100th Anniversary celebrations, what's your council doing?

[kb6jra 10]

Howdy All,

I've just been asked (like yesterday) to get a committee together to facilitate the 100th anniversary celebrations of the BSA in my council. I'm looking for ideas of what other councils are doing to comemorate the BSA Centenary over these next 2 1/2 years.

From what I was told, at the recent Top Hands meeting it became an instant priority. HA! Not like it snuck up on us, did it. )

I'm very excited about the prospects. I appreciate your many and varied ideas.

[emb021 16]

At this point, I think most councils are in the same state: none have probably put any thought into what they are doing.

 

Frankly, am a little disappointed that the BSA has by and large ignored the 100th Anniversary of Scouting that is THIS YEAR. Some councils seemed to have done something for this, but others...

 

 

[kb6jra 10]

I'm in agreement there. Luckily my son went to WSJ and had an incredible time, met hundreds of great scouts from around the world and now is more energized about scouting than any adult fresh back from WB ever has been.

 

I know there's the Centenial Unit award program that's been in effect for a year or so, and the logo'd items on sale at the scout shop, but still no big push to celebrate this year. Too bad we did really miss the bus there...

 

 

[emb021 16]

The 'Centential Unit Award' thing is the BSA's replacement for the Quality unit award program for 2007-2010, to lead up to the 100th anniversary in 2010.

 

The BSA did not bother to make the Centennary of Scouting items available in the US (tho I see that a few councils did this on their own).

 

How many councils promoted the Scouting Sunrise event on August 1, 2007?

 

[EagleInKY 14]

I too was disappointed that my council did nothing for the 100th anniversary of scouting or the scouting sunrise. I spoke about it alot with my troop, not that we did anything formal. I just incorporated it into my scoutmaster's minute and some activities on the campout the weekend before.

[scoutldr 732]

Ditto...nothing here yet for us mushrooms.

[Pack378 10]

big camping trip, boy scouts, cubs and venturing, check it out here.........

 

http://www.cspack378.org/events/centen-a-ree/

[kb6jra 10]

That''s a great idea Pack378. That would be a fantastic event if we could get enough council wide participation.

 

I don''t have to get my committee together until January or Feburary. Our council does a yearly gathering in the Fall with our local County Sherrif''s department who hosts a public Rodeo. Lot''s of fun and tons of people. Great time to get the message out. This might turn out to be one of the capstones to the list of celebrations. We''ll have 3 years of buildup to the 2010 celebrations. I get excited thinking about the possibilities.

[infoscouter 11]

We''re co-publishing a book with the local Scouting museum, documenting the growth of our council.

 

I know there is a committee - I''m not sure what other things are planned. I believe a "super event" of some sort, but not sure what yet. We have recently purchased a new piece of property, that should be improved by 2010. It may be large enough to hold a council-wide camporee, and since it is urban not rural property, we could invite the public to attend.

[GS-CS_leader 11]

A couple of weeks ago, I went to Northeast Illinois Council's 100th anniversary Camporee with my Webelos son. An organizer said that there were 1700 people registered for the event. Not bad considering that a number of units did not attend although they had planned to be (such as a troop that I had wanted to check out)-- a SM said there were some conflicts with high school home-coming weekends. The event ran from Friday night through Sunday morning, with Webelos scouts invited for Saturday and optionally Saturday night. Based on the large number of cars arriving on Sat which were gone by Saturday evening when I went back to my car for the camp chairs, I think several hundred of the participants came for Saturday only (probably most of the Webelos such as others from my den), but that still left over 1000 who were camping, which is also what I would have guessed just by looking over the tent city. This large number probably led to the one criticism that boys in the troop we were visiting mentioned in their "roses and thorns" discussion: there were so many people at the Saturday night campfire that you couldn't hear the speakers, the troop putting on a skit, or the scouts on the other side of the group when we were singing (so the signing timing got off with one side of the group off by several words from the other side). So a suggestion to those who might be planning some major council event: be sure to understand that the logistics may be different for an event that is several times larger than other events like it.

 

But overall, the Camporee was a great success to judge not only by the fact that my son and I enjoyed it, but also from the comments of the BS in our "host troop". There were many activity stations such as putting up old-fashioned canvas tents with no floor, zip-line, war canoe races, OA Indian dancers, ham radio, non-match fire starting, flag signaling, Opik (cold weather camping---ironic in the 87 degree heat which killed a runner in the Chicago marathon the next day), etc. It was a fantastic experience to encourage a Webelos scout to want to cross over to BS. Many of the stations were staffed by wonderful dedicated old-timer scouters whom I noticed made a particular attempt to engage my son.

 

I hear that there is a multi-council Chicago-area Camporee that is being planned for the 100th US anniversary in 2010 to be held in Chicago (Grant Park, I think). I hope my son will still be in BS then or that my daughter will have joined and stayed in a Venturing crew because I would really love to attend that event! They are expecting at least 10,000 people.