Thinking about a vacation?
Would you consider going on a vacation trip without some advance planning? Selecting the destination and travel itinerary, making the needed reservations, choosing the appropriate clothing and notifying friends or neighbors of your plans are important elements of a pleasant vacation experience.

One item that many people overlook is the need to review your will prior to departing for vacation. Has your family situation, or other factors, changed such that it would warrant the appropriate changes in your will?

Many people find it difficult to face their own mortality. As a result, they put off doing something that could greatly benefit the people and organizations they love and who rely upon them. Preparing for the future and protecting your loved ones is an important way to apply the Boy Scout Motto, "Be Prepared". This small investment in time will ensure that your desires with respect to family, friends, and organizations, like Scouting, will be carried out as you desire.

Call Patrick S. Wedding, Scout Executive at 325-655-7107 or 800-321-7107 or e-mail at  and ask for more information on the importance of a will and what it can mean to you. You spent a lifetime building your estate. Now it's time to take a few minutes to protect that estate.

Sending Money out of Town
(Note: This is an excerpt from a Troop Committee member’s letter)

“You have asked me to put on paper what I said at the meeting the other night when the old question of sending money out of town came up in connection with planning our Scout drive.

What I tried to point out was that all of us send money out of town every day and bring money in. In fact, the life and welfare of us individually and as a community depends upon this flow of commerce. Otherwise, we are too small to survive without it!

You will remember I cited my own case as typical. I can’t build the tractors, plows and implements I sell and service, so I buy them from someone else who can make them. To do this, I have to send money out of town. There are too few tractor prospects in my town, so I peddle them all over four counties. This brings money into our town.

In the above exchange, many people benefit. The manufacturer, his salesman who stays in our local hotel, the ten employees I have who live in our town, plus all the people they spend their money with, the farmer and his family, etc. A little rubs off on me for which the butcher, the baker, the doctor, the tax collector and fifty other people, mostly local, are grateful. Local trade is certainly stimulated as each dollar makes its way around. Everyone is benefited directly or indirectly.

What is true of me and my business is true of most businesses and individuals in my town. Gone is the day when the home was the workshop and each family sufficient unto itself. Having tried to establish this important fact in the minds of those at the meeting, I tried to show them what we are doing in the Scout drive for the council in our little town was to operate on that same common business principle. In effect, we were asking the people of our community to buy at wholesale from the manufacturer, the program of Scouting, so we in turn can retail it to the consumer at home. From that, plenty of benefits of character in young people will rub off on all us here.”

As this Scouter, put it so well, your Friends of Scouting donation provides the fuel to make Scouting happen in your neighborhood. Please take time today to make your pledge. If your pledge is made, thank you. Make sure to follow through so that the TIMELESS VALUES of SCOUTING will know no limit. Below is an update on the campaign as of May 10, 2006.