March came in like a snow lion…our trip to Frost Valley was postponed a few weeks because the Catskill region got hammered with snow.

Early in the month we attended the third and final Blue and Gold  banquet of the season for Pack 54 when we welcomed Zach into the troop.  If you get the Democrat or Observer, you may have seen the article spotlighting the Hunterdon Arrowhead District’s food drive that mentions our troop.  And, if you get it, the April edition of the Clinton Township newsletter also had a great write-up on the activities and events that we’ve participated in over the past few weeks. The CTNL listed out the newest members of the troop – many of which are from the Township.  (NOTE:  the Hunterdon County library has extra copies of you’d like one!)  We’re hoping a similar article we submitted to the local papers gets picked up, too.  If it does, we’ll make sure to post a link!

The Council of Ricks were responsible for organizing the monthly meetings in March.  The theme was ‘Back to Basics’.  The older members of the troop helped the youngest members get acclimated, our troop quartermaster, John M. gave them a tour of the troop trailer and explained how it’s organized.  We talked about mess kits on Mess Kit Monday.  And made a lot of progress on our rank advancements.  Our troop tailor, Aidan B. organized a t-shirt and hoodie sale.  The troop voted on the designs and orders were taken…we can’t wait to get the new gear!

During another meeting at the Field of Dreams we worked on some physical fitness requirements – running the mile, sit ups, push ups, etc.  We’re hoping to show improvement over the next 4 weeks as we get retested.

On March 22nd we remembered fellow Troop 200 scout, Fred Holjes on the 50th anniversary of his death.  A graduate of North Hunterdon High School, he attended the Citadel.  Fred joined the Army, served in Vietnam and was awarded two Bronze Stars and the Purple Heart.  Fred paid the ultimate sacrifice.  If you’d like to learn more about Fred, please check out this page on our web site.

We finally got up to Frost Valley and had a great time.  We participated in a lot of great activities like cross country skiing, rock wall climbing, snow tubing, silk screening and had an EPIC snowball fight at dusk!

As we the month was closing out we heard that two members of the troop past their Eagle Board of Review!  Congratulations to our newest Eagle Scouts – Dillon B. and Caleb K.  They are Troop 200’s 88th and 89th Eagles. Congratulations…we are so proud of you! For details on all of our Eagles, check out our Eagle Honor Roll on our troop’s web site.

During the final weekend of the month the Council of Ricks headed out on a patrol event – an early spring camp-out.  The boys worked on building shelters, building a fire and cooking skills.  They had a great time are looking forward to the next camp out.  We closed the month out volunteering at ICC helping them set up for parking during Easter Sunday masses.