Texas Outdoor Family Workshops

There are many hurdles that prevent audiences from exploring the opportunities for fun in Texas’ State Parks. The Texas Parks and Wildlife program, the Texas Outdoor Family, works to remove those barriers by providing the access, gear, and confidence a user needs to establish a new hobby.

Texas Outdoor Family (TOF) hosts “discover camping” themed workshops. These overnight programs are centered in parks within a short drive of Texas’ metro areas making access easier for a majority of Texans. The TOF program provides participants with essential camping equipment (tent, stove, cots and more!), fun activities, and park ranger’s comforting presence, and instruction on gear use in each weekend workshop. TOF attempts to bring back to parks the hopeful user who says, “I have never slept in a tent and I don’t know where to start”.

On a recent event a TOF ranger was asked by a passerby, “Can you help with time? I’m so busy…” The ranger was able to emphatically answer “Yes! We handle the planning for you. Make a reservation that works for your family or friends. Arrive with food, your group, and the personal items we suggest you bring. We take care of the rest!”

The TOF program has recently expanded efforts beyond families and is partnering with community organizations, youth groups, and schools. By establishing a partner coordinator, offering outdoor leadership training, and making gear available in parks for each organization to host their own “discover camping” workshops.

100% of surveyed families say they enjoyed the experience and are likely to go camping again after the conclusion of a TOF workshop. Interested in sharing the fun? Email us at tofsp@tpwd.texas.gov to be connected to a TOF ranger in your area. Our 2017 calendar of workshops is soon to be released!

No Experience Necessary:  Let us show you how!

Spending time outdoors is fun and easier than you think. Don’t have the gear? We do!

We provide what you need for a fun camping experience in a Texas State Park.  Starting at $65 for a one-night workshop, each family or group of up to six people gets a campsite with nearby restrooms and the use of equipment including: tent, cots for two adults, foam sleeping pads for children, lantern, camp stove, cooking pots/pans and utensils, and a coffee press. You will bring: bedding, personal items and food. We even provide camping recipes.

Make Your Own Adventure:  We provide the tools!

Camp is set up; what do we do for fun?

Each workshop offers different activities. Your family could geocache (high-tech treasure hunt), kayak, fish, swim, rock climb, cook in a Dutch oven, go to a nature program, mountain bike, stargaze and more.

Smell dinner roasting over the fire while a great-horned owl calls in the distance and your family laughs at silly campfire stories. Imagine yourself lying in a tent looking up at the stars after a day of playing outside. Our ancestors have camped for thousands of years. You can too! Choose a workshop and make your own adventure!

• Visit our Frequently Asked Questions page.
• Contact us by e-mail or call us at (512) 389-8903 Monday through Friday 9 am - 6 pm
• Sign up for e-mail updates.

Pack 1910 Community Service

Thirty-nine Scouts and family members showed up today to help in the fall community-wide Keller trash bash.  Together we cleaned up both sides of our one mile stretch of Johnson Road.  The Pack family did a FANTASTIC job!  Twenty-two bags of trash were collected!

Thank you to Eric James for providing the vests and grab-nabbers.  

Thank you to all of our parents who helped work vehicle defense and kept our kiddos safe since it is a busy road. 

Thank you to all of our families for coming out and helping pitch in to keep Keller clean! 

The weather was beautiful and their servant hearts showed brightly.

 

 

WAY TO GO CUB SCOUTS!

Take Order is Over but ONLINE Sales Can Continue

Use your son's online Trail's End scout account and Trail's End will track this for you!  There's still time!  You have nothing to lose!  

Best Apps for Scouts

I wanted to share a little synopsis of an article written for Bryan on Scouting providing some insight into the apps available and used in Scouting.  

Where in the past there was a debate over whether smartphone use is appropriate in Scouting, these days most Scouters see the devices like pocketknives. They are multitools that — with guidance to prevent misuse — are an important part of the Scouting experience.

With the right apps, your smartphone becomes a navigation device, sous chef, first-aid adviser, weather radio, camera and reference library. All inside a pocketable rectangle of glass, plastic and metal.




Boys’ Life magazine

Developer: Boys’ Life magazine, Boy Scouts of America

Devices: Android, iOS, Kindle

Cost: The app itself costs nothing, and anyone can browse a preview of any issue for free. Print subscribers get free access to the digital versions of their issues. Others can subscribe in the app or with this special print-and-digital bundle.

Description: If it’s in a boy’s life, it’s in Boys’ Life. And if it’s in Boys’ Life magazine, it’s in the magazine’s app, with content enhanced for the digital experience. You’ll get up-to-the-second news and feeds from BL social-media channels — plus, of course, all the great magazine stories about Scouting adventures, sports, cars, gaming, science, technology and more.

