Scouting offers your son opportunities and experiences that he will carry with him for the rest of his life. Cub Scouting offers boys in grades 1 – 5 a supportive environment organized by grade into dens up to 10 boys with two adult leaders. The dens meet once or twice per month to take part in activities designed to develop their self-esteem, creativity, and respect for one another as well as to learn good citizenship, health and fitness, outdoor skills, and social skills important for leadership in tomorrow’s world.

In addition to den meetings Pack 60 meets once a month from 6:30PM – 8:00PM Monday evenings early fall through the spring. We typically meet at Sudbury United Methodist Church. See what we did in 2009-20010. Individual den meeting times vary.

How do you join? Send the following information to Pack 60, c/o Neil Blicher, 21 Old Lancaster Road, Sudbury, MA 01776:

To find out more about Cub Scouts and the Scout program please visit the frequently asked questions on the Cub Scout website.

We are looking forward to a really great year – and we hope you will join us!

Sincerely,
Scott Melick
Cubmaster

Our next event is August 2nd at the church: Water rocket launch!

• June 4-5, early AM, Fishing Derby with Pack 80 hosted by Maynard Rod and Gun Club
• July 25 Bike ride at the Assabet River Trail in Sudbury
• Aug 2 Celebrate Summer with a blast (water rockets, open to prospective members)

This event is open to all scout families and the campfire is open to those who are interested in joining scouts.

This is the general flow for the weekend:

Friday June 4th

• 5:00-6:00 Those sleeping over – arrive at the Maynard Rod and Gun club  to setup Camp
• 6:30-8:00 Those just attending the campfire arrive for Campfire and ceremony
• 8:30 Those not staying over depart
• 9:00 Lights out

Saturday June 5th

• 6:00 Rise and shine – light breakfast
• Fishing Derby (early bird catches the fish!)
• 10:00 AM Break Camp

Maynard Rod and Gun club is located at:

45 Old Mill Road
Maynard, MA 01754

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=45%20Old%20Mill%20Road%20Maynard,%20MA

Suggested items needed for the campout:

• Water bottle
• Bug repellant
• Tent
• Sleeping bag
• Pillows
• Toiletries (Include Purell or other hand sanitizer)
• Sleeping pads
• Warm Clothes
• Flashlight
• Personal Toilet paper
• Pajamas
• Raincoat
• Cub Scout Uniform
• Personal Snacks
• Fishing Rod
• Fishing tackle and bait (trout eggs, worms)

See you there!

On Saturday, March 20th seven boys from Sudbury Pack 60 were awarded the Arrow of Light, Cub Scouts highest honor. To earn the award, the boys had to demonstrate outdoor camping skills, proficiency in emergency preparedness and fitness as well as other Scout skills. The badge also stresses citizenship, how a community works, and being a responsible individual. Cubmaster Scott Melick presided over the ceremony. The boys are in Fifth Grade, and most have chosen to continue in Boy Scouts.

Boys light ceremonial arrows as part of the Arrow of Light ceremony.

Photo by Curtis Heisey.

Over the past year, the 52 Boys in Pack 60 have done a variety of activities to promote responsibility, learning in non-academic ways and just plain fun. Service projects included building Wood Duck houses. Boys also helped to clean up the yard of the Suny United Methodist Church, the sponsoring organization of the Pack. Fun activities included a games night and a trip to Bosse Sports that included recreation on their climbing wall.

Boys show a lot of growth and change over a year, but over the course of their entire Cub Scout duration, the change is remarkable. Boys typically start out Cub Scouts as First Graders and cross over into Boy Scouts in Gifth Grade. It’s phenomenal to see how much a boy grows in just five years, and it is exciting to be a part of that growth as a Cub Scout leader. Cub Scouts promotes self-esteem and helps to provide a compass for responsible behavior. When you see the Tiger Scouts in their first year alongside the graduating Cub Scouts, the difference is apparent. And it seems like such a short time for your son to make that journey.

For more than 50 years, the Pinewood Derby often has been the highlight of Cub Scout’s formative years in scouting.  Just ask Sudbury resident and former

Eagle Scout Curtis Heisey, who’s done the event with his son Austin for the last five years.  “When Austin first started Cub Scouts as a Tiger in the first grade, he required a lot of mentoring and guidance.  Now, four years later, he pretty much goes off and does the whole thing himself.  In fact, he likes making the cars so much that he usually builds a second one out of the scraps.”

