The Conestoga Express!

Friends of Scouting helps provide the infrastructure for the program that we all want to give to our kids. Please help at whatever level is right for your family.

Never stop recruiting! New Scouts can join your Pack, Troop, or Crew all year round, you can always add new Scouts to your roster. Everyone involved in recruiting new members to your unit is invited to a FREE membership campaign blast off at the Wells Fargo Center on April 18. And bring the family, too. The kids can enjoy supervised activities and bounce on the inflatables while you learn about the exciting new Rocket into Scouting program and giveaways.

Our next Roundtable meeting will be on April 14, at Drexel Hill United Methodist Church. Please invite any new leaders or parents so they can learn more about what's going on. It would be great to have every Pack, Troop, and Crew represented.

And on May 19, please come to the Conestoga District Dinner where we will recognize the achievements of our volunteers, and the 19 young men who earned Eagle in 2014.Everyone will go home with a door prize, and there is a rumor that there will be a special door prize for someone to take home.

Here are some upcoming highlights for the

Conestoga District calendar:

Apr 14 - Conestoga District Roundtable meeting & OA, at Drexel Hill UMC

Apr 18 - Rocket into Scouting event at Wells Fargo Center

May 19 - Conestoga District Dinner

In March, our district had one Eagle Scout Board of Review. Please join me in congratulating Conestoga District's newest Eagle Scout, Brandon Gordon of Troop 32. Congrats to our newest Eagle and his family.

Yours in Scouting,

Bob Booth

Roundtable

Tuesday, April 14th

Drexel Hill United Methodist Church

600 Burmont Rd, Drexel Hill, PA

Joint Session 7:30-8:00 pm

Program announcements.

- Cub Olympics Patches

- District Dinner Information

- Guest Speaker: Jay Pittermary from Fort Mifflin

Program Breakout 8:00-9:00pm

Program-specific discussions and presentations relevant to you.

- Cub Scout

- Boy Scout

- Venturing

- Order of the Arrow

All Scout leaders and interested adults are welcome to attend Roundtable. Every Unit should have at least one leader attend.

Yours in Scouting,

Dave Zimmerman

District Commissioner

Camp Cards

The Camp Card sale is coming to a close. The sale officially ends on April 17th and payment is due by April 30th. Representatives from the district will be at Panera Bread every Wednesday to collect your Strive for 25 entries and payments. You may also turn in payments at Roundtable on Tuesday, April 14th.

Panera Bread

Springfield Square-North

1022 Baltimore Pike, Springfield, PA

6pm-8pm

Thanks for giving your scouts the opportunity to earn their way to camp!

Linda Graeff

Conestoga District Camp Card Chair

Rocket into Scouting

All adult leaders and their families are invited to join us on April 18 from 1 to 5 PM as we kickoff this exciting membership and program campaign!

Admission to the Blast-Off is FREE.

Learn about growing Scouting in your unit in 2015!
Training sessions and resources for adult leaders:

Program & Calendar Planning --What Do You Want to Do?

Budget Planning --How Are You Going to Fund It?

Communicating Your Plan --How Do You Get the Word Out?

Midway with Program Partner organizations (museums, parks, sports teams, etc.) and council committees (camping, activities, training, advancement, and more).
Receive the 2015-16 Planning Magazine & Calendar.
Concessions available to purchase.

Open to all Scouting programs--Cub Scouting, Boy Scouting, Varsity, Venturing, and Sea Scouting. While all adult leaders are welcome to attend, please make sure your unit leader, committee chair and membership & marketing chair attend!

Inflatables and other supervised kids activities will be open throughout the Blast-Off while adults are in training sessions and up to game kickoff.

Click here to RSVP for the event & purchase Soul Scout Night tickets

More information available at:

colbsa.org/rocket

Friends of Scouting

The 2014-2015 Conestoga FOS is underway! Our goal of $25k is already at 60%! We have 90% of our units scheduled for an FOS presentation. Way to go Conestoga!

The theme for this year's FOS Campaign is "Lighting the Way." You can find details about the program at the council web site here: https://www.colbsa.org/k2/friends-of-scouting.html

The Conestoga District FOS chairman for 2014-2015 is Mark Crater. You can reach Mark at m.crater2@gmail.com or see him at Roundtable

District Recognition Dinner

Conestoga District Recognition Dinner

Tuesday, May 19, 2015 at 6:30pm

First Presbyterian Church

365 Summit Road, Springfield, PA 19064

Join Us!

