President's Corner #8
Jim HonanCouncil President
Our 100th Anniversary Year – A Great Success! Let’s build on it.
We are about to conclude our 2010 celebration of Scouting’s 100th Anniversary with our Council’s ultimate activity. What a great success this year has been for our Council! And what more appropriate way to finish our year of celebration than with a exciting and inspiring event recognizing of those who have attained the highest level of accomplishment in Scouting, the rank of Eagle Scout?
Calling All Eagles - Centennial Eagle Dinner will celebrate all the Scouts who have attained the rank of Eagle this year and their families. In recognition of the Centennial of Scouting, we are putting special emphasis on inviting all Eagle Scouts, young and old alike, to also join us in this event. The Recognition Dinner will be held at 4:00 pm on Sunday, December 5, 2010, at Via Bella Restaurant in Countryside. Information on this exciting event is available in CyberNews and registration forms are available at the Council Service Center.
If you know of past Eagle Scouts that we might not have contacted, we would like to invite them to this event to share in the honors. Also, the family with the most generations of Eagles will be specifically recognized in the ceremony. If you have information on past Eagles, please contact the Service Center via email at dpvc147@scouting.org.
This event will cap a busy and successful year of celebrations aimed at increasing public awareness and support for the Scouting movement and setting the stage for our next century of achievement in serving youth and our communities. That, in summary, was the goal we set for ourselves in our 2010 Anniversary program. With the concerted effort and support of you, our Scouts, volunteers and professional staff, I’m sure we have achieved that.
I’d like to remind you of some of the high points of our ambitious and highly successful Anniversary program, which really began late in 2009.
- It all began with the Century of Values Motor Home Tour presentation ceremony at our Service Center August 18, 2009. The visit was part of the Detroit Area Council’s Anniversary initiative to have teams visit every Scouting Council in the nation before the Anniversary date, February 8, 2010, to present commemorative Centennial portraits thanking the local Councils for their professional service to youth in their communities. Fourteen staff teams were used to make 350 stops, covering 45,000 miles in the process. If you haven’t had a chance to see the portrait presented by the Team to our Council, be sure to do so next time you visit the Service Center.
- September 25-27, 2009, youth and adult leaders from our Council participated in the Great Lakes Centennial Jamboree, at the Experimental Aircraft Association Grounds in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Twenty-one councils were represented, with attendance of 10,144. More than 600 youth from our Council participated, representing 30 Troops, 2 Packs, and 1 Crew.
- February 8, 2010 – A Rededication Ceremony, our first Anniversary-year event, was held at the Council Service Center in La Grange. The outdoor ceremony at the Service Center brought together Scouts, volunteers, professional staff, Chartered Partners, and invited guests (including elected officials and news media) from the communities the Council serves to join in a recommitment to the values and goals of Scouting. Afterwards, participants and guests signed a colorful poster, now on display in the Service Center, featuring the rededication language. Similar ceremonies across the Council involved Districts and individual units with Scouts and Scouters rededicating themselves to the Values and our future goals for service to youth. A video of this moving ceremony is available on our web site.
- February 18, 2010- The Des Plaines Valley Council Annual Meeting and Banquet was held at the Riverside Golf Club in North Riverside. This year we gave special emphasis to our Anniversary as we recognized four of our volunteers whose service on behalf of youth and Scouting merited the Council’s highest award, the Silver Beaver.
- May 2, 2010, during Chicago’s Cinco de Mayo celebration in Douglas Park, our Council joined with the Chicago Area Council to support and staff Adventure Base 100. One of BSA National’s most ambitious 100th Anniversary initiatives, the multiple trailer exhibit featured state-of-the-art exhibits, multi-media presentations. Several thousand people visited the Adventure Base over six days and many new contacts were established in the Hispanic community with potential supporters and new recruits. Our Council assisted in planning the visit and had the lead for staffing the Adventure Base on May 2, a day in which more than 3,000 visitors were counted at the formal entry gateway. As the Adventure Base continues to tour the nation, a time capsule we assembled of artifacts reflecting our Council’s history, facilities, and community setting is part of the exhibit presentation and will be permanently retained at BSA Headquarters in Texas. Adventure Base 100’s 40th and final stop will be at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York.
- June 12, 2010 – In a World Record Attempt, Scouts and volunteers gathered at Lyons Township High School South’s Field House to attempt to establish a new world record for knot-tying to commemorate our Anniversary year. The result was a great turnout, an impressive demonstration of teamwork, and the establishment of a new local Council record. Although we fell short of besting the standing Guinness record, we had a great experience, with about 300 participants tying a knotted rope chain of 6,318 feet in 5 minutes using 3 foot pieces of rope. All those involved look forward to a future attempt to break that World Record.
- July 25, 2010 – Des Plaines Valley Council Scouter and Board Member Ernie Froemel was among nearly 300 Scouts and Scout leaders nationwide named to the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) 100th Anniversary National Hall of Leadership. He was selected from an outstanding field of nominees from our Council because of the “positive and motivating role he has played in the Scouting experiences of both young people and other volunteers, for whom he has been as both an inspiration and role model.”
- July 26, 2010 – Two Troops from our Council joined more than 45,000 Scouts and Leaders beginning 10 days of once-in-a-lifetime Scouting experiences at the Boy Scouts 100th Anniversary National Jamboree at Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia.
- September 18, 2010 – After a long hiatus, Scout-O-Rama returned after many years to help us celebrate our Anniversary year at Brookfield Zoo. Despite the uncooperative weather, our Scouts and zoo visitors experienced a truly great day of Scouting, and another huge success! This was not only a fun event for our Scouts and Volunteers, but a rare opportunity for us to show the value of Scouting to the public and build greater interest and support.
- October 9, 2010 – Our 100th Anniversary Celebration Gala was held at the La Grange Country Club. The black-tie optional affair united our leadership and staff with our supporters in the 43 western and southern communities we serve in the penultimate celebratory highlight of 2010 anniversary activities.
All this has involved the hard work and dedicate efforts of scores of our volunteers and the continued highly professional work by our staff. Many, many people have been involved. I want to particularly note our former President Bill Seith for his leadership of the Anniversary Planning Committee and all those who worked with him, both on the Committee and on specific events and activities.
I believe our Council has very successfully met the challenge presented by our Anniversary as an opportunity to enhance the awareness and value of Scouting in our communities and to set the stage for our next century of providing service to youth though our program.
We have made progress and have momentum; let’s take advantage of them for the sake of the youth we serve.
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