The tradition is a simple one: Cub Scouts, with the help of a parent or adult partner, build their own cars from kits containing a block of pine wood, plastic wheels and metal axles.  And the rules haven’t changed much at all over the years: the cars must all be 5 oz. or less and have the proper clearance to run on the track.  The rest is left to the creativity and workmanship of the individual Scouts. They typically spend long hours carving, sanding, weighting, painting, polishing and perfecting their cars, and they see the fruits of their labors as simple pine blocks are gradually transformed into sleek and stylish pinewood racers.

The Pinewood Derby event was founded in 1953 by Cubmaster Donald Murphy of Manhattan Beach, CA, and it was an instant success.  Murphy’s idea for the Pinewood Derby formed out of a desire to devise a wholesome, constructive activity that would foster a close father-son relationship while promoting craftsmanship and good sportsmanship through competition.  Murphy was inspired to create the event by the well-known Soap Box Derby.  A local Chevy dealer sponsored the Soap Box Derby, but the minimum age to enter was 12 – too old for a Cub Scout. Necessity being the mother of invention, Murphy conceived of the Pinewood Derby as a new event for the younger boys, including his 10-year old son.

The high-profile event has taken some interesting twists on the national stage.  In the late 1990s, Car and Driver magazine decided to have their four staff engineers build a Pinewood Derby car and race it against cars built by Penske Cars Ltd. of IndyCar fame, Darrell Waltrip’s Winston Cup team, and Elliott Forbes-Robinson’s 600 Racing. To keep them honest, they used Pinewood Derby rules, were monitored by Scoutmasters, and raced against four Cub Scouts from Atlanta.  The result: the car cost $2318 including engineering labor, and it lost to the Cub Scouts!

On a thrilling, action-packed Saturday morning in late January, 43 boys from the Loring Pack 60 Cub Scouts competed at their annual Pinewood Derby. Some of these cars may have smoked the pros as well, while others competed for “Best Workmanship” and “Most Creative Design” trophies.  And all of the scouts took home some super-cool racing licenses, along with memories to last a lifetime.

Cars were raced down a sloping, 32-foot, 4-lane wooden track powered only by gravity, with a total of 105 races run over nearly three hours.  The fastest car clocked a blazing heat of 2.5258 seconds (the equivalent of 8.6 MPH), with many photo finishes and run-offs won by several thousandths of a second!  Thank goodness for the electronic finish line – we’ve come a long way since the original 1953 race, which used a battery-run finish line made from doorbells and light bulbs to identify the winner.

The event showcased sleek racers crafted with skillful workmanship and fancy Spiderman paint jobs; a tank, police car, rocket ship, Mario cart, and Star Wars land seeder; and cars that boasted the ingenuity of their scout builders.  But it was a car driven by Snoopy that the judges deemed to be the most creative of all, and a dune buggy that the judges thought exhibited the best workmanship.

Congratulations to the 2010 Pack 60 Cub Scout Pinewood Derby champions:

Curtis Heisey summed it up best, “For me, it is a special time to spend with my son.   I raced Pinewood Derby cars in Cub Scouts when I was a kid over thirty-five years ago, and I really treasure the time that my father spent with me building the car together. This was the first project in which I was old enough for him to teach me how to use woodworking tools, though many, many projects would later follow.  Even though I never won anything, I had great fun making the car with my Dad, and I still have the cars that I made.  As an adult reflecting back, the prize for me now is not the result of the race, but rather the process and cherished moments with my father.” A great recipe for lifelong memories, indeed!

Sudbury Cub Scout Packs 60, 61, 62, and 80 will collect food donations from friends, neighbors and family members November 7th -14th

Bags distributed on November 7th  and return them Saturday November 14th:

• 9:30 am – 12:00 pm at Our Lady of Fatima Church
• 12:00 pm – 2:30 pm at Sudbury United Methodist Church

Donations will go to the Sudbury Food Pantry to support our local residents in need during these holiday seasons.

What to donate:
Non-perishable foods such as Instant Potatoes; Cake Mixes; Cranberry sauce; Spaghetti, Grape Jelly; Robust soups like Progresso, Healthy choice, or Campbell’s Chunky; Canned/Bagged tuna and chicken, peanut butter. Paper towels, Tissues, toilet paper and plastic sandwich bags

THANK YOU FOR PARTICIPATING!

Thanks to Price Chopper Supermarket, for providing the pre-printed bags for food collection.

We will award $30 to the 2 top Scouts who have the best popcorn sales!

But wait, there’s more! We will also randomly draw 3 MORE winners for $10. Any Scout who has at least $50 in sales will be eligible for the drawing.

Parents, the popcorn drive is a very important fundraiser for us (the only fundraiser) Please help keep our yearly dues at a minimum by helping your sons do their best.

Cubmaster Scott