I heard this from a friend of mine, Jay Lenrow, that the upcoming 2010 100th Anniversary of BSA Jamboree will be the last one to be held at Fort A. P. Hill. Jay and I were Council Presidents of our respective councils when participating in Philmont Key-3 Training Conference. Since then we’ve kept in touch at National Meetings and other gatherings.

Here’s what Jay had to say. What is your reaction?

I can officially tell you that the rumors you have heard are true. The 2010 National Jamboree will be the last one to be held at Fort A.P.  Hill. There is a committee of volunteers that has been appointed by Rick Cronk, the National President, to find a permanent home for the  National Jamboree that will be owned by the BSA. They are currently looking at many properties.    

Because this will be our last time “at the Hill,” the Army has told us  that there is no chance of adding any new subcamps beyond what we had in 2005. This means that there may be many potential Scouts left out because they did not sign up fast enough. We anticipate that there will be tremendous interest in this “100th Anniversary” Jamboree so my  recommendation to potential unit leaders, Scouts, and staffers is to get  your name in early or risk not getting a spot.  

Yours in Scouting,  

Jay     

 

Jay L. Lenrow  

Chairman — National Jewish Committee on Scouting  
Area 5 Metro President — Northeast Region 
Member –National Relationships Standing Committee 
Member –National Religious Relationships Committee  
Past President – Baltimore Area Council  

I used to be a Buffalo (NE IV-123) but I’ll always be an Eagle (1966)

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Reported by the AP, Scout badges recalled over lead concerns, a company that supplies the BSA with Cub Scout totem badges has issued a recall for these badges. They were sourced from China and have been found to have higher than acceptable levels of lead in the paint. There’s a whole website devoted to problems with stuff coming out of China.

Apparently the BSA has been sourcing from a company in Georgia for the past eight (8) years and distributing about 20,000 items a year.  The company is calling for a voluntary recall of the badge and asking parents to take them away from their children.

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Got this e-mail from the BSA National office:

Calling all Scouts to a once-in-a-lifetime chance to be part of BSA history in the making by participating in the BSA 100^th Anniversary Celebration National Logo Contest!

In honor of BSA’s 100^th anniversary, the National Council has launched a contest to inspire the very best design for the anniversary celebration logo. Every registered Scout is eligible to participate. The winning design will become the official symbol for this very important BSA milestone. It will be placed on all official celebration materials and will become a treasured BSA icon for generations to come.

As a leader, you are asked to engage your Scouts in this project. Every logo contest entrant will receive a commemorative certificate and patch from the National Council recognizing their effort.

A distinguished panel of judges will select winners in several categories, including an overall winner and best design by a Tiger Cub/Cub Scout,/Webelos Scout, Boy Scout, Eagle Scout, and Venturer. The winner in each category will receive a trip, along with an adult guardian, to a May 2008 recognition ceremony at the BSA National Annual Meeting in San Diego, Calif. In addition, the overall winner will also receive a trip, along with an adult guardian, to work hand-in-hand with renowned graphic artist and Eagle Scout Kit Hinrichs in his San Francisco studio to finalize the logo for use throughout the celebration.

This is a great activity for individual Scouts and for den, pack, patrol, troop, and crew meetings since entries can be submitted by individuals and by groups! Entry forms, rules and details can be found on the BSA 100th Anniversary Web site

So encourage your Scouts to rev up their creative juices and submit their design ideas! Deadline for entries is November 30, 2007.

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I just got back from serving on staff for the National Order of the Arrow Conservation and Leadership Summit. Last year was a National Order of the Arrow Conference (NOAC). This normally would be an off-year but there will be three years between NOACs. The next one is not until 2009. The reason is to not have a NOAC on a National Jamboree year and to get on a cycle that puts the NOACs to hit the 100th anniversary of the OA in 2010.

The OA organized this event so as to provide something in between the NOACs. So, you have an event, what do you do for content? The purpose was the roll-out of the new OA strategic plan and to prepare for the Arrow Corps 5 program in 2008.

