March 2020 Newsletter

Posted in newsletter on March 12, 2020 by Gene Liverman ‐ 5 min read

March 2020 Newsletter

Are you waterlogged yet?

Let’s kick this month’s update off with a couple of headlines:

Multiple events have been canceled or postponed due to COVID-19. Please see the full announcement below.

Our district banquet has been rescheduled but it’ll only be interesting if more nominations are submitted. Fortunately, you can help with that! See the announcement here for more details.

COVID-19 page setup

I have setup a page that we will keep updated regarding how COVID-19 is impacting our district. You can find it at /covid-19.

March Roundtable canceled

This month’s Roundtable is canceled.

2020 AAC College of Commissioners Science postponed

Out of an abundance of caution, we have made the difficult decision to postpone this weekend’s “2020 AAC College of Commissioner Science”. The college will be rescheduled ASAP once the current coronavirus pandemic is behind us. All registrations will remain valid until a new date is selected. Participants with a conflict on the new date will be able to request a refund at that time. Thank you for your understanding and patience. We are all very excited to deliver you an excellent commissioner training event - once it is safe to do so.

2020 “Sweet River Summit” Camporee ⛺ postponed

The theme for the upcoming camporee is Scouting For All. We want to be inclusive for all. Some of our special needs community is at a much higher risk than the general public for complications from the COVID-19 virus. In that spirit, we have made the difficult decision to reschedule the camporee for August 21-23. We hope you will make the necessary changes to your calendars to join us then.

March District Committee Meeting

Carter Smith gave us an update our finances. As of the 5th we were at 72.65% of district fundraising goal. April 1st is the target date to get all donations in.

Looking ahead to next year, we want to involve more people around the district in the fundraising process so that it’s less of a burden on any one person AND it should make it easier to get to our goal since more people means more relationships with potential donors.

Shifting gears to camp cards, sales are continuing. We need to sell at least 56% of all cards handed out to meet our district goal, aka $53,000.

Scott Bates updated us on the banquet: very few nominations have been submitted so far so, unless you want to watch one or two units take home everything, now is the perfect time to go nominate a deserving individual from your unit… well, finish reading this first and then go nominate them. Cutoff for nominations is 6pm on March 14th. The cost is $10 at the door.

Doc Ken Calain brought us up to speed on advancement. To kick things off, let’s check out some statistics on Eagle Scouts per year:

20182019
2824

Doc recently emailed all units with some information about advancement. Be sure to keep an eye out for the message.

A note on community service hours: make sure eagles get added to troop info. It seems that a lot of work that happens as part of their project doesn’t get recorded at the troop level.

Merit badge counselors: one of the new background check authorization forms is required for every counselor (and adult leader).

Last, but not least, a reminder that Scoutmasters should not be entering Advancement. Recording advancement is a function of the unit committee. The unit advancement chair should be communicating with the troop scribe to keep all advancement update (Troop Committee Guidebook pg. 16). If the troop does not have an unit advancement chair this responsibility falls on the unit committee chair. Neither of these roles are to be filled by a SM or ASM.

Kyle Taylor updated us on training… sorta. His hands are mostly tied while we wait for recharters to be processed (Carter said only 45% of recharters had posted as of March 5th 😞). Even with that challenge he did have a few key updates:

  • IOLS Scouts BSA Outdoor Leader Training coming up on March 14th at Clinton Nature Preserve. Registration info is available on the Council website at https://www.atlantabsa.org/iols.

  • Position specific training is being offered on demand this year. Just contact Kyle and he’ll make it happen.

  • Lots of people’s Youth Protection Training is expiring. 40+ expire this month alone.

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Georgia Deakin updated us on activities: we talked about events that will be happening at the camporee. Among other awesome sounding things, we will have a Scout doing pledge and other ceremonies in American Sign Language. Registration is $10 now, $15 after the 15th of March. You can register here. Two additional notes:

  • I was particularly happy to hear that multiple female units will be attending this year’s event.
  • OA will be selling food.

Georgia also let us know that we are still in need of a new camping chair. Please reach out if you or anyone you know might be interested.

Gene Liverman presented our new website site to the committee and got okay to switch over. We are actively adding to it and would love your feedback or contributions. (Sorry for talking about myself in the 3rd person… it just didn’t look right without a name at the beginning of this section.)

Larry Cohran helped me straighten out or org chart… the one I sent last month was a little off. With his guidance I’ve been able get things squared away. The result is an actual chart posted on the main Committee page.

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