All Scouters and Parents

(Cub Scout/Boy Scout/Venturing/District Leaders)

Good food, door prizes & fellowship!

We will honor our District and Community Leaders with a multitude of awards, including the District Award of Merit, Spark Plug Awards, Adult Recognition Awards and the Annual Jack Edmundson Award along with recognizing our 2014 Eagle Scouts, new units and Top Conestoga units in membership, popcorn, camp cards, and many other categories. All award nominations are due by May 1^st.

More award Information & descriptions here.

District Award of Merit:

Available to registered Scouters who render service of an outstanding nature at the district level. The Nomination Form is available below or can be picked up at the next District Roundtable meeting. All submissions should be given to Matthew Fernandes by April 25, 2015. Nomination form: www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/33720.pdf

Jack Edmunson Award:

Nominate a Scouter who has spent their life in service to Conestoga District. Submit a description of why you feel this person is deserving of this award to Bob Booth at robertjbooth@verizon.net by May 1st.

Spark Plug Award:

Recognize that person who pushes, urges & drags the unit to become better. This person is self-motivating, will not accept the status quo, consistently asks "WHY?" and "How can we make this better?" Submit a short note telling us why you feel this person is deserving to bettyann.atkinson@scouting.org.

Leader Training Awards:

Training awards and keys are designed to recognize unit Scouters for tenure, training, and performance in their leadership roles. All registered adults are eligible. Submit forms to council by May 1^st.

Training Awards are found at: www.scouting.org/training/adult.aspx

Summer Camp

Are you and your Cubs looking forward to another exciting summer of activities?

Look no further than the Cradle of Liberty Council camping opportunities. We offer everything from a week of day camp in your local area to a half or full-week resident camp where the boys can sleepover at camp, and each of the camps has a WILD WEST Theme!

Click the links to find out more information about our exciting camp opportunities!

Single Day Cub Activity Dates:

Bait and Bulls-Eye is May 2
Cub Carnival is June 13
Cub Scout Fall Fest is October 17, 18, 24 and 25

Registration is live at www.colbsa.org/musserevents.

Council Annual Dinner

2015 Cradle of Liberty Council

Annual Recognition Dinner

Monday, April 20, 2015

6:30 PM Reception | 7:00 PM Dinner

Crowne Plaza Philadelphia - Valley Forge

260 Mall Boulevard, King of Prussia, PA 19406

Please join us as we celebrate last year's accomplishments and recognize the distinguished service and achievements of some special Scouts and volunteers, including this year's class of Silver Beaver recipients and Conestoga District's own Josh Nay!

Patrick Brala	Jeffrey McHoul	Lawrence "Larry" Neibauer
Jules "Jay" Eibner	John "Jack" McLaughlin	Lisa Racz
Paul Garvey	Joshua Nay	Brian Wallace

For more information and to register online, go to www.colbsa.org/dinner

Cub Scout Program Updates

Exciting changes are coming to the Cub Scouting program that will make it simpler to execute for unit leaders and more fun for boys!

The changes were outlined in webcasts conducted on January 17. Those webcasts were recorded and are available for your use below. A "History of Cub Scouting" video was shown during the webcasts and is also available at the link below.

http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/programupdates.aspx

Den Chiefs

Did you know that the Packs in our district with Den Chiefs have an over 80% crossover rate to the Troops who provide the Den Chiefs while the Packs without Den Chiefs cross very few Scouts over to Troops at all? We need to fix this!

Cub Leaders:

Does your Pack have a Den Chief? At least 1 for each den?

Boy Scout Leaders:

Does your Troop send Den Chiefs to Packs? More than one Pack?

Boy Scouts need leadership experience and Cub Scouts need youth leaders. We have 19 Packs in Conestoga and not even half have Den Chiefs, let's fix that!

If you need help contacting a Pack or Troop, please let BettyAnn Atkinson know.

What is a Den Chief? Qualifications & Responsibilities

Den Chief Online Training

Unit News

What has your unit been up to? Anything you want to share with the rest of the district?

Send article submissions and photos to BettyAnn Atkinson by the first Wednesday of each month to be included.