ALUMNI ALIVE! Newsletter for Scouting Alumni Association Affiliates and Friends FALL 2016
What’s Inside Director’s Message...................................2 Alumni News............................................4 Happenings..............................................6 Program...................................................8 Profiles....................................................10
A Message From the Director As adults in Scouting, our most important influence is as role models. James Baldwin might well have been observing a Cub Scout den meeting when he said, “Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.” The special magic of Scouting programs takes place when youth get together with good adults in a setting where character is caught. The word “caught” says a lot about how kids learn life’s important lessons, which are caught more often than they’re taught. Scouting founder Robert Baden-Powell often found himself explaining how the program worked and what it sought to accomplish. To those who thought Scouting was all about camping and other outdoor pursuits, he said that if boys liked knitting, then we would knit. (I, for one, and glad boys like camping more than knitting!)
Photo Credit: Brian Payne
In other words, outdoor adventure is the bait that attracts boys. Once attracted, they learn useful skills by doing them. Belonging to a high-minded fraternity of achievers who share excitement and fun is also part of the scheme. Scouts learn leadership by experience and necessity, sometimes failing with support from forgiving friends. And they learn what it means to be a successful adult by watching successful adults in action. I think this is what the American poet James Whitcomb Riley had in mind when he wrote, “I’d rather see a sermon than hear one any day.” The example of Cubmasters, Scoutmasters, Venturing and Exploring advisors, and countless other adult volunteers is the strength and hope of the Boy Scouts of America. But the example of caring adults is also the strength and hope of our world. Whether you’re currently serving in Scouting or not, I challenge you to make your life the sort of example the young people in your life will want to imitate. 2
Words of Wisdom I came across some words of wisdom which are too good not to share with Scouters and Scouting alumni. The following especially apply to the special people who give leadership to youth through Scouting:• • “There are no seven wonders of the world in the eyes of a child: there are seven million.” • “You can tell when you are on the right road, it’s upgrade.” • “The mark of an effective Cub Scouter is to see something in a mud puddle besides mud.” • “No man stands so tall as when he stoops to help a boy.”“Character is what you do when no one is looking.” • “The secret of living is giving.” • “You can give a child too much of everything except yourself.”
On behalf of our millions of Scouts, thank you for your support of and serving to Scouting.
Dustin Farris Director, Scouting Alumni Association
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Alumni News National Website Promotes Local Events
Update on the Council Alumnus of the Year Award
Anyone can submit events—you don’t even have to log in to the site—and submissions are reviewed by SAA staff and volunteers before being posted. To create an event, simply visit http://www. scoutingalumni.org/site/c.ejIPK1NNLgJ0E/b.9315461/k.8E04/ Alumni_Events.htm. Click the Submit an Alumni Event link and complete the form on the page that appears. You’ll need five pieces of information:
When he was speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Tip O’Neill liked to point out that all politics is local. The same could be said of Scouting. Most Scouting alumni probably feel a closer connection to their old troop or their local camp than they do to the Boy Scouts of America.
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Title Field: The name of the event (e.g., “Ten Mile River Scout Camp Alumni Day”)
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Sub-title Field: Time and location of the event (e.g., “11:30 am - 2:00 pm EST - Ten Mile River Scout Camps”)
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Author Field: Your name
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Summary Field: The event date (e.g., “Fri. 05/20/16”)
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Body Field: The details of the event (overview, street address, website link, contact information, etc.)
On the Scouting Alumni Association home page, the Title and Subtitle fields will appear together, while the Summary field will appear in a blue box beside the event. Visitors can click the Title field to see the event details. Events also appear automatically in state order on the Alumni Events page.
To help strengthen those local connections, the Scouting Alumni Association website, www.scoutingalumni.org, now features an alumni event calendar that focuses on local reunions and other activities. This free service lets local councils and alumni groups promote their events to people who have moved away or aren’t currently connected to Scouting.
Larson encourages councils and camp alumni groups across the country to submit their events. “The more events appear on the site, the more repeat visits we’ll get and the more attention each event will garner,” he says.
Members of the Boy Scouts of America, both youth and adult, can pursue lots of awards, from the Arrow of Light to the Eagle Scout Award to Wood Badge beads. But other awards are bestowed rather than pursued. These include honors like the Honor Medal, presented to a Scout or Scouter who saves or attempts to save a life, and the Silver Beaver, awarded to an adult for exemplary service to the local council.
says. “This is not a man or woman of the year award.” (Many councils have local honors, such as distinguished citizen awards, that better serve in those cases.)
