Troop 105 is chartered by St. Matthew Lutheran Church in Hanover, PA. We are celebrating 100 years as an active troop on February 29, 2020. We meet every Wednesday night between 7:00 and 8:30 p.m. in the lower room of the youth building.

During each of our hour and a half meetings, led by our Senior Patrol Leader, we accomplish a variety of things. The first part of our meeting is always devoted to news and announcements. We open the meeting, take attendance, read the minutes, and then ask the leaders to give announcements. After that, we usually work on individual goals. You will often find older Scouts working on merit badges, or teaching younger Scouts the skills needed to advance in rank. Sometimes, we plan for upcoming outings; on other nights, we take a break and play a group game in the church’s gymnasium. Before we leave, we always ask the leaders again for announcements before officially closing the meeting.

Our troop has a total of four patrols, three for the Scouts, and one for the leaders. The three Scout patrols are Mountaineer, Black Bat and Blue Fox; the leaders’ patrol is the Moose Patrol. Each of the Scout patrols has a Patrol Leader, Assistant Patrol Leader, and Quartermaster. Each patrol consists of older and younger boys. New Scouts are assigned a patrol when they join. This arrangement allows the older Scouts to teach and guide the younger Scouts during meetings and on outings.

Troop 105 has an outing every month of every year, and members get to experience a wide range of outdoor and indoor activities. Some of the outdoor outings we have done in the past include: Canoeing at Algonquin Provincial Park in Canada, skiing, white water rafting, hiking, backpacking, and camping. We also have visited the indoor Climbnasium, which has various rock wall formations to climb and conquer, and have played hockey at a local ice rink. A lot of our outings cost money, but the troop often subsidizes large trips and Scouts can earn money for themselves through the many fund raising opportunities we provide throughout the year.

As of the middle of May 2019, the troop no longer runs the recycling center for the borough of Hanover.

We help out at the Hanover Borough Recycling Center on the second and fourth Saturday of the every month
and some of the fifth Saturdays during the year. Parents are welcome to come and help. The troop earns money for doing this, and that money gets split up, in the form of credits for hours worked, into the Scouts’ individual accounts. The Scouts can use these monetary credits to pay for approved, Scout-related purposes, such as fees for outings, gear, or uniforms.

In order to attain the rank of Eagle Scout, each Scout must earn 13 required and 8 additional (non-required) merit badges. Our troop leaders are registered as counselors for many of the required and none required merit badges. Our Scouts rarely have to go outside the troop to attain required badges. In addition, each summer the troop goes to Camp Rodney, located on the Chesapeake Bay in the Del-Mar-Va Council. While at Camp Rodney, Scouts can earn up to six merit badges within one week.