Committee Activity this Summer

The troop committee and executive committee met several times this summer addressing our ongoing re-organization process. Three functional teams have been created within the committee. These teams are led by Vice Chairs:

• Neil Bonner (Finance and Fund Raising, neil@michelangelo.com )
• Dan Lynch (Administration and Communication, dlynch@ch2m.com ) and
• Bill Martin (Program Support, billmartin_jrrt@verizon.net ).

We are pleased to report that we are making progress in several areas including a new interactive website, examining the eagle process and several critical committee roles therein.

We also have identified several vacant positions that will need volunteers. This include, among others, Training, Travel, Popcorn, and a new PR role. Please contact me if you are interested in any of these positions. (Leon Kolankiewicz and Bill Martin have agreed to help Ray Derr with aspects of the advancements process.)

We have also had early discussions on the Merit Badge process and are just beginning a cost accounting process (expect a revised expense report shortly). We will have a committee meeting October 8, 2008 at 7:30 pm and look forward to updating interested parents and adults at that time.

Committee members also sat on a whooping total of 17 Board of Reviews at summer camp. (I expect this is a record or something.) Congratulations to all our hard working scouts!

A Secret Revealed Concerning the Path to Eagle

As a newly minted Committee Chair, I have had the great pleasure of sitting on over twenty Boards of Review with our scouts in the last couple of months. For the uninitiated, this is a panel of 3-5 adult volunteers who sit across from a scout and inquire about their progress toward rank advancement. There is a published list of questions but usually the panel engineers the content toward the needs of each of the boys. Our troop also has a tradition of asking the dreaded “history of scouting” question to end each board. This is a wonderful opportunity for both adults and the scout to get to know each other and to exchange feedback. (Yes we get some interesting feedback …)

Over the last several months, the age of scouts involved in Boards of Review have ranged from 11 to 17++. Accordingly, many of the younger scouts provide answers that reflect things they have heard from the scout leaders, other scouts or their parents. As the age of the scouts increase, in general, an interesting thing happens along the way: original thought enters the picture. Really! Differentiation occurs. Desires and hopes — sometimes very separate and distinct from those of their parents — are shared and explored between adults and scout. Being a scout is a tremendous opportunity for our young men.

It is possible that for many scouts (and scout parents) the goal of scouting is “getting the eagle!”   However, the secret I have recently discovered is that earning merit badges and doing the eagle project is only a part of the picture.  The real foundation of scouting is developed in the upper ranks: namely by gaining leadership experience, a degree of self sufficiency and developing individual character. This has become clearer to me the more I watch Russ and Steve Housley and the Assistant Scout Masters work with our boys.  Troop 1970 has long history of helping boys learn to manage oneself and thereby learning critical lessons along the way.    For some scouts this takes longer than others but that’s OK.  To borrow an oft used cliché: It is how one takes the journey that matters not the destination.

Does the tortoise or hair win the race? As someone who occasionally hires young people, all other things being equal, I believe character is more important than GPA or how fast one got to eagle or what merit badges one took as a scout. I am becoming a bit of an avowed romantic on this topic and suspect we will also be taking a hard look, as a committee, on how we can further help Russ and the program staff nurture outstanding citizens and leaders by the time the boys get to 18 years of age. Each boy at his own pace, one he designs.

YIS,

Vic Moravitz
Committee Chair
vmoravitz@aol.com