Here are the details or trips and service projects by month.
September
- Trip: The Rodney Games: From a cabin overlooking the Chesapeake Bay, the Scouts are divided into thematic teams (pirates, Hogwarts, Star Wars, The Office, Camp Half Blood, Looney Tunes, etc.) to compete on a variety of scout skills at stations spread across the campus, with song competitions and ghost stories by the massive beach bonfire at night.
October
- Trip: TBD
- Service: Cheltenham Harvest Festival: Though it hasn’t happened in the past few years, the Scouts normally help the police park cars, and in return we get our own table for recruiting new members. (For date: Cheltenhamtownship.org)
November
- Service: Food Drive: Usually on the weekend prior to Thanksgiving, we set up outside a grocery store (lately O’Neill’s in Kewsick) and manage to bring in the most food of any council unit in the Scouting for Food drive.
- Trip: TBD
December
- Trip: The City Trip: Divided into teams, the Scouts explore new cities on challenging, weird, and fun scavenger hunts. Each year rotate through Boston, New York, Washington DC, Pittsburgh, and Philly.
January
- Trip: The Freeze-Out: The Scouts learn to build snow shelters using only rope, a tarp, and the terrain and natural supplies around them, and then sleep in it. (Note: If there’s not enough snow on the ground yet, we swap this with the ski trip, since ski mountains reliably make their own snow.)
February
- Trip: The Ski Trip: Learn to ski or snowboard, or just have fun hitting the slopes of the Catskills, Poconos, or Vermont. (Many Scouts who first strapped on skis on this trip ended up captaining the school Ski/Snowboard club at school.)
March
- Trip: TBD
April
- Trip: TBD
- Service: Earth Day: There is invariably an Earth Day service project or three available to any Scout who wants to participate.
May
- Trip: TBD
- Spaghetti Dinner: This is our annual fundraiser, partly to raise money for the troop and to pay your dues, but mostly for each Scout to fill his or her personal troop account with enough funds to cover their weekend trips and maybe even some of the summer trip/summer camp costs.
- Service: Flags on Graves: In late May, the Scouts help the Jenkintown VFW put flags on veteran’s graves for Memorial Day.
June
- Service: June Fete: The weekend before Abington Hospital’s annual June Fete, Scouts help set it up—and as a bonus get free tickets to the event. (For dates: Junefete.abingtonhealth.org)
- Trip: The Water Trip: Canoeing, kayaking, or white water rafting, this is a fun final trip for the scout year, usually held on Father’s Day weekend.
July-August
- Summer Camp: Scouts spend a week at an area Scout camp earning merit badges.
- Summer Trip: Scouts with enough experience can join the “second week trip,” a high-adventure excursion that might last a week or two or as long a month (and, occasionally, a six-week cross-country odyssey). Sailing the Florida Keys, glacier climbing in Alaska, scaling the peaks of the Rockies, exploring Europe… These are the adventures they will be talking about for the rest of their lives.