Took the Crew (some of them) to the Fairfax Rod & Gun Club last week. We’re getting close to setting up a good schedule of activities with them. Our next outing will be some more general shooting, this time with shotguns too. Then we’ll settle the Crew down to thinking about specialties and teams.

Cleaned up the Scout Hut a fair bit last Saturday. Rewired the one wall of bad outlets and took a pickup truck full of trash and junk to the dump. We cleared up two shelves for the Crew’s storage needs too. Found a bunch of old folding tables in the Cub closet. Probably made by Bill Yehle years ago. They look sturdy enough to use as reloading benches.

Went Shotgun shooting Sunday with Mike. We shot through a case of ammo (250 rounds). My shoulder is sore now, but it sure was fun. Getting better at skeet shooting. Just needed the practice I guess. I got pretty consistent on groups of singles, 4 out of 5 generally. We started shooting at pairs towards the end of the day. Around half the time I would get both. Not too bad for my first time shooting at pairs.

IOLS this past weekend was great. Perfect weather. Lots of students. I even got my wife to attend - and she does not camp. She did great too, and didn’t ask for too much help from me. Alexandra came too for Friday night and part of Saturday. She had a good time, and was even instrumental in demonstrating the contact method of splitting wood. (Some of the adult students did not think an 11 year old first year scout could do it - and Ali is 10!)

So, summer is here - school ended today. Summer camp is (hopefully) just a few weeks away, and there are some shooting opportunities for the Crew coming up too. This looks to be a good summer.

Well, we had our last Roundtable of the season last night, and it was our annual awards presentation session. Among the many awards presented, our Troop got meritorious unit service awards for working 2006 Fall Camporee and 2007 Spring Camporee. I was surprised when they called me up for a meritorious service award for supporting the District and Chapter. Nice to be patted on the back from time to time. Congratulations to all the award recipients - you truly make Scouting work in our District.

Did I mention that the troop finally settled on summer camp dates? Well, they did. Of course there are some personal date conflicts, my heel spur is acting up so my attendance on the high adventure trip is questionable, and we’re still trying to get everyone (youth and adults) committed to going (or not so we can stop bugging them). So, nothing new I’ll keep you posted on progress. (As Jeff Foxworthy has said, ‘…what does an aneurysm feel like?’)

Well, we staffed our first shooting event as a Crew this past weekend. We thought we were going to just be crowd control, but we wound up running one of the BB ranges. The crew did a great job. I expect they will call on us again.

Now its off to get ready for IOLS this weekend. Now if I could just get my wife to come.

Most of us lose stuff. I’m no exception. Recently I lost (among other things) the receipts from Camporee, and the Crew’s new charter. They went MIA in my house. Of the two, the receipts were more financially important of course. But we - I should say my wife - found them last night. So at least I’m not liable for a thousand bucks any more. We continue to search for the charter so we can present it.

Can you tell its a slow [scouting] week for me? We did get a date set for another Crew campout in July though, which surprised me. Not that we could not get a weekend at Big Mac, but that the Crew wanted to go camping two months in a row. We had originally agreed that we would try to limit campouts to every other month, so as not to tax them too much with Scouting. But the fact that they want to go is encouraging.