No scouts on May 30th Due to Father Son Campout

Hi everyone! We will not be having a Cub scout meeting on Saturday,May 30th, 09. There is a scheduled Tri-Stake Father and Son overnight camp-out for Friday May 29th-30th up at Camp Wilderness. If you need directions or more information you can either call your bishopric, or Matt McCracken or Jeff Stratton. This is a great opportunity for all Cub Scouts to work on their books with their dads, so bring them up with you and see what you can get accomplished! Hope to see everyone there!

How to Make a Worm Farm

In case your son wasn't able to make it to the May 9th meeting, and he is still wanting to do the activity from our Den meeting-here are the instructions on how to make a Worm Farm.

Worm Farm Materials: 1. Container, such as a large bucket or plastic box -I found some great buckets at the 99 cent store by Target. 2. Noncolored newspaper (torn in 1 inch strips) 3. Small screened wire 4. Vegetable scraps (lettuce, eggshells, and coffee grounds work nicely) 5. Piece of burlap 6. Earthworms (you can purchase these from Wal Mart in the sporting section) 7. Soil -(I picked up a bag of potting soil at the Dollar store by the movie theatre, or you can use soil from your back yard or garden) Instructions: Create a bed of materials for worms to digest by layering shredded newspaper, handfuls of soil and table scraps. Cover with more layers of newpaper. An 8 inch layer of material is a good start. Moisten the contents of the bucket and place the worms in the bucket. . Place a piece of burlap on top to keep the light out and the soil moist. Place the small screened wire on top of the burlap, to keep the worms from crawling out. :) Feed every 2 weeks. If you have problems with your worm farm, you can find lots of information on the Internet on how to make worm farms. Just Google Worm Farm, and I am sure you will find all the information you need. What happens? The worms eat through the material you prepared in the bucket. The by-product is an enriched soil you can use in your garden. You are also finding a good use for kitchen waste as you recycle. Just be sure to keep the mixture moist and add table scraps to help feed the worms. Have fun!!!

May Theme: Leave Nothing But Footprints

Warm weather is a perfect time for outdoor adventure, complete with den hikes in the neighborhood, in a park, or on local trails. As we enjoy our outdoor world, we should strive to take nothing but pictures and leave nothing but footprints. This months Cub Scout theme is called Leave Nothing but Footprints. During the first meeting of this month the scouts made awareness posters on why conservation is so important and ways to protect our environment while we are enjoying it. We are trying to earn the Cub Scout Leave No Trace Awareness Award. How can you help as a parent? Go to http://www.scouting.org/cubscouts/resources/LeavenoTrace.aspx and follow the guidelines and practice the Leave No Trace Frontcountry Guidelines and report the results to the Den when they have been completed. You might want to consider working on the Wildlife Conservation belt loop and pin this month. You can find the requirements at this link http://usscouts.org/advance/cubscout/academics/wildlife.asp Wolves Advancement Possibilities for this month to work on for the Wolf Book Achievement 5E- Tools for Fixing and Building: Learn about the many tools that are used. Achievement 7- Your Living World: Boys can discuss with their families how the world gets dirty and how they can prevent this from happening. Elective 7- Foot Power: Change your footprints by creating a new way to go from one place to another. This elective shows boys how. Bears Advancement possibilities for the Bear Book- Achievement 7- Law Enforcement Is a Big Job: Cub Scouts can learn to make casts of their footprints and shoeprints. Achievement 10- Family Fun: Boys can make a bootjack during a family fun night—no more footprints on the carpet! Elective 1, Space: Footprints on the moon! The Space elective gives boys the opportunity to discover fun facts about our natural satellite, the moon.

Important Announcement Update.

Jeff and I were notified today that on Saturday, May 16th, 09 there is a Porterville 1st Ward Potluck/Activity scheduled that will conflict with our regularly scheduled meeting. There will be no Cub Scouts, but if you are in the Porterville 1st Ward plan on going to the Ward Activity! Thanks! If anyone is interested in having their son attend the Cub Scout Day Camp, please send in your registration form ASAP so that you will not miss the deadline. The price goes up after June 8th. Let us know if you are planning on sending your son, so that we can coordinate transportation each day. Thank you! The upcoming field trip to the Scout Day Baseball Game is cancelled. However, I am looking into a field trip to the Visalia minor league team game. I think it will be much closer for everyone. Let me know if you have any suggestions for field trips for the scouts during the summer. Fishing, hiking...any suggestions are welcome to keep the boys active during the summer.

May 2009 Announcements

Important Announcements: 1. The Tuesday Den Meetings have been changed. Due to so many of our scouts being involved in sports for the Summer season, we have decided to switch our meeting times to Saturdays at 6:30. We are hoping that the 6:30pm time will allow those in baseball to finish with their Saturday games. We apoligize for the inconvenience for the schedule switch. Our times will switch back to Tuesdays once school starts again. Den Meetings are now on Saturday's at 6:30 pm, unless otherwise notified for field trips. 2. Cub Scout Camp Registration Cub Scout Camp will be held at Mooney Grove Park from June 15-19 from 8:00am-12:30pm each day. The cost is $55.00 per boy ($85 if paid after June 8th). We will not be sleeping overnight but driving up each day for any of the boys who want to go. Parents will be required to pay the registration fee. Please download a copy of the registration form and turn it in to Jeff and Janele Stratton for the Cubs or Matt McCracken and Bob Sundre for the Bears. We need to know how many boys are interested in going so that we can make arrangements for transportation. Parents are welcome to come along of course. The Link for the registration form is http://www.seqbsa.org/PDFS/Events/09CubDayCamp.pdf 3. 2009 Webelos Adventure Camp-An outdoor adventure for Webelos and Parents Get a jump-start on being a Boy Scout by participating in Webeloree, a 3-day/2-night adventure for Webelos and their parents and/or leaders. Boys and their parents will experience the outdoors in an actual Boy Scout camp setting at Camp Chawanakee on Shaver Lake. Don’t miss out on the ultimate Webelos Adventure. The camp is from June 11-June15, 09. For more information check out the website http://www.seqbsa.org/Webeloree.htm . 4. Fresno Grizzlies-A Salute to Scouts Night (Our pack doesn't have plans to attend however this would be a fun activity for your family to go to.)

Opening day is right around the corner and as baseball returns, so does the growing tradition of "Salute to Scouts Night" at Chukchansi Park. The Fresno Grizzlies would like to invite all Scouts and their family and friends to celebrate this exciting event on Friday, May 29th as the Grizzlies take on the Portland Beavers, triple-A affiliate of the San Diego Padres. On this special tribute night Scouts can participate in a pre-game parade and we will also recieve scoreboard recognition. The first 400 scouts to reserve tickets with their Scout Leaders get an official "Salute to Scouts Night" patch. So we need to get the money from everyone to buy our tickets ASAP. Game tickets are availabe for $9.00 each. Please order them through your scout leader because only one order form is sent in for our Pack, so that we can all sit together.

About the Parade: All the scouts participating in the parade should enter through Gate 3 (Inyo and H Street) at 5:35 and gather in the plaza just inside the gate. We have our banner and it will be fun to have the boys use that. The boys need to be in full uniform. All the boys need to stay with our unit. The Pack will parade together in order to be announced. Participants must be in the plaza by 6pm or they will not be able to be in the parade.