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Heavy rain on Friday turned what should have been an easy 3 mile hike through the woods into a 2 and 1/2 hour muddy, watery trek. The Pack notched another well deserved mark on their hiking stick on the Beechtree Trail (the blue trail) at Stonelick State Park on Saturday. 19 scouts and 20 parents and siblings made their way through the mostly flat trail. Once the halfway point was reached, it was time to head right back the way we came, through the same muck and mud! Well, at least the sun was shining and the temperatures were cool enough to be comfortable. Despite the mud a fun time was had by all.

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Wolf Den 7 worked on Achievement #7, Your Living World, and the Leave No Trace Award by learning about recycling from Rumpke employee, Anne Gray. Anne talked to the boys about the importance of the three R's or recycling - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. She brought several recyclable items to show the boys what is recyclable and what is not recyclable.

One good tip that Anne shared was to use reusable canvas bags for grocery shopping rather then paper or plastic. She recalled a time when strong storms had kicked up at the Rumpke landfill, causing several thousand plastic grocery bags to fly into the air and completely cover several large trees from top to bottom. She said that it was an eerie site. A single grocery store in the Cincinnati area will use about 700 paper bags in a single day which is equivalent to one large tree.

An interesting fact the scouts learned relates to the speed at which things get recycled. For example, newspaper put out for recycling for Rumpke gets picked up, sorted, transferred to a paper mill and recycled into paper board such as for cereal boxes, all in one day! However, she says that we have a long way to go. The amount of recycling material picked up in one month is equal to a single day of trash collection.

Recycling can have a very positive impact to our environment and also benefit people. Anne relayed a story of how students at the University of Cincinnati began a recycling program for plastic water bottles. They had collected enough bottles to have the recycling center team up with a clothing manufacturer to create fleece jackets. So many fleece jackets were able to be created in fact that they were distributed to every single child at four local elementary schools in Cincinnati. Did you know that it takes as few as 12 plastic water bottles to make a single fleece jacket. Every little bit does add up to a lot. Amazing!

After the presentation, the boys got to work cleaning up Carriage Way Park in Milford. Upon arriving at the park, it looked very clean. But when the boys spread out through the park and nearby woods they were able to collect a few pounds of trash and recyclable material.

Den 7 would like to thank Anne for taking time out of her day to educate our Cub Scouts about the importance of recycling and the different ways things get recycled.

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Pack 846 is in it's third year of running a Religious Emblems Program. This year we have a total of thrity-one (31) participants who have earned one of either God & Me , God & Family, Light of Christ, or Parvuli Dei Religious Emblems. This is an exceptionally large number of participants and we are very proud of our program. The national average of scouts earning this award is less than 1%. We are very honored to have almost 50% of our total Scouts and siblings earning the awards this year. As a recognition of their hard work, their pictures are also being shown in the reverent room at the Scout Achievement Center.
You can find out more about the Religious Emblems progam here.

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On Saturday about 21 Cub Scouts, 30 parents and siblings and one dog hiked about 3 miles at Ault Park in Cincinnati, Ohio. The morning was foggy and the ground was muddy and hilly. This was just after a two week stretch of temperatures below 32 degrees and a few school snow days so it was a good time for the scouts to get out of the house and burn off some energy. It was an awesome hike and everyone had a great time!



Scouts receive a hiking staff after completing their very first hike in Tiger Cubs. They carry this staff with them on future hikes and through their time in Cub Scouts to Webelos Scouts. As the boys hike they accumulate miles. At certain "mile" stones they earn awards that they can use to decorate their hiking staff.

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Actually, they could not get past airport security so they instead visited the Miami Township TV Studio (MTTV) and with the power of green screen, got to visit Hollywood and Paris anyway. With this field trip, the scouts completed Achievement 4G.

The boys met Will Menz, Multimedia Coordinator for MTTV, and learned all about how MTTV creates local videos as seen on cable TV. Will took the boys on a grand tour of the station including the control room. They learned how the camera lens zooms in and out and also got to zoom the camera themselves. The boys enjoyed seeing themselves on the monitors, knowing that the camera was watching them.

