April 2015 - Cole Canoe Base

Cole chronicle
Providing news and information to Cole Canoe Base since 1964
Volume LI Number 5
April2015
We’re Getting Excited for Summer
Beast Feast is Featured in
“Boy’s Life”
Many, Many,
Merit Badges!!!
Did you see the Article in Boy’s Life magazine where
the Beast Feast was featured in the “Scouting Around”
section? We’re really proud to have this honor and
recognition.
You can check the article on page 34 of the April, 2015
issue or you can see the article and some cool video online at: http://boyslife.org/about-scouts/scoutingaround/140673/michigan-camps-beast-feast-teachesscouts-cooking-skills/
Now’s the time to start thinking of what your troop or
crew or ship will be doing for Beast Feast. Last year
several units and staff groups had themes like a road
crew cooking what may have been road kill or staff
members dressed and sounding like pirates.
Beast Feast happens on Monday evening. Bring dishes to pass and enter in the cooking contest. You may
win an award for your cooking. With your food, bring
your mess kit and your appetite.
Summer camp is full of fun and exciting activities, and
our merit badge program is no different! For our 51st
year of program, we are thrilled to announce that we
will be offering 100 Merit Badges!
From Kayaking to Automotive Maintenance; Search
and Rescue to Space Exploration; Composite Materials
and Model Design; Cinematography, Oceanography,
Archaeology and Digital Technology; we don’t have
room to list them all! Even newly released badges like
‘Signs, Signals and Codes,’ just announced by the
BSA this February!
Our knowledgeable staff look forward to serving your
scouts in any field of study! If there is a badge a scout
needs assistance in, we will do our best to accommodate their interest. That’s just another way we work to
provide your scouts with “the time of their life.”
In addition, as your unit prepares for your summer
camp experience, please remember the significance of
prerequisites and blue cards. It is important to understand that our merit badge instructors will give your
scouts every opportunity to earn the badge; but that
the foundation of the merit badge program involves
scouts learning and discovering to broaden their horizons. With some of our more sophisticated merit badges this may involve spending time before camp, working on requirements which cannot be practically accomplished in a week (e.g. visiting landmarks or weeks
of record keeping). Therefore, we ask that you please
implore your scouts to not only review camp’s prerequisite sheet, but also look over the requirements for each
badge to insure this is something they can commit to
spending time on. As scouts get older, they should take
it upon themselves to tackle the more difficult badges,
enabling them to demonstrate maturity and growth.
If you have any questions on any aspect of our program
the best means of contact is via ColeCanoeBase@michiganscouting.org
Arrrrr! John Fay looks like a pirate as he serves whatever he
commands you to take. Enjoy matey
Copyright 2015 Cole Canoe Base, Michigan Crossroads Council, Boy Scouts of America
Page Two
Your Unit Could Earn the
Honor Unit Award
Cole Canoe Base has been presenting Honor Troop
awards to units for many years. This year we have
made some minor changes in the requirements and
we’ve changed the name. We are now presenting the
Honor Unit Award. This change was made to
acknowledge the Crews and Ships that are also BSA
units camping with us.
The Honor Unit Award is designed for any unit to earn
no matter how big or small or how rich or poor they
are. This is about doing more than you have to do at
camp. Enter at least 2 dishes in the Beast Feast cooking contest, commit to camp at an MCC camp in 2016,
have an adult leader help out teaching or doing service
for the camp, keep your campsite clean or several other tasks through the week.
Help to make your unit special by earning an Honor
Unit Award.
Conservation projects are an hour long service project
which is required for honor troop and greatly improves the camp. Troops can chose the time they
want to do it depending on their schedule.
Eco-Con Has News!
Hey guys! This is John Fay, and I’m the Ecology director at Eco-Con. We are really looking forward to all of
you guys coming up and visiting us during your week
at summer camp!
This year we are going to have a very clean and crisp
Eco-Con, with plenty of fun activities and interesting
information for you to learn. We are prepared to make
sure you guys have the time of your life during your
week staying with us!
Tuesday is Geo-pardy night. We are going to make
sure that everybody who comes to Eco-Con that night
has something to do. If a scout does not want to participate in Geo-pardy, we will also have fly tying, and
information on our Nature photography contest.
At Eco-Con, we have many activities for you and we
are excited to have you join us.
ECO-CON FOREVER!
Climb at the Cole Canoe
Base Climbing Tower
Greetings interested scouting reader. We here at the
Climbing Tower are working hard to achieve new
heights of fun and safety for all ages of campers. We
have updated our schedule and trained in new techniques and equipment to insure that everyone leaves
the area happy and unscathed.
We would like to announce that the time and date for
the speed climb event has been moved to Wednesday
evening, around 7:00 pm. This is taking over the slot
of the first year camper climb, which has been be rescheduled to Thursday at 1:30 p.m.. Also new is the
schedule board which will show the schedule for
climbing that day. On it the staff will place the schedule for the day, the weather report and the percent
chance for rain and by extension the probability of us
closing.
We would like to remind everyone that we at climbing
are trained and equipped to aid those with legitimate
physical disabilities. We also will keep you updated
for any major changes in the climbing schedule and
area. We wish you a pleasant day and look forward to
seeing you at the Tower.
Page Three
What’s going on in Crafts?
Crafts On Fire
Crafts On Fire is an event that
takes place at the Crafts Pavilion
following the Beast Feast on Monday night.
This is an event that anyone can
come to and enjoy doing various activities like tie dying shirts, drawing
and painting, getting your face
painted, and making things out of
clay. It is a great event to come and
relax, enjoy time with friends, and
listen to music while doing something fun.
Crafts Presents
Game Night
Calling all the people that like playing cards and board games! Crafts
Game Night is the perfect place for
you. While the movie is playing at
the Cosgro Campfire Arena on Tuesday night, come down and play some
games at Crafts! A wide variety of
games are offered to play including
the card game Magic, (where you
can chose to challenge a staff member if you want), Apples to Apples,
Fluxx, Munchkin, and many more.
Merit Badges
There are a total of 10 Merit Badges offered at Crafts. They all are
really fun and involve hands on
work.
The merit badges include Art, Basketry, Bugling (by appointment
only), Composite Materials, Game
Design, Leatherwork, Model Design, Music, Sculpture, and Woodcarving. Any make up work that
Scouts have to do for their badges,
are welcome to come in on Friday
to get them completed.
Crafts Event
Times
Crafts On Fire
Monday night, 7:00—9:00 pm
Crafts Game Night
Tuesday night, 7:00 pm until
whenever the movie ends at
the Cosgro Campfire Arena
Hunter Safety
Once again Cole Canoe Base will be offering the Michigan DNR Hunter Safety Course.
This course meets Monday – Thursday 3:30 – 5:30, at
the Rifle Range. Attendance at all days are mandatory
in order to receive your Hunter Safety Certificate.
Shooting Sports
Besides the daily Merit Badges and open shoots,
Shooting Sports will be offering, Adult Archery Poker
Shoots, Archery Moving Target Shoots, 3-D Archery,
Scoutmaster (Adults) SPL (Scouts) shoots at Rifle and
Shotgun (open to all adults and Scouts) and Sporting
Clays. Make sure you save some time to enjoy the
Shooting Sports at Cole Canoe Base.