November 2023 - Fall Classic Campout

11-10-2023 to 11-12-2023

On the weekend of November 10-12, Troop 46 celebrated our Fall Classic at Big Timber in Elgin, IL. We arrived around 7 PM and setup our tents. It was a big open area, and it was a great space to play capture the flag, practice skits, and so much more.

After we finished setting up our tents, we had pizza and played games. We played risk, exploding kittens and poker. We also had time to enjoy drinking hot cocoa with chocolate spoons.

The next day we worked on rank advancements and played fox and the hound. We built a campfire and whittled sticks for cooking hotdogs over the open fire. We fixed our dogs with all the trimmings and tater tots. It was a perfect lunch for a perfect afternoon. The weather was amazing. 

The Fall Classic is one of the few campouts that the adult leaders cook for the scouts. The pork shoulders smoked all night and well into the next day in the Big Green Eggs.

A big thank you to all the adults who cooked. A special thanks to the Scarpellis' and Ciskes' for their leadership in preparing the food. For dinner we had smoked pork shoulder, smoked turkey, mashed smoked sweet potatoes, scalloped potatoes, corn pudding, stuffing, salads and many desserts brought by the guests.

We had about 115 people at the Fall Classic dinner. The Scouts were joined by their families along with guest Cub Scouts and their parents. We kicked things off with a few presentations led by our Scouts, and then we had an amazing meal.

Before our guests arrived, we prepared for the retiring of the colors (flags). You must separate the white stripes, red stripes, and the blue section. Once these sections are separated, they cease to be American flags.

After dinner we all walked down to the fire bowl. We began with skits. Each patrol presented the skit they practiced earlier in the day. We got a lot of chuckles. When the skits were over, the Senior Patrol Leader (SPL) led us in a ceremony to begin retiring the colors (flags). The ceremony concludes with us burning the colors (torn stripes and stars) we prepared earlier that day.



According to the U.S. Flag Code, “The flag, when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning.”