FROM THE COUNCIL PROPERTIES COMMITTEE
As many of you know we have been working on ground up refurbishing and new construction throughout Fire Mountain Scout Camp for the past ten years. We probably have another ten years to go. Boy Scouts like many non-profits have a great tendency to raise money to build new things, but then let maintenance slide for a lack of funding. This is what happened to Fire Mountain over its first 40 years of existence. The Properties Committee is very committed to the new construction projects in our Camp Master Plan, but we are just as committed to maintain everything we build.
We have a tool that is the envy of Council’s around the nation… A $1.15 million dollar maintenance endowment. The original $1.05 million of this fund came from the sale of Camp Black Mountain. We fund major maintenance projects by utilizing 4% of the assets in this fund each year. Currently that amount is around $45,000. Some examples of the use of these funds recently is the replacement of our walk in cooler and walk in freezer attached to our kitchen. 2020 maintenance projects include the replacement of all of the Hollander Hall fire sprinkler heads, new stove tops, a new double capacity dish sanitizer, and various projects on Fort Boeing.
If you have not been to camp in the past couple of years you really need to see the amazing transformation. We are building a world class Scout camp, and we are also maintaining everything we build to ensure that it will remain a world class Scout camp for many generations in the future.
Scott Suchan
V.P. Properties
SUMMARY
It’s fun to “play” in the snow with your unit during the winter months! Beyond camping, a number of cold-weather activities however present challenges to Scouts and leaders, such as alpine or cross-country skiing, ice skating, sledding, snowmobiling, ice fishing, and snowshoeing. Essential ingredients for fun include skill training and an awareness of the hazards unique to these activities.
GENERAL INFORMATION
Here are a few key points that can help you safely have fun during your winter activities outdoors.
1. Activities should be supervised by mature and conscientious adults.
2. Participants should be aware of the potential dangers of any winter sport, and leaders should stress incident prevention by stressing proper technique.
3. Help participants understand the need for using appropriate personal protective equipment such as helmets for sledding, snowboarding, skiing, and snowmobiles. Be sure you are following local and federal regulations regarding the operating age or training for snowmobile use.
4. Winter sports are more physically demanding. Leaders and youth should be physically fit and capable to participate.
5. Be sure equipment fits each person properly.
6. During sledding, make sure the hill is safe and free of obstacles. Keep sledding paths and participant return paths separate from each other.
7. Talk about and gain support for the basic rules for the activity … before it begins.
8. Train Scouts and Leaders on Basic First Aid for Frost Bite, Hypothermia, Shock, Broken Bones, and Emergency Evacuation and Transportation.
RESOURCES
By Denise Lesniak, SR VP Membership
Add to Your Scouts BSA Troop!
It was one year ago, this month that we welcomed troops for girls into Scouts, BSA at Mount Baker Council. We currently have 11 of these troops serving almost 100 young women. We also have 135 troops for boys serving over 2600 young men. These young men and women put in 18,000 hours of service just working on Eagle Projects and earned 5,789 merit badges. Amazing!
This is a great time to recruit more scouts for your troops. New faces, skills and camaraderie add so much to the program for youth and volunteers. If you are looking for tips on how to recruit for your troop – here are a few suggestions:
Video clips and flyer templates, specific to troops are available at the “Marketing and Membership Hub” at Scoutingwire.org. There is great information and resources as well as the BSA Brand Center. Check it out and create your own troop flyers. Having troop meeting and contact information readily available is one of the keys to successful recruiting. Do not forget to have calendars or schedules available, too!
February is also a great month to check in with your local Cub Scout Packs (if you haven’t already) about Webelos transitions. It’s about that time of year when our Cub Scouts are ready to move into a Scouts BSA Troop. Your troop’s New Member Coordinator as well as your leaders and scouts should assist to make it a smooth transition.
If your troop needs assistance with recruiting more scouts, please contact your District Membership Chair as well as your field staff. They are here to help! Let’s be visible and share the scouting program with as many young men and young women as we can!
#ScoutMeIn
Family Friends of Scouting Campaign
Each year we invite the families of our current Scouts, as well as some of our alumni, to contribute toward the actual cost of providing the services, personnel, events and facilities needed to support the 170 Packs, Troops, Teams, Crews, Ships and Posts served by the Mount Baker Council. It costs about $205 to support one Scout for one year so we ask families to consider that amount as they pledge to support Scouting.