2. How to Nominate. Those who wish to make nominations should download the current nomination form from http://www. scoutingalumni.org/site/c.ejIPK1NNLgJ0E/b.9315465/k.C838/ Awards.htm; older versions of the form should not be used. Nominations are due to the local council’s alumni committee by December 31.
Among the newest, and thus least familiar, awards are the BSA’s three alumni awards: the National Alumnus of the Year Award, the Regional Alumnus of the Year Award, and the Council Alumnus of the Year Award. To help promote the council-level award, Mike Movius, the Scouting Alumni Association’s vice-chair for awards and recognition, recently recorded a podcast for the BSA’s ScoutCast series. (You can hear it online starting October 1 at http://www.scouting.org/Scoutcast. aspx.)
4. How Are Recipients Recognized. The local council
3. Who Reviews Nominations. The council alumni committee manages this process; ideally, the rating and selection committee should be made up of past recipients. Members review all nominations and select the one nominee (if any) who is best qualified based on the selection criteria. Nominations are then forwarded to the Scouting Alumni Association office, which provides recognition items.
Photo Credit: Mark Duncan
decides the best venue. Movius says he has seen standalone ceremonies, presentations at local Scout camps, and presentations at annual council awards events. “The caveat about this type of event is that we recommend that the Council Alumnus of the Year Award be the culmination of the event,” he says. “Putting it near the beginning of the program takes away from the prestige and uniqueness of the award.”
In the podcast and a subsequent interview, Movius made four main points about the Council Alumnus of the Year Award:
1. Who It’s For. The award honors a Scouting alumnus who
“We know that jobs and family responsibilities often take our alumni far from where they grew up,” says Ryan Larson, associate director of the Scouting Alumni Association and the National Eagle Scout Association. “We hope this new service lets them renew connections with folks back home and forge new connections in their current communities.”
For more information about the Council Alumnus of the Year Award—and other alumni awards—visit www.scoutingalumni.org.
has made significant and long-lasting contributions to our nation through his or her career, avocation, and community service and has contributed significantly to the promotion and/or advancement of the BSA alumni program and activities; nominators often miss that second part. “This is not another Silver Beaver Award,” Movius
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Happenings Order of the Arrow Prepares for the Future The 2015 National Order of the Arrow Conference (NOAC), which celebrated the 100th anniversary of Scouting’s national honor society, attracted a record 15,104 participants. That’s 5,000 more participants than originally anticipated—and probably 5,000 less than would have attended had Michigan State University been able to scrape together more housing.
Philmont Updates Huge Photo Archive
“In all facets of Scouting, we recognize that delivering quality program is the main driver of retention,” explains NEXT conference chairman Clint Takeshita. “A young person having fun in the Order of the Arrow keeps them around and it keeps them engaged.” National Chief Hunter Jones praises participants for their hard work during NEXT. “They learned and collaborated on different ideas that they can implement at the local level and also were given a model of how to identify problems and create solutions effectively,” he says. “We also asked them to help us evaluate our national organization and determine what things we’re doing right and what things we need to improve on.” While leaders knew the focus would be on local support, participants got to vote on specifics. Through the NEXT Choice voting process, they weighed in on six options, from streamlining the induction process to providing communication templates.
While those numbers are impressive, OA leaders are Photo Credit: Roger Morgan more interested in some other numbers. Only half of new inductees become Brotherhood members—an option available to any Arrowman after 10 months of service—and just 12 percent of OA members attended an event held in their local lodge last year. That’s why 45 percent of lodge chiefs and 57 percent of adult advisers say that lodge program should be the top priority for the national organization.
Jones says it’s too early to know just what concrete results will emerge from NEXT, but he envisions offerings like “plug-andplay” programs for fellowship weekends or templates for lodge newsletters. What won’t change is the Order’s longstanding focus on being a brotherhood of cheerful service.
As the Order’s second century dawns, its national leaders are working to address those local needs. The first big step was NEXT: A New Century, a five-day conference held this summer at Indiana University. Unlike NOAC, which welcomed all Arrowmen, participation in this first-ever event was limited to each lodge’s lodge chief, two youth “change agents,” and two adult advisers (as well as leaders from the section, region, and national levels). All told, there were about 1,600 participants. Their mission: to create a culture of growth in the Order of the Arrow—not just to benefit the Order itself but to benefit the larger Scouting movement.
“NEXT was an amazing event for both sides, for the national level as well as for the lodge level,” he says. “We got some great feedback. We could have never expected how well it went.”
