SCOUT EXECUTIVE'S MINUTE

Dear Fellow Scouters:

Several weeks ago I came across several old photographs. Some were family photos of the late 1800’s when my great grandparents first arrived in the USA from Germany. They included the old family house in Cramer Hill, New Jersey where many German immigrants settled, of the family canoeing on the Rancocas Creek, of my great uncle’s Studebaker Commander (quite a cool car for the time), of my mother as a child vacationing on the beach in Atlantic City, and of my great grandparents move to the new house in the suburbs of what has now become Cherry Hill. There was a photo of my parents ascending Pike’s Peak in Colorado before I was born along with photos spanning four decades of various family members visiting the Mount Washington Valley in New Hampshire (probably because it reminded them of Karlsruhe, Pforzheim, and Stuttgart from the old country). For my entire childhood, the great majority of my family lived within four miles of one another --- four generations of the Kirchgassner’s compacted into the Southern New Jersey suburbs of Philadelphia.

As I sorted through my desk the photos changed. Now there were Scout photos from all over the USA. Pictures of me at the 1969 National Jamboree panning for gold, Troop 142 at Pine Hill Scout Reservation all lined up in our crisp new uniforms dating from 1965 through 1970 with the Troop expanding or contracting depending upon the quantity and quality of the Troop’s adult leadership from year-to-year, a photo from our council’s junior leader training course in 1972, photos from various trips including Philmont, several BSA Annual Meetings in San Diego, Seattle, Nashville, Boston, Atlanta, and Dallas, photos of former camps and offices, photos from a golf tournament, various volunteers over the years and fellow professionals, photos of our current office before we did some redecorating, and of my oldest son graduating from college this past May.

How this odd assortment of memories spanning over a century had been lumped into one desk drawer and moved from state to state over the last thirty years (and survived) is beyond any rational explanation. Now they’re neatly stored away in an album, marked with the who, what, where, and when to the best of my ability. And now my kids and potentially their children some day will know a little more about where they came from. Over the years I’ve collected our own photos and they are neatly stored in thirty albums lined up side-by-side on a bookcase. This album is different as it is a collection of other people’s photos given to me to celebrate an occasion or capture a memory --- an outsider’s look at our family.

Through Scouting, what type of memories are we collecting for our members today? What are we teaching them in terms of values? What is the legacy that will be left to this generation when they become adults? Are we providing a balanced program of learning, doing, community service, skills development, and fun? What could we do differently now to help improve the overall experience? What will they actually remember when all is said and done? Looking back, what is their outsider’s look at our Scouting family?

Best regards,
Stephen J. Taylor, CFRE
Scout Executive
staylor@bsamail.org