All Scouts planning on attending the November 21 hike on the Appalachian Trail need to attend at least one of the backpacking shakedowns to get accustomed to hiking with their backpacks.

Communications merit badge is an Eagle-required merit badge. This will require completing work outside of the meetings that we have. There should be three to four 1-hour sessions plus attending a city council meeting. Here is a link to the requirements if you would like to look at them before committing: https://www.scouting.org/merit-badges/communication/. If you are interested in working on this merit badge, please send Aaron an email no later than next Monday, November 16. He will prioritize older scouts first, then the first to respond of any interested younger scouts. The group needs to be small enough to be able to finish all of the speeches and oral presentations.

Due to new Scouting America policies, renewing scouts need to do so by the end of December. If you have not yet received a renewal email, you can do so by going to https://advancements.scouting.org (The renewal link is a bit more obvious there vs my.scouting.org) Once you renew, you'll receive a confirmation email, but there will be a delay before you are marked as renewed on the website.

We are still looking for someone who can be our membership coordinator. This role works with the BT8 membership coordinator to help more people learn about our troop.

GT8 and BT8 need to get a shed to store supplies. BT8 is identifying a volunteer to work on this and we are still looking for a volunteer from GT8. The volunteer would help help research options for getting and placing the shed.

We are backpacking a section of the Appalachian Trail in Maryland. Full details and signup here Especially if you haven't backpacked before, please read the details which includes advice on sizing and packing a backpack. Particularly because the start and end points of the hike are different, and because the adults going will not all drive given parking logistics, we need more carpool drivers. Carpool signup here