The last National Leadership Summit was in 1999. Having a summit gives another leadership opportunity for OA officers and advisors. That’s always good. But, there were problems with this one.

This was actually two parallel events. This makes sense from staffing and logistics but it was not clearly communicated to lodges. One event was the Leadership Summit. The other was the Conservation Summit. From talking with several contingents this was not really clear.

Nor was it clear that those participating in the Conservation Summit were expected to be crew leaders for next year’s program.

Because of confusion, or at least lack of clarifcation, of the purpose of the two events attendance was way under plan. The planned numbers I heard at the conference were 2,000 with a hoped for 2,500. Now, I am not sure who came up with the plan but last summer at NOAC we were hearing that the event was planned for five (5) people per lodge (both lead advisors, Lodge Chief and one or two Vice Chiefs). Take that number times 300 lodges and I thought the event was going to be 1,500 person event. That was much closer to the reality. I never did get final numbers but it seemed that 1,250 was more like the attendance. Of this, 400 were staff and National Committee members. From one source, I heard that the OA Committee was expecting 800 for the Conservation Summit but had less than 250. Not a very good showing from us for the National Forest Service.

My ‘back of envelope’ numbers would indicate that the OA took a significant financial loss on this event. Guestimating a revenue number of $600,000 - $700,000 actual is probably more like $400,000. That’s $200,000 under budget on revenue. With guarantees in place for meals and beds, they could not scale back the expense side fast enough nor large enough to close this gap. Ouch.

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This is a Scout Legacy interview with Walt Helmreich. Walter, from Jefferson City, Missouri attended the 1933 World Jamboree where he spoke several times with Chief Scout Executive James E. West and even cooked corn for Baden-Powell.

I’ve broken the half-hour interview into four parts. These are standard flash files. Please let us know if you have any trouble with them. Also, please let us know your thoughts about these. We’re preparing some guidelines and interview questions so that maybe others could conduct these interviews and upload them as well.

In part two here Walter discusses early Camp Maries and the Jefferson City Council.

 

 Scout Legacy Interview Walter Helmreich, 2 [8:03m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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We’re starting something new here, what we’re calling “Legacy Interviews”. Technology is allowing us better than ever before to capture some of Scouting’s history, retain it, and share it with others.

Unfortunately our history is passing every day but we’re going to make an effort to capture it while we can. In this, our first “Legacy Interview” we interviewed Eagle Scout and Scouter Walter Helmreich. Still going strong at age 90, he joined Scouting in 1929 in Jefferson County Council, Jefferson City, Missouri. His father helped bring Scouting to Jefferson City. This council later became Lake of the Ozarks Council and then consolidated into Great Rivers Council.

Walter attended the 1933 World Jamboree where he spoke several times with Chief Scout Executive James E. West and even cooked corn for Baden-Powell.

I’ve broken the half-hour interview into four parts. These are standard flash files. Please let us know if you have any trouble with them. Also, please let us know your thoughts about these. We’re preparing some guidelines and interview questions so that maybe others could conduct these interviews and upload them as well.

I believe that every Scout and Scouter has a story to tell. Some may not be as significant as Walter’s but we are all contributors to the Scouting movement. I believe we, this country, need to tell and share these stories. Our needs for leadership, leadership development, and the development of our youth have never been greater. The needs, and maybe the means, are different today than they were in Walter’s youth but our country is better off with Scouting. I’d hate to think where we’d be if we did not have a vital Scouting movement here.

In part one here, Destry and I introduce Walter and he discusses how he got into Scouting. I am struck by, frankly, how similar it is to today.

 

 Scout Legacy Interview Walter Helmreich, part 1 [9:53m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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I attended this year’s BSA National Meeting in Atlanta. I make most years. They are a great source for ideas on how to better run councils and deliver a better program but also it is a chance to connect with many fellow collectors who are also leaders in the movement. The following are my notes, in no particular order, from the conference. It was nice that BSA got away from Memorial Day weekend but they’re going back to it next year in San Diego. Dumb.

