Grafton Pack 107’s 2020 Pinewood Derby

The Pinewood Derby is one of the most anticipated events in the scouting year for Pack 107. Today the Pinewood Derby finally arrived and was held at St. James Parish in South Grafton. The cubscouts and their families get to exercise their creativity and imagination in creating an unpowered and unmanned race car from a block of pine wood. At the derby, they get to have fun testing out their cars’ performance, while showcasing their creative designs, engineering skills, sportsmanship and camaraderie. This year’s derby does not disappoint. The scope and range of the car designs are outstanding.

State Representative David Muradian, stopped the Pinewood Derby to show his support to Pack 107. He even entered a car for the adult and sibling race! Thank you, Mr. Muradian for your support as always.

Before the Pinewood Derby got started, the Bear Den organized an entertaining and fun carnival for all the cubscouts to enjoy. The Bears did a great job creating clever and innovative games as part of their ” Grin and Bear It” adventure. The games were enjoyed by all, and the cubscsouts were entertained until Derby time, as well as during lunch break. The cub scouts couldn’t wait to resume the carnival games. Great job Bears on a successful carnival!

The cub scouts and sibling were able to get a prize after playing each of the carnival games, collecting all 6 color marks. Thank you, Mrs. Christine Gaspar, for working the prize table.

The derby opened with the Pledge of Allegiance, followed by Reverend Dr. Barbara Therese, from the Congregational Church of Grafton, giving a beautiful and inspiring invocation prayer. We thank you, Rev. Barbara Therese for coming to support the pack.

There was a lot of excitement, cheering, and support front everyone in the room! The AOL den did a great job handling the race cars and helping at the race track.
We thank the pack families for your generosity in bring in all the snack and sides. The pack treated everyone to a lunch of pizza. Thank you Chris Lefrancois, John and Tiffany Bubriski for you help in serving lunch.

Awards for speed were awarded to the Pack’s top 3 winners. Congratulations to 1st place winner, Gabriel F, 2nd place winner, Ailsa G., and 3rd place winner, Nick S. A special award called ” Draggin’ In” Safe Driver award, for the slowest speed, was awarded to Kaleb L. Congratulations winners!

Congratulations Gabriel F. on your 1st place finish!
Congratulations Ailsa on your 2nd place finish!
Congratulations Nick S. on your 3rd place finish!
Congratulations Kaleb for “Draggin It In as a Safe Driver”!!

Winners of special design categories were awarded next. These winners were chosen based on scores given by special impartial guest judges from our local community.

Congratulations Aaron B. for the Most Originsl Design Award!
Congratulations Lucas N. for Best Race Car Theme Award!
Congratulations Nick. S. for the Best Paint Job Award!
Congratulations Colin S. for Best Sports Theme Award!
Congratulations Steven L. for Best Scout Theme Award!
Congratulations Kaleb L. for the Most Likely Built By A Scout Theme Award!
Congratulations Josh N. for the Most Patriotic Theme Award!
Thank you to the guest judges for coming out the wve of the Derby to judge the design categories. Thank you David Muradian, Peter Carlson, Ed King, Lweis Alderton, Greg Marr, and Scott Zajkowski.

These 12 cub scouts will represent Pack 107 at the Milltown District Pinewood Derby on March 28 2020. They represent the winners of the top 2 fastest cars in each of the cub scout ranks.

The adult and sibling race followed and the excitement continued to fill the room. Congratulations to the winners of the top 3 fastest cars.

Congratulations Jeremy on 1st place. Congratulations to his daughter, Alison won 2nd place.
Congratulations Chris Nichols on your 3rd place finish!

A big thank you goes out to Mr. Chris Tedford, cubmaster of Pack 106, for spending the day with us to help us run the Pinewood Derby, and to Pack 106 for lending us the derby track.

Last and most importantly, a special thank you goes out to Mr. Chris Nichols, who volunteered to take on the huge task of chairing and organizing this event. Thank you also, for a wonderful job and spark you added in being Master of Ceremony for this event. Mr. Nichols, we appreciate all the behind the scenes organization that made this memorable event such a great success!

Pack 107 December Holiday Pack Meeting Fun

This past Friday, December 6, 2019, Cub Scout Pack 107 had a festive, fun-filled Holiday Pack Meeting. The pack collected donations to support Veterans Inc., and the Charlton Food Pantry. In doing so, our cub scouts learn that a scout is friendly, kind, and helpful. Great job Pack 107. The tote for Veterans Inc. weighed in at over 37.5 lbs. Thank you for your generosity. Great job, Pack 107 families!!

The Bears den did a great job performing the Flag Ceremony to start the meeting.

We had new 2 Webelos scouts who earned their Bobcat Award, and the the Bobcat ceremony was assisted by their fellow den scouts.

Congratulations to Jackson and Nathaniel, on achieving your first rank as a cub scout.

The AOLs did a great job giving a presentation about the World Friendship Fund. The World Friendship Fund was developed during the closing days of World War II. At that time, there was a great need to rebuild those nations that had been wrecked by war and were just emerging fromt he shadows of totalitarianism.

Through the World Friendship Fund, voluntary contributions of Scouts and leaders are transformed into cooperative projects that help Scouting associations in other countries to strengthen and extend their Scouting programs. The World Friendship Fund gives members of the Boy Scouts of America an good turn opportunity to help fellow Scouts who are in need of their support. It teaches Scouts that Scouting is global. From now until February 1st, the pack will be collecting donations for the World Friendship Fund.

The festivities followed as each den got to experience a fun activity rotating through the different stations that included writing cards to the veterans and to those in need of caring, a craft station making bead candy canes, a game of the Human Knot, snack station of sweet oranges and rice crispy snow balls, and meeting “Santa Tidd”. We were told Santa was too busy this year to stop by, but left gifts and asked Mr. Shawn Tidd to help him pass them out to the cub scouts.