The District Family FOS Chairs and their helpers have been and will be contacting each unit to arrange for a short presentation to your families. Some units believe strongly in the need for this campaign and conduct a very successful effort without district help but many appreciate someone from the district making the appeal. So what is expected?
1. Attend your district’s FOS Kickoff to get a clear idea of how the campaign works and to pick up the materials you’ll need. This will be covered in each district’s January leader’s Roundtable meeting.
2. You are also encouraged to set a unit FOS goal.
3. If you have not already done so, schedule a presentation with your District Family FOS Chair. The District FOS Teams are shown below.
4. Prior to the presentation, give a letter to each of your families announcing the FOS date and explaining the need.
5. The unit leader should introduce the presenter by handing in their own completed FOS pledge card.
6. The Unit is then recognized for their FOS donation with custom FOS patches for those who qualify (see article). There are camp discounts for Presidential, Gold and Silver level units. There are free Rank advancement patches for units that have 100% participation.
Vision 2025 – On Membership
By Steven Davis, Council President
As part of our semi-annual off-site retreat, the Council Executive Board met the first weekend in January to review our accomplishments of 2019 and to compare our progress and strategic planning against our Vision 2025 – the councils’ 5-year plan.
Vision 2025 focuses on our three key areas for growth and long-term measures of success as a council, namely: Membership, Money, and Manpower.
Regarding Money and Manpower, over the past several years and sustaining through various leadership changes in the board and professional staff, the Mount Baker Council has upheld significant financial and training standards that are models for the rest of the country. As a result, we remain fiscally strong with an ongoing commitment to take on zero long-term debt. We keep a balanced budget and continue to fund our endowment to ensure our council is financially positioned to deliver our program for generations to come. Meanwhile, our training standards – annual youth protection training and maintaining 100% of leaders trained in their positions – are adopted standards that provide guidance to the council and ensures we’re delivering the best possible program for the young people in our care.
As a board, we’ve not adopted such rigorous standards when it comes to membership – recruiting new youth and retaining those youth in our packs, troops, ships, and crews. It’s no surprise that the board decided to center the discussion at our off-site retreat around Membership. We’ve set the bar in Money and Manpower standards and now’s the time to set the bar for Membership standards.
We have much to accomplish here: Increasing the level of proactive communication about all the good things we’re doing in our communities (marketing & PR); recruiting a board member to focus on Activities and Service (things like Scouting for Food and council-wide community service events); building stronger relationships with schools and districts (better school access = better recruiting opportunities), ensuring our packs are adequately resourced to fill full dens, and more.
The Council Key 3 and Executive Board will continue to iterate on the ideas and discussion from our off-site and we’ll drive to a set of standards and goals that set the bar for Membership growth and retention. Opportunity is everywhere – there’s no community within our service area where we’re serving more than 10% of available youth. Opportunity is everywhere – there’s not a child that can’t benefit from our program. Opportunity is everywhere – we’re a strong council with the resources and standards to serve these youth exceptionally well. Opportunity is everywhere – we have tremendous leaders and volunteers who are dedicated to serving these youth.
As I said, we have a lot of work to do, but I am confident that with the leadership from the Council Executive Board, we will lay the foundation in 2020 for the council to reach our Vision 2025 goals.
– Steven Davis
Join us at Fire Mountain Scout Camp for dinner and a presentation about
outdoor programs and opportunities available to your unit in 2020.
When: Sunday, Feb. 23; 4:00-6:00pm
Where: Dining Hall at Camp!
We will be sampling some of the new menu items for summer camp 2020, come prepared to be amazed!
This event is intended for Senior Patrol Leaders and Scoutmasters, Crew Presidents and Advisers, and Ship Botswains and Skippers.
Meet representatives from:
This event is sponsored Fire Mountain Scout Camp and is offered at no cost to attendees.