Download links: Android. iOS



Knots 3D

Developer: Nynix

Devices: Android, iOS

Cost: $1.99

Description: This easy-to-use app is popular among Scouters and Scouts because it’s fun and allows you to digitally tie, untie and rotate more than 100 knots with just your finger. “It can be slowed down and replayed for any level needed,” Scouter Dana says. “I tell other Scouters about it all the time!”

Download links: Android. iOS



Geocaching

Developer: Groundspeak Inc.

Devices: Android, iOS

Cost: The app is free, though you can get more features with a premium subscription for $30 a year.

Description: Think of it as the original Pokémon Go. Geocaching is the most popular app for enjoying the fun outdoor activity that spawned a Boy Scout merit badge. The official app of Geocaching.com helps you find one (or a dozen) of the millions of geocaching containers hidden across the globe. “My Scouts always love it when I start up the Geocaching app when at camp,” Scouter Richard says. “They love getting a group together and grabbing a cache wherever we go.”

Download: Android. iOS




Scouting magazine

Developer: Scouting magazine, Boy Scouts of America

Devices: Android, iOS, Kindle

Cost: The app is free. Once inside the app, enjoy a free, two-minute preview of any issue. Or buy any single issue for $3.99. The best deal, though, is the all-access subscription: unlimited access to every issue for $4.99 a year. You can subscribe in the app.

Description: By swiping through Scouting magazine’s digital archives, you’re literally scrolling back in time. Where you stop to explore deeper is up to you. I find even the advertisements — for fundraising products like fruitcakes, animal-shaped candles and Florida oranges — to be interesting. Discover Scouting history, and American history through the eyes of Scouting, in the Scouting magazine app.

Download: Android. iOS.



First Aid by American Red Cross

Developer: American Red Cross

Devices: Android, iOS

Cost: Free

Description: The only app here that may some day save a life. The official American Red Cross First Aid app puts expert advice for everyday emergencies in your hand. Includes videos, interactive quizzes and simple step-by-step advice.

Download: Android. iOS



Audubon Bird Guide: North America

Developer: National Audubon Society

Devices: Android, iOS

Cost: Free

Description: This popular app, now free, helps your Scouts or Venturers identify birds they see or hear. The app includes 808 species, 3,200 images and eight hours of bird sounds. A featured called eBird helps you locate birds seen recently around you, using the continuously updated database from the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology.

Download: Android. iOS.



Dutch Oven Helper Lite

Developer: Kyle Kendall

Devices: iOS

Cost: Free

Description: A simple app with a clear purpose: telling you exactly how many charcoal briquettes you’ll need for a Dutch oven meal. Choose a temperature, Dutch oven size and cooking method, and the app does the rest — well, except for preparing the meal. And eating it. And cleaning up.

Download: iOS.



Dutch Oven Calculator

Developer: More With Less Software

Devices: Android

Cost: Free

Description: An Android cousin of the Dutch Oven Helper Lite above. It’s a simple app to figure out how many charcoal briquettes you’ll need for Dutch oven cooking.

Download: Android.



LeafSnap

Developer: Columbia University, University of Maryland and Smithsonian Institution

Devices: iOS

Cost: Free

Description: Point your phone toward any leaf, and LeafSnap uses visual recognition software to help you identify the tree from which it came. Fair warning: The app, like most things in nature, still has a few bugs.

Download: iPhone.

Bobcats!

Hey Scouts... keep working on those Bobcat requirements!  

I received permission from another blogger to post a printable she created here for you to access and print that will help you continue to reinforce the Oath and Law.  

Thank you Strong Armor for this great printable!

Simply click the picture or HERE to be taken to her website.  There are options for color or black and white.  

I can't wait to hear all our boys' voices in unison on the 25th!  Keep up the great work!

Take Order Continues

With our Show and Sell booths winding to a close soon, we wanted to make sure you know that TAKE ORDER is really where it's at!  

Until you're involved in the trenches of running an organization, you don't realize the importance of fundraisers and let me tell you -- POPCORN FUNDS SCOUTING!  

The more we sell, the more we cover.  The more we cover, the less you pay.  The more we sell, the better the chances are that we can lower dues too!  

Take Order sales are an investment in our Pack.  They teach Scouts to communicate and provides an opportunity to develop and enhance social skills.  While we can simply write a check to cover costs, remember that we are trying to teach these boys not only that a Scout is Thrifty but that they also should contribute to paying their way through this program.  

Give them the chance TO be vested by picking a couple of weekends to canvas the neighborhood streets and allow them the opportunity to sell door to door!  You are teaching them valuable life skills too!  Here is a great article on the Top 5 Reasons To Sell Cub Scout Popcorn.

(Plus, face it, we have some cool incentive prizes!)

