Troop 105 is chartered to St. Matthews Lutheran Church in Hanover PA, and has been around for 90 years. We meet every Wednesday night between 7:00 and 8:30 p.m. in the lower room of the youth building. Feel free to attend any of our meetings to see what our troop is all about, or ask any questions!
During each of our hour and a half meetings, lead by our Senior Patrol Leader , we accomplish a variety of things. The first part of our meeting is always devoted to news and announcements. We open the meeting, take attendance, read the minutes, and then ask the leaders in turn for announcements. After that, we usually break up to work on individual goals. You will usually find older scouts working on merit badges, or teaching younger scouts the skills needed to advance in rank. Sometimes we plan for upcoming outings, and other nights we take a break and play a group game in the church's gymnasium. Before we leave, we always ask the leaders again for announcements before officially closing the meeting.
Our troop has a total of three patrols, two for the scouts, and one for the leaders. The two scout patrols are Mountaineer and Black Bat and the leader patrol is the Moose Patrol. Each of the scout patrols has a Patrol Leader, Assistant Patrol Leader, and Quartermaster. Each patrol consists of older and younger boys, and new scouts are assigned a patrol when they join. Instead of having all the younger scouts in a patrol by themselves, the older scouts are able to teach and guide the younger scouts on outings.
Troop 105 has an outing every month of every year, and gets to experience a wide range of outdoor and indoor activities. Some of the outdoor outings we have done in the past include: skiing, white water rafting, hiking, backpacking, and of course camping. We also have visited the indoor Climbnasium with various rock wall formations to climb and conquer, and have rented an ice skating rink where we played ice hockey. A lot of our outings do cost money, but the troop often subsidizes large trips and scouts can earn money for themselves through the recycling program.
Every second and fourth Saturday of every month we help out at the Hanover Borough Recycling Center. The troop earns money for doing this, and that money gets split up into the scouts' individual accounts. The scouts can then use this money to pay for any scout related purpose, whether it is outings, gear, or uniforms.
In order to attain the rank of Eagle Scout, each scout must earn numerous required and non-required merit badges. Our troop leaders are registered as counselors for almost all required merit badges, so scouts will rarely have to go outside the troop to attain required badges. In addition, each summer the troop goes to Camp Rodney in the Del-Mar-Va council, where scouts can earn several different merit badges within one week.
