Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Welcome to the 1st Stony Plain Scout Group

Another year of Scouting has begun here in Stony Plain. The Beavers have been to the Devonian Botanical Gardens for a tour, the Cubs have had their first camp and the Scouts are getting ready for their first camp of the year as well.

Many exciting things are happening this year with the 1st Stony Plain Group, we welcome all our returning members from previous years and say hello to all our new members. This years Annual General Meeting saw a lot of new faces join us, some as youth, some as Leaders and some on Group Committee.

2009 will be our groups 60th anniversary in Stony Plain, it is hard to believe as we just celebrated the Town's 100th birthday. In the coming year we will be gearing up for a proper celebration, the Scouts are working on designing a new badge that will go on all the uniforms and on the trailer. A big thanks must go out to our Sponsor, the Stony Plain Lions Service Club, they have been with us for the past 60 years and I hope they are with us for another 60 to come.

The Group Committee is made up of volunteers who are accountable to the Group Commissioner who in turn is accountable to the Area Commissioner, the AC is accountable to the Council Commissioner who is accountable to National. In the end though all these people are responsible for making sure that the youth have a fun, challenging and rewarding program. In order to keep the communication lines open we rely heavily on our Leaders, they are our best contact with the parents and the youth. To help the Leaders with this we have decided to try a blog as a means of posting information for all sections in one place. Eventually this may lead to a full-blown website if it is successful. Feedback will be an essential evaluating tool for us to determine if it is successful or not, feedback can be sent to the GC at the contact email address posted in the profile section. Please keep it constructive. If comments are to be allowed they must be kept clean, we hope the youth will get in the habit of checking to see what's happening.

Each month I will post the schedules that the Leaders have provided to me. I will also post any important dates to remember as well as Area and Council Events and information that may be relevant. I will also add a links section containing links to the Northern Lights Website, the National Scouts Canada website and any other links that may be interesting.

I am really looking forward to getting to know everyone this year and I am expecting this to be a great year.

National Popcorn Campaign

Scouts all over Canada are gearing up for our National Popcorn Campaign.
Last year we sold almost $11,000.00 and this year our goal is to sell more than $20,000.00. Trail’s End returns 50-60% of the money raised to Council and Groups to fund our programs. That would be $10-12,000.00 that we can spend on our youth.

In order to achieve our goal, each of our 42 registered youth would need to sell $476 worth of popcorn. That is approximately 31 units of Unbelievable Butter Microwave popcorn ($15/unit), or 24 units of Chocolaty Caramel Crunch or Caramel tins ($20/tin), or 9 5-Way tins ($55/tin).

Look for our new product this year, Trails End Trail Mix; cashews, almonds, peanuts, raisins, cranberries and M&M's are just a few of the ingredients.

The sale ends on Oct 31 2008. Extra order forms are available from our Treasurer. The forms need to be returned to the Leaders of each section at the October 27th meetings of each Section.
The section leaders will then turn the order forms over to the treasurer who will submit the orders to Trail’s End directly through their website. No orders can be accepted after Oct 31 2008.

The popcorn will arrive in Edmonton on Nov 15 and sorted and shipped to remote groups. Groups in the Greater Edmonton Area will pick up their popcorn orders from Porter Warehouse on Nov 22 according to their scheduled times. From there the popcorn will be delivered to the Stony Plain Lion’s campground for sorting and pick-up by parents and volunteers. All popcorn should be delivered to customers no later than Dec. 2 2008. If you would like to help with pick-up or sorting please email the GC .



This year's prizes include:


Scouts Canada & Trails End Prizes

$1500 Seller’s Club Prizes
1. Apple iPod Shuffle
2. Olympus Binoculars
3. Silva Digital Handheld Weather Station
4. $75 Scout Shop Gift Card
5. $75 Future Shop Gift Card


“Fill it Up” Contest
Each registered youth or volunteer who fills up an Order form (25 entries) will receive an official “2008 Popcorn Scouting T-Shirt” from Trail’s end, and will be entered into a draw for a 42” LCD TV from Scouts Canada. Also one lucky youth from the Council will be entered into a draw to win a Nintendo Wii from Trail’s End for filling up an order form (25 entries).


$2500 Scholarship
Youth who sell over $2500 are awarded a Scouting Scholarship, after they have achieved this award once, every time they sell Scout Popcorn they receive 6% of their sales into that scholarship regardless of how much their sales total.


Picture This! Contest
Send in a crazy featuring Scout popcorn and your photo may be on a popcorn tin in 2009!

See order form for all contest rules.

1st Stony Plain Prizes
1. Sales over $1000 earn free registration with 1st Stony Plain for next scouting year (2009-2010)
2. Sales over $500 earn an EB Games gift card for $25
3. “Fill it up” and win free movie passes
4. Every youth who participates gets a McDonald’s gift certificate.
5. For every 10 units of popcorn sold 1 "Splish Splash" waterpark ticket will be given to the youth to go to the "Splish Splash" Council Event at West Edmonton Mall.