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Photo Credit: Michael Roytek
Since 1939, more than a million Scouts and Scouters have flocked to Philmont Scout Ranch near Cimarron, NM, for back-country adventures and training programs. And tens of thousands more join that number every year; in fact, about 300 participants arrive each day during the summer to begin backpacking journeys they’ll remember forever.
The photos are organized by year, then by program type, then by date. For example, if your troop arrived at Philmont on July 4, 1976, for an expedition—the traditional 12-day backpacking program— you would click 1976, then Expedition, then July, and then 19760704. You would then see the photos for all the expeditions that began that day, sorted by expedition number: 0704A, 0704B, 0704C, etc. (If you don’t know your expedition number, you might have to browse through a few dozen photos to find what you’re looking for.) Once you find your photo, copy down its file name and click the order button. You can order either an 8x10 print or a high-resolution digital file. Prints are $10—$7 for each subsequent copy of the same image—while digital images are $15. Philmont offers memories that last a lifetime. If yours have faded a bit, the Philmont Photo Archive is a great way to rekindle those memories.
Helping to preserve those memories are the countless photos taken along the trail—with Brownie cameras and Instamatics, with Polaroids and Canon SLRs, with Motorola Razrs and the latest iPhones. And one more photo helps: the official group photo taken beneath the iconic Tooth of Time before a crew heads into the backcountry or a class heads into the conference room. Each participant takes home an 8x10 print of that photo as a souvenir, but Philmont now offers a way to order additional copies or (more likely) to replace long-lost prints. Over the past few years, seasonal staff members have been working to create an online archive of group photos dating back to 1966, when the ranch first began saving photo negatives. The archive went live in October 2014 at http://philmontscoutranch. org/Museums/PhotoArchive.aspx with more than 100,000 photos; it now contains 240,000 and continues to grow. (The most recent summer’s photos are added by September 1.)
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Program Scouting Alumni Association Plans Jamboree Events
Photo Credit: Nate Luke Photography
Next year’s national scout jamboree at the Summit Bechtel Reserve will bring together Scouts and Scouters from every state and many foreign countries. While some attributes will set different groups apart—like campsites, council patches, and accents or languages—there’s much more that will unite them. After all, the basics of Scouting vary little from Portland, Maine, to Portland, Oregon, and from Port Huron, Michigan, to Port Arthur, Texas. Finding and celebrating those points of unity will be the mission of the Scouting Alumni Association (SAA) during the jamboree. Throughout
The reunion schedule will be fleshed out over the next six months or so, but two things are already confirmed. First, the reunions will take place in the Legacy Village area of the Summit Center, which is in the middle of the action and accessible to participants and visitors alike. Second, the reunions will be scheduled to minimize schedule conflicts and excess travel time. “We’re talking about toward the end of program time but before programs actually shut down,” Miller says. “A post-dinner activity is not going to work; people aren’t going to want to drag themselves back over.”
the event, the SAA will hold reunions to bring together participants and visitors with similar interests. One reunion might bring together people who’ve earned Scouting’s various top awards—such as the Eagle Scout Award and the old Venturing Silver Award; another might bring together Wood Badge participants. In fact, Shane Miller, the SAA’s jamboree chairman, envisions the largest-ever singing of “Back to Gilwell,” the official Wood Badge song. “Scouting can be a pretty nostalgic group,” he says. “This gives them the oppor tunity to share stories, rekindle some memories, and enjoy some fellowship.”
Miller is also working with other affinity groups, such as the National Eagle Scout Association and the Philmont Staff Association, to minimize conflicts and create synergy. Since many attendees will identify will several different affinity groups, it makes sense to cross-promote the different reunions.
In the past, Miller says, the SAA has had a static presence, with volunteers fielding questions and handing out membership information. By focusing on holding reunions instead, he thinks the SAA will better engage alumni and demonstrate how councils could hold similar reunions back home.
Good News on the Membership Front While the details aren’t firm yet, Miller sees the jamboree as a great venue for promoting the SAA. “I’m getting pretty excited about it,” he says. “It’s going to be a great way to get in front of folks and tell them what the alumni association is.” Look for more information about the jamboree reunions in future issues of Alumni Alive.