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North Cascades |
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Berthersun Park (Lynden) |
Twilight |
June 29-July 3 |
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Fire Mtn (Mount Vernon) |
Day |
August 10-13 |
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Oak Harbor |
Twilight |
July 13-17 |
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Pilchuck |
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Harvey Field (Snohomish) |
Day |
August 3-6 |
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McKinley (Arlington) |
Day |
June 22-25 |
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Salish Sea |
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Silver Lake (Everett) |
Day |
August 17-20 |
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Williams Farm (Bothell) |
Twilight |
July 20-24 |
Early-Bird Registration | March 1 – March 31 | $105
Look for Details Coming in February
Talk to your Cubmaster or Pack Day Camp
Coordinator to Register
Fire Mountain Scout Camp
Gaches’ Farm House: GOING OUT IN A BLAZE OF GLORY
The Gaches’ Farm House built in 1903 has served camp staff, volunteers, and all Scouters well for all of the 48 years it has been owned by the Council. Health and Safety issues and the need to regrade the upper parade field finally made the old farm house a greater liability than an asset. On Saturday November 23rd several local Fire Departments burned the house down for training. They started fires and then put them out all morning. At noon they started a fire they did not intend to put out. Here is a progression of pictures to give you a feel for what the 170 people in attendance experienced.
After the regrading of the parade field is complete this winter we will start the construction of the new M & E Turner and Family General Store. The new General Store will sit in roughly in the Old Farm House driveway near the current James E. West Administration building. It will be opened in time for the 2020 summer camping season
A little less exciting, but very important to the camp is the replacement of the entire water system going on right now. Since you will never see the water system when you visit camp here is a couple of pictures before it gets buried.
Every project we complete gets us one step closer to our goal… making Fire Mountain Scout Camp one of the top Scout Camps in the entire nation.
Scott Suchan
SVP Properties Committee
Octi-Bites
Order of the Arrow | News Worth Knowing
…Sikhs Mox Lamonti Lodge visits Scouts BSA Troops and Venture Crews every year to perform unit elections, promote camping and outdoor activities, and offer cheerful service in many forms. The visitation season runs from January 1 to May 31 each year. Reach out to your Chapter Chief today to schedule your 2020 visit!
…the youth membership of Sikhs Mox Lamonti met on Sunday, October 13 for the Lodge Annual Business Meeting. There, they elected the officers that will lead our lodge in 2020. These phenomenal young leaders are:
Lodge Chief Joshua Platte
Service Vice Chief Matthew Wiles
Administrative Vice Chief Andrew Dee
Program Vice Chief Ethan Hazard
Inductions Vice Chief Alexandria Visocky
Communications Vice Chief Jacob Jackson
…in 2020, Sikhs Mox Lamonti Lodge will be celebrating its 25th Anniversary! That’s 25 years of brotherhood, cheerfulness, and service. To join the celebration, consider some of these upcoming opportunities:
***Pay your dues in 2020, be a part of the magic all year long!
***Attend the Winter Fellowship, January 17-18
***Attend the Lodge Annual Banquet, January 18 @ 6pm
***Attend the Section W-1N Conclave, September 18-20 @ Fire Mountain!
Give the gift of Scouting!
The holidays are just around the corner – think Scouting! What a great gift idea for parents, grandparents and all families to give their youth. Just think about it. A yearlong gift of friendships, adventures, outdoor skills and camping – just to name a few. Scouting is a gift that keeps on giving as our first year Lions ultimately become Eagle Scouts.
This is a great way to present our programs as you continue recruiting new members. Look at your Journey to Excellence (JTE) Scorecard and see where you are on new scouts. If you are a Cub Scout unit – how close are you to our Membership Committee’s 2019 Hero Challenges?
7 Up Club: all packs are challenged to have 1 Lion Den AND 1 Tiger Den of 7 or more Scouts by December 31. This 7 Up Club will be invited to Fire Mountain for a FREE day of fun with a fishing frenzy, archery and more!
Drive for 5!: all Family Scouting Packs are challenged to add 5 or more girls (from last year’s total) to their unit by December 31. All young girls in the Pack will be invited to spend a FREE afternoon and evening campout with some of our local Scout BSA Troops for girls, at Fire Mountain!
Your unit may be just a Scout or two away from these challenges. Free hero capes and handbooks are still available for new Cub Scouts joining through the end of the year. Do not let them miss out! There is so much energy and excitement as they wear their red capes.
I would like to send out a special thanks to all of our leaders, parents, volunteers and everyone else who helps share the amazing program of Scouting. We have over 6,000 youth currently registered in our Council and that is as of October 31. I cannot wait to see what the rest of the year will bring.
As the membership committee works on goals for 2020, your unit should be thinking about them as well. It is never too early to start. How many youth do you want to add to your unit and how are you going to do that. How does your New Member Coordinator fit into the equation? Create your action plan and set your sights on 2020!
By Denise Lesniak
SR VP Membership
Mount Baker Council