At the National Annual Recognition dinner, the National President gives an update on Scouting in the US. After he started, I realized that rather than ‘report on it’, I could broadcast it for others to hear directly from President Rick Cronk. President Cronk reported that with the May council reports the BSA is reporting nataional year-over-year growth in membership. Here’s President Cronk in our video cast.

 

 National Boy Scout President Rick Cronk Addresses National Meeting [7:58m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Amongst items reported at the meeting, there are over 1,000,000 living Eagle Scouts. That’s great for Scouting but even better for the USA. The leadership capability of this country is much better due to Scouting, regardless of the rank achieved. Its been reported, although harder to confirm, that there are over 100,000,000 Scouting alumni (not must members as youth but including those who were only involved as adults).

Two of our own were awarded the Silver Buffalo - Tico Perez shown here with his wife Donna and Dr. Hal Yocum shown here with former Scout Executive Ron Boller (Hal’s on the right).

A nice feature as part of the presentations was a video interview of each recipient. Tico related how he got into Scouting that gave the audience a good chuckle. Ask him about it.

Also, David Roberts of Southern Region received the Silver Antelope this year.

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This will be a first for us, and pretty much the hobby, as we’re publishing a “podcast” of an interview we recently did with Paul Myers discussing the different uniform cloth the BSA used and the badges that match them.

Some background

Paul is a leading authorty on BSA insignia as he has been a collector and researcher of this area for over forty years (boy he sure looks young!). He has published many articles and books on BSA memorabilia. His most recent is a full-color edition of Collecting Boy Rank badges. Paul has received numerous awards and recognitions for his contributions to the hobby.

Why a podcast? Well a picture they say is worth a 1,000 words so what is a moving picture and sound worth? That is, we think we can show and say more to explain things in our hobby that we could never write to paper (or computer file).

Our position within the hobby gives us access to leading collectors and authorities in the hobby. We think showcasing them and sharing their hard developed knowledge will benefit all. We’ll see how well this works. The files are huge (maybe some of our younger readers can give me some pointers here) but we think worthwhile. Please let us know what you think.

We hooked up with Paul recently at the Calumet Council TOR over the Memorial Day weekend. In this podcast, Paul talks about how in the 1920s through the 1940s the BSA made uniforms in many different types of material other than cotton khaki. These include serge, gabardine, wool and a material I’ve been wondering about ‘melton’. The uniforms were made in these materials and listed in the equipment catalogs. The question on my mind, and Paul’s as well, is “Do badges exist in these materials to match?”

 

 Paul Myers on BSA Uniform Cloth Insignia [7:37m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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I submitted the following resolution regarding Supply Division actions and certain long-time supporters of Scouting - American labor organizations. Increasingly Supply Division is sourcing from overseas. It would be a tragedy for a Scouting emblem that represents American labor to have a ‘Made in Taiwan’ sticker on the back.

I have since had some contact with our Central Region Executive Brad Farmer and he has made contacts with Supply Division. I have since rescinded my resolution as it appears that it will not be necessary but, just in case, I am posting the contents here as well. Time will tell. Clearly I have tried to let BSA leadership know that their staff could do something really stupid.

Here was my resolution:

RESOLUTION for consideration at the 2007 BSA National Meeting

Whereas American labor organizations and their members are long time supporters of the Scouting movement through their giving of their time, treasure and talent; and,

Whereas BSA Supply Division increasingly is sourcing from overseas manufacturers; and,

Whereas it would be a potential public relations disaster if American labor related items in Scouting were produced overseas;

Now therefore be it resolved that the Boy Scouts of America acquire labor related and national identification insignia and awards such as the American Labor merit badge, George Meany Award, Whitney Young Award, US Flag badges and other such items, from USA headquartered companies using USA employees.

Respectifully submitted by

Roy A. More

Past President Great Sauk Trail Council #255

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