Photo Credit: Nate Luke Photography
Last May, in his valedictory address as the BSA’s national president, Robert M. Gates said, “We are on the threshold of a significant historical event—a return to positive national growth for the first time in decades.” That was good news after a decade of declining membership caused by an increasingly competitive environment—travel soccer and first-grade cross country, for example—and uncertainty over the impact of the 2015 decision to allow openly gay leaders for the first time. A July Associated Press story provided more detail. So where does membership stand as the end of the year approaches? To find out,
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Alumni Alive spoke with Mark Logemann, the BSA’s group d i r e c to r f o r m e m b e r s h i p growth. Here are the highlights:
more Cub Scouts than we did last year—about 1,000 more— we’ll grow in Cub Scouting this year,” he says.
Exploring
Several factors seem to be at play, including clarity around membership policies and the revised, adventure-based Cub Scout program that launched in 2015. Logemann also credits the enhanced recruitment resources the BSA has developed around the “Build an Adventure” campaign. “Councils can go to Scouting Wire’s Brand Center and select the pieces that work for them, everything from yard signs to bring a friend cards, flyers, posters, billboards, and PSAs for radio and television. You name it, it’s there,” he says.
Exploring, the BSA’s program of career exploration and mentoring, is the shining star this year. The program is in the midst of a year-long growth campaign called Exploring Explosion that has featured webinars, a new website, and enhanced program resources. As a result, Logemann says, “We’ve seen six straight months of growth.” That growth should continue into 2017. In August, Distinguished Eagle Scout Thomas Donohue, the president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, endorsed Exploring and encouraged member businesses to adopt it.
Pilot Programs
The BSA is currently running two pilot programs across the country that could positively impact membership going forward.
Cub Scouting
With 1.2 million members, Cub Scouting accounted for 46 percent of the BSA’s membership last year. Although it’s too early to say for sure, Logemann thinks that number could tick upward this year. “If we were to recruit just slightly
The first is the Lion program, a kindergarten-age program that introduces boys to Cub Scouting. Nearly 200 councils are now trying the program. Results indicate that Lions
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should be a net positive for the BSA. “We retained the same percentage of kids joining in kindergarten as we did for other councils where they were joining in first grade,” Logemann says. “The difference was we had a larger percentage of the kids join as kindergarteners because their family schedule wasn’t already booked up.” The other pilot is STEM Scouts, an in-school program that teaches traditional Scouting values in a science, technology, engineering, and math context. Thirteen councils participated in 2015, with an additional 7 this year. “Those 20 councils are forecasting to have about 6,000 members, three times what were involved last year,” Logemann says. Across the board, Logemann says individuals and organizations are reengaging in Scouting at a level they haven’t for years. “It’s anecdotal; there’s no research that would say that,” he says. “But it feels like the winds have changed and that they’re at our back for a change instead of a headwind.”
Profiles Casey Patterson
Ryan Held
Sean Ryan
Greg Billington
Rob Munn
Jared Ward
John Nunn
Eagle Scout Olympians If it weren’t the motto of the Olympic movement, “Faster, Higher, Stronger” might do well as a motto for Eagle Scouts. After all, a big part of becoming an Eagle Scout is improving oneself physically, mentally, and morally.
background gave him a different reputation. “I am the guy who has everything when we travel. I fix the net, court, and anything else needed to travel the world,” he told Bryan on Scouting. “I love being that guy, and I’m so grateful to be an Eagle Scout.”
And that improvement doesn’t end when a young man becomes an Eagle Scout. Case in point: the seven Eagle Scouts who competed in this summer’s Rio Olympics. Their stories demonstrate that, far from being opponents, Scouting and sports can work together to build a champion.
After ser ving as an LDS missionary, Patterson played volleyball for Brigham Young University. He played for club teams in Puerto Rico and Sweden before joining the Association of Volleyball Professionals in 2003. This year, in his first Olympics, he and teammate Jake Gibb were eliminated during opening-round play after one win and two losses.
The Bryan on Scouting blog profiled the seven Eagle Scout Olympians in a series of recent posts. Here are highlights. You can learn more at http:// blog.scoutingmagazine.org/ category/olympics/.
Casey Patterson, Beach Volleyball A 1997 Eagle Scout from Newbury Park, CA, Patterson impressed volleyball fans with his wicked spikes and his slicked-back Mohawk. On the team, however, his Scouting
were the culmination of years of preparation. Held started swimming at age 8 and took up the sport competitively after breaking his leg playing soccer in the seventh grade. He credited Scouting with providing him a stress-free environment far removed from the demands of his sport. “I really struggled to find time with Scouts and practice, too, but as an athlete you need mental breaks from performing and practicing,” he said. “A lot of people are true believers in the thought you can’t miss practice or your season is done for. No one is going to lose anything by missing a practice once a week.”