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Tiger Cubs from Dens 2 and 3 learned what it's like to be a police officer as part of their Tiger Cub Achievement #2 (Where I Live, Go See It). Officer Annie Morgan (on the right) and Officer Sherri Howard (on the left) talked about being a police officer, showed all the cool things they carry with them, led a tour of the police station.

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Mice, CD-ROMs and computer programs were the topic of conversation at Den 7's last den meeting. Wolf Den 7 earned their Computers elective (#21) while visiting Siemens PLM Software in the Park 50 Technecenter business park in Miami Township. The scouts learned what computers are used for, how mice and CD-ROMs work and specifically how Siemens uses computers.

According to Tom Rocklin, Sr. Technical Project Manager, Siemens writes computer programs which automakers use to design and engineer the cars we drive. Tom showed the scouts 3 videos that showed the software in action. The software is even able to use a 3D printer to print out 3D models such as the car engine pictured on the right.

Chuck Blake and Eric Broyles, engineers at Siemens, were also on hand to show the scouts how a computer mouse and CR-ROM works. The highlight of the evening for a lot of the scouts was the tour of the data center. They were able to see some of the 3,000 plus computers that are in use at Siemens. Chuck even lifted up a floor panel, exposing all of the wires and pipes that run below the computers. What 7 year old boy would not think that was cool?

The Scouts used a custom computer program written by Tom in the Perl programming language. With this program they were able to type their own name into the computer and then print a page on a laser printer to have proof that they were in attendance. One lucky scout even won a yo-yo when his paper printed on the special colored paper.

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The November Pack Meeting was all about awards, eggs and "egg"-citement. It began with an award ceremony to recognize the hard work and achievements that our scouts have proudly accomplished. Four Tiger Scouts were presented with their Bobcat Rank badge. The scout who caught the smallest fish at our Fishing Derby in October received his trophy (which was probably larger than the fish he caught).

And finally, 26 scouts received perfect attendance awards for last year and 21 scouts received the summertime perfect attendance award. The perfect attendance award is something to be very proud of for both the scout and their parents. It shows a lot of commitment to scouting.



A very special guest, Kathy Christopher, from Milford-Miami Ministries (MMM) spoke to the Pack about the upcoming December service project. On Saturday December 19th the Pack will be handing out Holiday Food Boxes to families in need who live in the Milford School District. Pack 846 has been helping MMM for 7 years now. This year MMM is expecting to hand out meals and gifts to a lot of first time families. The meals will be a turkey dinner. They expect that over 500 children will be given gifts. Each child will receive 3 presents. The need to help our local families is very great this year, more so than in years past.



Robert Montgomery spoke about and encouraged the scouts to earn a very special and distinguished award that very few scouts in the whole council earn. Out of 31,000 scouts in the Dan Bead Council, only about 1% earned the Religious Emblems award last year. Last year, 10% of our Pack earned this award. This class teaches the scouts about God and Country, and God and Family. For 1st through 3rd grade the class is 4 weeks long. For 4th through 6th grade the class is 6 weeks long. We highly encourage every scout and their family to consider signing up for these classes.



And last but not least, the main event of the night that all the scouts were waiting for, the Egg Drop Competition. The idea is simple; build a container to protect an egg from a 105 foot fall. But, as several of the scouts experienced, it not as easy as it sounds. None of the eggs survived.



The scouts were given the following materials and 25 minutes to build their protective "cage": 4 balloons, 10 straws, some string, poster-board, shredded paper, and six feet of duct tape. Once complete (or the time expired), the scouts and their families headed outside where the fire truck with a 105 foot ladder was waiting to help test their inventions.



The competition was divided into two rounds. The first round dropped all of the eggs from 50 feet straight down to the hard parking lot below. All eggs that survived this fall were promoted to the next round, a 105 foot drop. None of the eggs survived this fall. So as a tie breaker, the egg cage which landed closest to the target was the winner. To cap off the night, a pumpkin full of water was dropped from the highest point. Needless to say, Mr Pumpkin did not survive the 105 foot fall.

