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Saying Goodbye as Scoutmaster


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Last night, we had our year-end Court of Honor. It was a wonderful ceremony with ranks and merit badges given out to the Scouts. Very cool that five of them earned the special tracking merit badge - they were very proud of that.

 

At the end, I announced my resignation as Scoutmaster. What a fantastic seven years I've had watching "my" boys learn and grow. While I am sad to step down, the time had come. I could no longer be the kind of robust and energetic Scoutmaster I had been and wanted to continue to be.

 

As my health began to fail a few years ago, I wondered what would happen to our small Troop. We struggled for years, having little success in recruiting, with somewhere between 10-12 boys at any one time. I kept knocking on Pack doors, but still only got one or two takers a year, most preferring the two larger Troops in our area.

 

Then, in what I call a huge leap of faith, two Webelos Dens along with their leaders joined our Troop two years ago and our Troop grew from 9 to 24 Scouts. It took very little time before the boys learned how to be Boy Scouts and the adults shed their Cub Leader ways to become a most marvelous group of Assistant Scoutmasters.

 

One gentleman in particular stood out among the group. Although he announced during his Den's crossover that he was looking forward to retiring from leadership, within a month of joining the Troop he had signed up for SM training and never looked back. He is to be our new Scoutmaster.

 

Ah, but they don't want me to go away and asked me to stay on as Troop Committee Chair. I am looking forward to this new challenge in Scouting and continuing to watch the fellas as they make their journey in Scouting.

 

I posted a few photos of our Troop and my younger son's (Patrick) Eagle Ceremony from last summer. These are on the Scouter.com Facebook page.

 

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=172739770499

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Old Scoutmaster's never die, they just become Committee Chair!

 

Congratulations on your accomplishments as SM. You have a very lucky group of boys to have you as a leader. Thank You for your service to the boys and good luck to you in your next role as CC.

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