Our GOALS with popcorn sales are:

• to have this be our ONE AND ONLY FUNDRAISER each year
• to reduce the costs to our parents for participation in program activities
• to teach boys that they need to help fund their program

We need everyone's participation to make this our most successful year yet, so please don't leave that order sheet sitting on the counter!  We have extras, too, if you need more!  

Don't forget you can set up a Trail's End account to allow your son to sell online to family and friends not in your neighborhood. Who doesn't want to help support Scouting?  Items will be shipped directly to them!  Click HERE for that information. 

More information has been posted on popcorn sales HERE, and HERE and HERE. 

Scouting is a BLAST! (Literally)

Please make plans to join us Sunday, November 6 at 2:30 pm for Pack 1910's Annual Rocket Launch.  Weather permitting, we will be meeting in the Keller Sports Park's westernmost soccer field parking lot.  Please see THIS DIAGRAM for where to park that day and where the launch site will be in relation to the parking area.  We will discuss this at the Pack Meeting but wanted to give you as much notice as we can.

Our MC and host for the event, DARS (Dallas Area Rocket Society), has suggested that the only rockets we use should be those requiring a 1/4A, 1/2A and A motors (B at most) with streamers / not parachutes.  These won't go quite as high, but we also shouldn't lose as many!  

For the rocket launch you will need to bring your fully assembled rocket, motors, pins and wadding. DARS will provide the launch pads and electrical igniter.  You do NOT need to bring a launch rod or blast shield.  

I have taken the liberty to contact Estes and they suggested something similar to either a Wizard or a Firestreak SST for launching.  The major difference is that with the Wizard, the boys will have to measure, mark and glue the parts together to assemble the rocket and the Firestreak is molded from plastic and simply snaps together (requires no gluing).  The Wizard is pictured here:   and here is a copy of what you get in your kit:

The Firestreak and its kit's contents:

Rocketry may be new to your family and seem somewhat impossible... please don't be intimidated because it is a LOT OF FUN! Hobby Lobby sells rocket kits and you can use an app or download a 40% off coupon as well.  The kits come in a variety of levels of difficulty to assemble.  Some are "RTF" (Ready To Fly), "ARF" (Almost Ready to FLY), "E2X" (Easy to Assemble) and so on.  

Here is a little diagram that will help identify what all the parts are for if you're not familiar with model rockets.

Also to note, when we speak of "motors" or "engines," we are talking about these guys (pictured right).  Packaged, these engines come complete with an igniter and pin for each. So, don't lose the little plastic pieces or the two pronged igniter.  Please be sure to PURCHASE THEM as kits do not include engines since many rockets can be launched by several different engine sizes. Approved Estes engines for our launch are are A8-3, B6-2, C6-3 and C6-5.  If you want to buy Quest engines, we have a list of those as well.  Please note, however, that the C size engines MAY be unable to launch if it is too windy so your best bet is to stick with A and B sized engines for your rocket or at least have some on standby to use as a last resort.


Pictured left is the "recovery wadding." You will also need this for any repeat launches.

I warn you, however, rocketry can be quite exhilarating!  Bring those cameras....and visit the DARS website for more information on their next public launch.  They have some launches where they shoot off the BIG DOGS!  It's definitely an amazing sight to behold.  

As with all Pack events, this is open to siblings.  So if brothers / sisters want to launch, they can bring their own rockets, too!

Pack Halloween Party!

Pack 1910 Scouts and family are cordially invited to our annual Halloween Pack meeting on Tuesday, October 25 from 6:30-7:45 pm.  While our usual Pack meeting date is the 2nd Tuesday of the month, in October we schedule it out further so that we can have some Halloween fun with the Cubs!

Don't forget it's a COSTUME party! We want everyone in costume! Parents, siblings and ESPECIALLY leaders included!

We will have some important announcements about upcoming events.

Please don't forget your son's Genius creation display! Those will be placed on their rank-specific colored table cloth on the west end of the FLC.

We will have an awesome ceremony for our new Scouts that have earned their BOBCAT.

We will play games. Oh yes... we will pay games! We will have fun the Cub Scout way! I hope you all make plans to join us. Be sure to RSVP on Scoutbook.

Monthly Pack Meetings are where all dens come convene to experience Pack fellowship, parents get to meet new faces, we all get to hear about the exciting things coming and enjoy the boys having fun during the activities! After all -- what we do -- it's ALL for the boys!

Our Bears Are Prepared!

Our Bear den was focusing on teamwork and setting up a tent in preparation for the coming Pack Family Campout!  Working on their Bear Necessities Adventure. I think they did a remarkable job!

 

Have you turned in your Health Forms, registration paperwork and camping fees?  If you haven't and you want to camp, please contact April TODAY!