartilucci This year's annual recruitment trip began at 4:45pm on Friday, October 18th, 2024 and started as usual at Food Lion/Bicycle Chain. Once we all arrived we did a quick head count and split up into different cars. About forty minutes later we arrived at Jordan Lake in North Carolina. Since we had such a short drive to Jordan Lake we had about an hour and a half to set up camp and cook dinner before it got dark. Nothing really important happened so we all eventually just went to sleep for the night at around 10:30pm. On the cold morning of Saturday, October 19, 2024, we got up and cooked and cleaned up breakfast. At around 9am we went to the parking lot in front of our campsite and we divided back into cars to drive to another part of Jordan Lake. A few minutes later we arrived at a shelter that was reserved for the entire day. Everyone who had a leadership position sat down for the first module of ILST(Introduction to Leadership Skills for Troops). Everyone else went down a small paved path in the woods to play basketball until lunch. Everyone who stayed for ILST started going through the first module with the Scoutmaster and SPL. In the first module we learned about how our troop works and what it means to be in a leadership position. We played multiple games about teamwork and learned how to set SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timely) goals. At about noon we had a lunch of burgers and hot dogs which was provided by the adults. The Scouts not in ILST came back from playing basketball and foursquare and had lunch with us. After lunch we started the second module of ILST. In the second module we learned about how to communicate well and about planning. An example of a time we use planning in Scouts is when we fill out the duty rosters for our trips. Then we started the third module which taught us about the stages of team development (forming, storming, norming and performing) and how to work well as a team. We had some park rangers talk to the whole troop about the history of Jordan Lake and what it does. It keeps the area around it from flooding. Once we got back to camp, we started building a fire and prepared our sides for the dinner the ASM’s were making. After dinner, we enjoyed the fire and tried to clean up some of our stuff around camp so we could leave more quickly the next day. Then eventually everyone went to sleep. On the morning of Sunday, October 20, 2024 we packed up camp and did a police line to clean up the camp. After that, we divided up into cars and returned home.
2024 White Water Trip Write Up by Alex Bartilucci Our trip to the Charlotte Whitewater Center was supposed to start on Friday, September 27th at the usual muster time of 4:45 p.m. But it was rained out and was postponed to the next day due to Hurricane Helene raining and flooding in the mountains near Charlotte. Fast forward to 6:20 a.m. the next day, Saturday, September 28th. We gathered at the Food Lion parking lot and did a quick head count before getting into cars and driving about two and a half hours to the Charlotte Whitewater Center. Most of the cars got to the parking lot at about 9:00 a.m. We went to the restrooms to change into day clothes from our class A uniforms. We then went to the Welcome Center to sign in and meet up with the rest of the cars that had come a little later. After a talk about the center and a reminder to meet at a place called Big Drop for lunch, we had about an hour to do most of the activities (some opened later and others were closed) which ranged from a high ropes course, a rock climbing tower, zip lining, and other activities. At about 11:20 a.m. most of us got to Big Drop for lunch. The provided lunch was decently ok. I liked the sandwich I had a lot (I can't really speak for the other Scouts because no one exactly said what they thought of the food). Almost twenty minutes later we got life jackets and watched a safety video. We broke down into groups to go on the rafts (7 scouts, 1 adult, and 1 guide) and paddled out. The whitewater rafting place had multiple different courses with different difficulties. My group did all of them and I would say it was definitely the best part of the trip. Also, if you were not on the trip, to clear up any questions: no one fell out of a raft (I think). After the whitewater we had about 3 to 4 hours to do any of the activities we hadn't done. Some new activities opened and all of us went to do different stuff. Since we were already wet most of us decided to do deep water solo which is basically climbing up a rock wall and then jumping into a pool. At around 5 p.m. we all met up at the Welcome Center to leave Charlotte whitewater. We rode for an hour to Camp Belk - a Scout camp in another council. Everyone set up camp quickly and started cooking dinner. We had a lot of food from the extra meal of Saturday's breakfast so it was good that most of us were hungry. Eventually everyone went to sleep for the night. In the morning everyone broke down camp and started cooking breakfast. The morning was mostly uneventful except for the part where my patrol spilled oil in our patrol box. We cleaned it out eventually, but it did put us behind on getting out of the camp by about 30 minutes. We left at 9:30(ish) a.m. Sunday, September 29th and rode 2.5 hours back to Food Lion. This trip is probably in my top 3 favorite trips in the 3 years I have been in the troop.