Scout Update

Development

This fall our development committee will conduct two very exciting events. Our annual Salute to Scouting will be held this November. The awards will be presented to Bill Bacic, on behalf of Deloitte who will receive the Second Century of Scouting Award, and Chris and Jean Egan who will receive the Ralph Lowell, Good Scout Award.

New this fall the development committee will launch a Good Scout Event specific to the hospitality industry. The steering committee is comprised of Jim Dina, Tom Kershaw and Jim Carmody and the award recipient is Peter Christie, President and CEO of the MA Restaurant Association. The event will be held at the Seaport Hotel.

Two great initiatives!

1.     Scouting for Food: All five councils in Eastern MA have combined our energy to create a large scale community service effort. This November 2nd in partnership with Fox25 Television, Clear Channel Outdoor 30,000 Scouts will canvas every community from Plymouth to Portsmouth NH and aim to collect over 500,000 food items for the needy in eastern MA

2.       Child Safety: The BSA is hosting a best practices workshop this fall for all youth serving agencies in Eastern MA.  Former US Senator and First Class Scout, Scott Brown has agreed to chair the event and will be inviting leaders from child protective services, youth serving agencies, law enforcement and other government agencies to share and improve our child safety practices.

Camp

More and more Scouts continue to attend each year!  As we wrap up our camp season we can look back and take pride in the quality and safety of our camps and for the third year in a row camp attendance has grown. This year’s growth was just under 10% and the total increase in campers in the past three summers is almost 600 additional campers spread across three camps. 

Properties and Partnerships

As part of our strategic plan we sought to find likeminded partners to help utilize the expansive property assets of the BSA and provide additional support for programs and properties that service scouting exclusively.

·         Shamrock Pools – re-opened our Egan Center pool this past January and the program has been wonderful. Our Scouts use the pool on weekends and during camp, while Shamrock uses it weekdays and evenings.

·         Camp Inter Action – A program for visually impaired children, rented Camp Massasoit this summer

·         Camp Beam – our long term tenant at Parker Mountain camp enjoyed their fifth year in partnership with the BSA

·         Annawon Council – by combining our family camp with Annawon’s property and their day camp all the Scouts benefited from the efficiency and program!

By partnering with these organizations Boston Minuteman Council can better focus on our core competencies and core programs. As part of that focus we have several board members along with the Staff alumni have raised $150,000 to be invested in Camp Sayre and Storer Scout Reservation.  We have been steadily improving our camping facilities over the past two years – however, this support will dramatically increase rate and scope of the improvement projects.