A big thank you goes out to Mr. Shawn Tidd for helping Santa deliver gifts to our cub scouts, and to Mr. Chris Nichols for sharing his time and talent to help take photos of the scouts meeting “Santa Tidd”!

We celebrated the one cub scout with a December birthday: Tennyson! Happy birthday Tennyson!

We have pack rock climbing event this coming Saturday 12/14/2019 4-6pm at Central Rock Gym.

Pinewood Derby season is fast approaching and Mr. Chris Nichols is heading the subcommittee for this event. He announced the Pinewood Derby is Saturday, 2/1/2020. The pack will host a build day on Saturday 1/4/2020. More information to come! This year we will be adding a parents/ adult race!! Aside from awards for speed, th here will be design categories as well: Best paint job, Most likely built by a scout, Best Patriotic, Best Sports theme, and much more. It’s time to start thinking of and planning the design of your Pinewood Derby car!

Pack 107 Committee and leaders wish you and your family “Season’s greetings”, and may you enjoy a wonderful holiday season!!

November Pack Meeting Highlights

This past Friday, 11/15/2019, Pack 107 had to planned a field trip to the Massachusetts Wildlife Center in Westborough but was postponed last minute due to family emergency. The pack had an eventful and fun pack meeting nonetheless. The meeting opened with the Webelos leading the Color Guard Ceremony.

New Scouts were recognized and recieved their neckerchief from their den leaders. Congratulations and welcome to our Pack 107 family.

We thank all the cub scouts who recruited new scouts to join our pack and they were recognized with the BSA Recruiter patch. Great job in sharing the fun and adventure of scouting with your friends!

We recognized all the scouts who earned hiking miles milestones! 5, 10, 30, 40, and 50 miles!! Great job!!

Recognition was given to cubscouts for their popcorn sales achievements.

Most improved sales!

Most sold by cub Scout family.

We have 6 cub scouts who sold more than $1000 and they had the honor and opportunity to throw a cream pie in the face of our fun-loving cubmaster, Tabitha! What a great sport! Our highest seller, Steven, got to douse whip cream all over Cubmaster Tabitha!

Thank you to all the cub scout and family for your hard work in fundraising for our pack activities. Online sales still count toward total sales and we are only $300 away from earning a second overnight! Together we can make this happen!

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The cub scouts enjoyed a fun game of Scout Jeopardy. It is an awesome and fun way for our cub scouts to review all their scouting knowledge, and to learn new information!! Parents learned a lot as well!

Mr. Chris Nichols got the cub scouts excited when he started talking about the one of the most exciting events of the scouting year- the Pack Pinewood Derby take place tentatively Saturday, February 1st, 2020. The pack will host a build day in December. More information to come. Start thinking of themes and designs with your scout!

Mr. Clay McDonald gave us an update about our pack hosting a rock climbing event at Central Rock Climbing Gym in Worcester, on Saturday, December 14.

Mr. Dan Gaspar had the pleasure of announcing our next pack Norcross Park clean up on Saturday, November 30. Our pack adopted Norcross Park where we have made a commitment to clean up once a month during the non snowy months of the year. Bring gloves, rakes, leaf blowers if you have any.

Our next Pack meeting will be Friday, December 6th at 7pm, at the Congregational Church. It will be a fun one, not to be missed. Please feel free to invite friends who might be interested to know more about cub scouts or who want to join. It’s not too late!

In December, our pack will be collecting white goods for donation to the Charlton Food Pantry. Please bring white goods, such as paper towels, paper plates, plastic utensils. The pack will also collect new socks for a local veteran organization.

Looking forward to seeing you at the next pack meeting!

“Winter” Camp-In at TVSR

This past weekend, the Scouts of Pack 107 camped at Treasure Valley Scout Reservation in the Venture Lodge (or as we like to call it- the adVenture Lodge!).

Friday night campers played team work games and a few rousing games of UNO before going to bed.

 

Saturday was filled with lots of fun activities! We started with learning about the 5 basic Cub Scouting knots, and making paracord bracelets/keyrings for the Scouts to bring home with them. We then discussed being prepared for the outdoors, such as the 6 essentials, S-T-O-P, the buddy system, dressing for the outdoors, and weather preparedness. The Scouts played some games outside while lunch was being cooked.

Following lunch, we hiked 3.25 miles through the West side of Treasure Valley. We went to explore the infamous Sampson’s Pebble, which the Scouts were surprised to see just how large this “pebble” actually is.

After the hike, we played some Ga-Ga ball and took a tour of Cub Scout Adventure Camp, showing the Scouts all the different activities they can do while at summer camp.

After all the activity of the day, it was a good time to relax and watch a movie on the “big screen”. The Scouts chose to watch How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World.

When the movie was over, Friday night campers and Saturday visitors went home. Saturday night campers made foil packs for dinner. We made some awesome pictures and played UNO. The Scouts helped make cobbler for dessert and we watched The Lion King to settle down for bed.

Despite the cold night time temperatures outside, all of us were nice and toasty inside the adVenture Lodge. Overall it was a fun and exciting weekend, and Scouts are already looking forward to another camp-out at Treasure Valley. Thank you to all the families who joined us in this weekend adventure.

Arrow of Lights – Building a Better World

Tonight, our Arrow of Light Scouts had a special meeting that started with a visit from Mr. Padget. The Scouts learned about local town government and the role they play in our community. Afterwards, the Scouts discussed symbols that represent the USA and learned more about the flag.

Working together as a team, Scouts learned and demonstrated how to properly fold a flag.

The meeting was concluded learning about flag ceremonies and how to perform them.

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