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Wolf Den 7 got the grand tour of the Miami Township Fire Department on Rt 28. With the help of several fire fighters the boys were able to work on Achievement #2 (Flag Ceremony) and Achievement #9 (safety tour of a Firehouse). Fire fighter Todd Koehler (10 years of service) and Jeff Childers (23 years of service) kicked off the night with a talk about respect for our American flag. They then led the boys outside to perform a flag lowering and raising ceremony. Working side-by-side with the fire fighters, the boys learned how to properly lower the flag when at half-mast. Old Glory is first raised to full staff very quickly and then slowly lowered all the way down. The boys then learned the proper way to fold the flag before raising it back to the top and then lowering it to half mast again in honor of Veterans Day.



The boys also met other fire fighters. Darren Sandlin (9 months of service) lead the boys around the Firehouse to see the Bunk Room where the fire fighters sleep (they work 24 hour shifts) and also the Communication Room where Dave Jetter (17 years of service) was working. The boys learned that Darren works part time (one 24 hour shift every 6 days) and Dave, like most of the fire fighters, works full time (one 24 hour shift every 3 days). To top off the night, fire fighter Todd Koehler demonstrated how all of their protective suit and gear are put on. Amazingly, the fire fighters are able to put on all of this gear in less than 2 minutes. Now, if only they could teach the Cub Scouts to get dressed that quickly!

Den 7 would like to extend a very special thank you to the brave fire fighters that we met and to the whole Miami Township Fire Department for their time and also for their dedicated service to our community. As an example of their dedication, when fire fighter Todd Koehler is not working, he is volunteering at his local fire house. After meeting these brave fire fighters, we all can sleep a little easier at night knowing that they are protecting us.

This story was also published in the local Miami Township newspaper.

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Webelos Scorpion Patrol (Den 5) participated in Camp Conservation Day on Saturday, November 7, 2009.  Camp Conservation Day is held twice a year by the Dan Beard Council and is an opportunity for Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts to volunteer their time to perform service projects at Cub World, Camp Friedlander, and/or Camp Michaels. 



The projects are organized by camp staff and include tree-planting, erosion control, honeysuckle removal, trail maintenance, and other projects that reflect conservation.  Over 200 volunteers showed up to work on this sunny and warm Saturday!  At Camp Friedlander, Scorpion Patrol helped to clear invasive honeysuckle from the woods and planted two red maple trees.  By participating in this conservation project, some of our Scorpion Patrol scouts have earned the prestigious Cub Scout World Conservation Award.

This story was also published in the local Miami Township newspaper and in the printed "Your Home Town" section of the Saturday, November 21st Cincinnati Enquirer.

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Campout, Fishing Derby, Compass Course and a hike in the woods...what a great way to spend a cool October weekend! The highlight of the Fall Campout was the Fishing Derby. Scouts had 2 hours to catch and release as many fish as they could. There were contests for the most fish caught and the longest fish caught. The longest one was 28 inches (pictured below)!



The boys also completed a map and compass course to earn a beltloop. Following a map of Camp Friedlander, they made four different stops to complete activities (such as draw a map from your house to your school and build a compass from a magnet, pin, foam, cup of water). After completing each of the activities they earned a bear paw print which they placed on a card to represent the four compass points (north, south, east and west).



Part of the Saturday afternoon activities included a 3 mile hike around. For several of the new Cub Scouts, this was their very first hike. This earned them their very own hiking stick which they will take with them on future hikes. As the scouts put miles onto their boots, they earn special badges and awards with which they can decorate their hiking stick.

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The Webelos II Patrols (Scorpion Patrol and Flaming Arrows Patrol) took a field trip to the Cincinnati Zoo to complete the Pick-A-Badge Program. They joined together to complete their Naturalist badge requirements under the leadership of a Naturalist from the Cincinnati Zoo. The scouts learned about bird migration, endangered species, poisonous plants, venomous reptiles, and animal species native to Ohio. The scouts toured the zoo and were able to touch a few zoo animals, including a hissing cockroach and an alligator (no fingers were lost)!

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