Sean Ryan, Swimming
Ryan Held, Swimming
Held’s fellow swimmer, Sean Ryan, competed in the 10K open water race, finishing 14th in a field of 25. A 2010 Eagle Scout from Chattanooga, he did his first long-distance swimming at Skymont Scout Reservation, where he earned the Mile Swim BSA award. He made his first U.S. team at 15 and competed in the World Championships the following year.
Six years after becoming an Eagle Scout in 2010, Ryan Held won gold in the 4x100 freestyle relay at the Rio Olympics. It was his first Olympic medal and Team USA’s first gold since 2008 in an event Americans once dominated. Held and his teammates won their race with a time of 3:09:92, but those three plus minutes
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In an interview with WRCB-TV, Ryan’s friend, Matthew Kniedler, said that becoming an Olympian was a lot like being an Eagle Scout. “I think he realizes now he’s an Olympian, but he doesn’t wear it like a badge of honor,” Kniedler said. “It’s like him being an Eagle Scout. The point of being an Eagle Scout is just to hold that knowledge, not to wear it as a badge.”
Greg Billington, Triathlon Greg Billington, a 2007 Eagle Scout. competed in the triathlon. He was just 7 minutes behind the gold medalist, which put him in 37th place. The 27-yearold has been competing in triathlons since age 10, but that didn’t stop him from becoming an Eagle Scout, joining the Order of the Arrow, and being named valedictorian of his high school. (Billington attended a U.S. school in England, where his father worked at a Royal Air Force base.) Needless to say, Billington is goal-oriented. “None of that would have been possible if I hadn’t enjoyed the process of reaching those goals and found
purpose in their pursuit—and been lucky,” Billington told Bryan on Scouting. “Not every moment is enjoyable, but if you know why you’re working, then you’ll be able to achieve what at first seems impossible.” He also credits Scouting with much of his success. “I think Scouting is more valuable now than ever,” he said. “It teaches you leadership, ethics, and how to work with peers in the pursuit of a common goal. These are fundamental skills for success, and I wouldn’t be where I am today if Scouts hadn’t taught me how to help and accept help from others.”
Jared Ward, Marathon A 2006 Eagle Scout, Jared Ward finished 6th in the Olympic marathon. And he’s okay with that, at least according to a pre-race interview he did with Bryan on Scouting. “I’ve always thought that it seems ridiculous to be frustrated with my performance because someone else ran great,” he said. “I am going out to put myself in a position to end up on the
at work: “Everyone is unique and has a different skillset that can contribute to the boat going fast in their own way. The goal is to take these different characteristics of everyone and point them all in one direction. The same can be said with a patrol. A well-run patrol has recognized the strengths of everyone and put them in positions to contribute the most that they can.”
podium, but if I can come home and look in the mirror and say, ‘I gave that my all,’ I will be happy.” Part of Ward’s equanimity probably stems from the fact that he’s married, the father of two boys, and gainfully employed as a statistics professor at BYU. And part of it probably stems from the fact that Scouting taught him to lead a balanced life, not one consumed with chasing trophies at the expense of family.
John Nunn, Track and Field
Rob Munn, Rowing
While the other Eagle Scout Olympians were competing in their first Olympiads, race walker John Nunn was on his third go-round. The 1992 Eagle Scout also competed in 2004 and 2012, when many members of Team USA were still in high school.
Rob Munn’s eight-man rowing team finished in fourth place, exactly four-and-a-half seconds behind the British team that took home gold. But the 2008 Eagle Scout is proud nonetheless of his Olympic experience. “Anything short of winning will always be disappointing,” he told Bryan on Scouting. “That being said, I am proud of the effort that I put into the process of racing as well as the entire year.”
Nunn’s event required him to walk—quickly but without actually running—for 50 kilometers (about 31 miles). He finished 42nd with a time of 4:16:12, which equates to nearly 8 miles per hour. Competing in an event like that requires perseverance, something Nunn picked up as a Boy Scout. As
Effort is second nature to Munn, excelled in both Scouting and sports as a high-schooler. In his eight-man rowing crew, he saw an example of the patrol method
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he said in a Bryan on Scouting interview, “Do all you can to get your Eagle, as that ability to persevere to the end will be a quality that will make you stand out among your peers.” T h i s y e a r ’s E a g l e S c o u t Olympians didn’t all bring home medals, but they would all doubtless agree with Pierre de Coubertin, the movement’s founder, who said, “The most important thing is not to win but to take part.” Photo credits: Team USA