Phil and I completed our Vigil this past weekend. Phil was going to pass and do the make up date next weekend, but Judi talked him into doing it this past weekend. It was all very cool. Phil’s Vigil name is Pintschihillachton Mbi Tindey, and mine is Machque Nachpi Paiachichikan.

I’m not much for writing for writing’s sake. I think of it like talking to hear myself talk - not that I talk to myself :)  But in keeping with my previous post about getting back into a good habit I will ramble for a bit…

I’ve been prepping for the camp out (is it campout or camp out?) this weekend, and came to the realization that there is a LOT of gear needed to run an NRA pistol course. Of course there are the firearms and ammo, but also the instructor’s course guide, dummy rounds, student packs, eyes, ears, cleaning kit, air pistol for the first shots lesson, pellet catcher, pellet backstop, range flag, etc. etc. Then there is my camping gear - okay, so that’s only one backpack for me and a duffel for Phil. But still. I’ve spend most of the evenings this week getting everything prepped.

What else has been going on? I get to run the first NCAC BB Gun RSO course in a week. That in and of itself is not a big deal. The big deal is that I wrote the course. While I’ve been teaching BSA courses for a while, this is the first one I wrote. I started with a version from another council, modified it a fair amount based on the NRA Rifle Instructor materials and my own experiences running BB ranges for Cub Scouts. Its been reviewed by other instructors on the Shooting Sports Committee, with only small changes. We’ll see how well its received next week.

On the OA front, the new officers are gelling together pretty well. They have a pretty good handle on communicating with each other. Still working on getting a officer training weekend set up. Next up is Service weekend. After that its a day of Goshen bus loading and then a break pretty much till Fall Ordeal. Which reminds me I need to check on dates!

More later!

Went off well, despite a few glitches on Friday night. Won’t go into details. The new ceremonies team guys did a great job! We inducted 16 new members. Prince William Forest Park was a nice venue, but if we do it there again I’d like to get the cabin sites with the kitchen. We lucked out with the weather - it was great - but we would have been in bad shape if it had rained.

Well, we did day 2 of the trailer a week early. We were on such a roll (role?) that we decided to finish it up on Monday. There is still too much junk in there - I was hoping to have most of the gear off the floor and on the shelves. But its a lot better than it was, and I’m sure we’ll be able to continue to weed out stuff we don’t need or use. And then there are the white buildings…

We finished the first of two planned work days on the OA trailer. We’re finally installing shelving in the trailer. A much needed addition to say the least. We pulled everything out and installed shelves on the left and right side. We still need to do a bit of tweaking on the left side to make sliding the ‘white building’ poles in and out easier. Next weekend we’ll finish the final touches and get all the junk sorted into new storage bins. Hopefully we’ll be able to toss some of the junk away.