Bottle Rockets 9/14 3-5pm

Our annual Bottle Rocket and Registration Event is quickly approaching 

When: Sunday, September 14, 2014 

Where: Wrightwood Methodist Camp 

Time: 3:00pm-5:00pm 

 We are going to be shooting off our bottle rockets, registering for the year, and having a potluck BBQ! If anyone has things they can bring for the kids to decorate their bottle rockets with, please bring it with you. We would greatly appreciate it. Please try to have your kids decorate their bottles ahead of time, if possible.

All required forms for new registrations or renewals will be available. Dues will be collected and fundraiser info will be distributed. Please plan on attending so we can get our year started with a BANG!






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How To Make a Water Bottle Rocket



Water Rockets are made from 2-liter soda bottles and can be as simple as an empty bottle or embellished to include fins and even a parachute. Water Rockets can go extremely high dependent on the amount of water in the chamber, the pressure, the weight and the aerodynamic stability of the rocket.

Building a Rocket

Start with a 2-liter soda bottle. Don't use a water bottle; soda bottles are built to withstand greater pressure. Take off the wrapper. It's very important that you do not cut the plastic of the bottle at any time during construction so be careful when taking off the wrapper.

You can decorate your rocket any way you would like. Some paints might work but they must be flexible as the bottle will expand and contract quite a bit under pressure and during launch. I have found Sharpie markers to work well. You could also decorate a piece of paper and then tape the paper to the rocket with clear packing tape.

You can be finished with your rocket at this point if you would like. However, an empty bottle like this is not aerodynamically stable. Once the water is gone the bottle will cease to fly in a straight line and will flap around like a leaf. It will still make a big noise and go high, but not as high as it could.

Fins and a nose cone can be added to make a Rocket aerodynamically stable. A stable rocket continues to fly straight and gain altitude long after the water is gone.

Goodwill Fundraiser 9/13 9am-1pm

Hello Pack 351!

In addition to our upcoming Fall Flower Bulb fundraiser (which is super awesome by the way!), we have an exciting opportunity to host a Goodwill Donation Drive and earn lots of money for our pack! This is a much larger fundraiser than we've ever done before and hope to be able to offer more programming and maybe even help kids go to summer camp this year. For such a small group, this is a big undertaking and we will need everyone's help to make it a success. Goodwill will be bringing their bins to the Wrightwood Methodist Church parking lot on Saturday, September 13th and it is our job to bring in enough stuff to fill them! 

Besides the obvious of cleaning out your closets and donating your old things on the 13th, you can help us out in other ways:

1. We need our flyers circulating through the whole tri-community area. If you frequent a business in town, please ask if they will hang one in their window. Hand out fliers to your neighbors, friends, teachers, co-workers, whoever! You can print the flyer I attached to this email or you can get some from your den leader or Wendi.

2. Stocking up on yard sale leftovers is a huge way to gather donations before the drop off day. People don't want to haul their leftovers to the dump or leave it on the curb. If you see a yard sale, stop and ask if they'll donate their leftover things to us instead. Offer to pick up their leftovers on Sunday when they've finished their sale. Some people will be so excited to get rid of their things, they'll even bag it up for you! Then bring all your collected goodies to the drop off on the 13th. Remember, Labor Day weekend yard sales are coming up - keep your eyes open.

3. We have already been stockpiling yard sale leftovers and need more space to store it all. If you have space in a shed or garage that you're willing to give up for a few weeks, please contact Wendi so we can keep collecting things. Storage is a huge need right now. To make this fundraiser work, Goodwill has suggested that we be collecting things prior to the drop off day and in order to do that, we need space!

4. If you don't have any room in your garage but have a truck or trailer and would be willing to do pickups, that would be a huge help as well. People are more than willing to give us their stuff, but lots of them do not want to haul it. So if we can offer pickups, we will bring in more "junk". Let Wendi know if you would be willing to help pickup items for us and when you're available.

5. Give some trash bags to your neighbors and ask them to fill them with their donations and you will come back to pick it up in a couple days. That makes it easy for them (EVERYONE can fill a trash bag of junk!) and you can help bring in more items.

6. We will also need a little help the day of the drive (9/13 9am-1pm). Goodwill will have employees on site to load the bins, but we need a few adults to help unload people's cars and keep everyone organized. We are hoping to get parents to sign up for shifts so no one has to be there all day. Please let me or Wendi know when you can help out that day. We could use some boys to make signs and maybe hang out on the corners near the church to bring in traffic.

We are hoping that everyone can participate in some way and help make this a success. Let us know if you have any questions!