May 3, 2023 Breakfast Meeting Notes
We began with Tony’s famous trivia, scholarship activities for NH students edition. Tony will be away for the next 3 weeks but when he returns he will do trivia on the theme of NH scenes on the $1 scratch tickets.
Nancy won the 50/50
Card game: Tony got the chance to draw but did not draw the ace. We play again.
Our speaker today is the Hon. Gerry Boyle. He is a longstanding Boy Scout leader at the local, state, and national levels. He has supervised the annual Boy Scout Jamboree in 2017. He is a retired Marine colonel and serves on the boards of a number of veterans’ organizations. He has been a judge and presided over the Concord Circuit Court for 11 years. He was our 2020 Rotary Citizen of the Year. He was also a founding member of First Star Tonight. Today he spoke to us about the Boy Scouts.
Gerry began by recounting how his son was speaking to a Brigadier General who was academic dean at West Point. The general asked his son to tell him about himself. When the son mentioned that he was an Eagle Scout, the general said that being a scout was the single best predictor of success at West Point, because it meant that the student had the gumption to start a project and finish it and had been exposed to the values of scouting.
In New Hampshire, there were 12,000 scouts prior to the pandemic, while today there are only 4000. The organization just came out of bankruptcy triggered by the lawsuits for sexual abuse (88,000 claims were filed, out of 100 million scouts). 78% of claims were from over 30 years ago. Today scouting has instituted youth protection programs and they actually teach other service organizations how to keep kid safe.
What is scouting all about in NH? The purpose of scouting is to develop young men and women of character. Ten years ago the Boy Scouts stopped refusing to take gay students, and 2 years later, girls were allowed to participate. The Cub Scouts, 7-10 years old, are coed. The “adventuring” program for kids 14-18 has always been coed. The 11-18 year old group has separate boy and girl troops. Programs are identical. They keep separate troops because girls rise to the top leadership positions, while the boys lag, and of course part of the point of scouting is to develop leadership abilities.
Here in NH we still have traditional Boy Scout outdoor activities, but the camps also have horseback riding, scuba diving, kayaking, ORV, and high adventure hikes. They also teach welding, firemanship, STEM and robotics. Many young people have no idea that such diverse opportunities are available in scouting. Our local Plymouth troop consistently has 6 Eagle Scouts per year. Their camp in Gilmanton is open during the summer and all are invited to visit. They happily accept donations to help kids attend the program.
Denise reported on the district celebration. It was a great time, amazing presenters, and the workshops were valuable. DG Caroline has been phenomenal. One of the programs was on Offers and Needs. Each person at a table made a list of offers and a second list of needs, then participants went around the table seeing anyone’s offer matched another person’s needs.. It was a great way to make a connection. Susan and Steve’s presentation on the Common Man for Ukraine project was very moving and inspiring.
The Common Man for Ukraine had a $25,000 challenge grant that ended on April 30 and thanks to the generosity of rotarians at the celebration they met the goal. Steve, Susan, Alex and Lisa will be going back to Poland tonight for 10 days. They will be going to a facility for kids under stress who have lost at least 1 parent; Ukrainian Rotarians take them to the border and then their Polish counterparts pick them up and take them to a ski area where they can decompress and be kids and get trauma counseling. Each camp session costs $30,000 and they hope to do 10 sessions.
The Fisher Cats game is coming on June 1 and we need volunteers to sell raffle tickets and give out hats. (Alex bought 1000 baseball caps to give to folks who bring a Cman receipt). Volunteers should be there by 5:30. Tickets are $12-$14 each and we could buy a block for our group (ticket sales peak early and after that we can watch the game). Two other districts are interested in supporting it as well.
Bonnie from Meredith Rotary Club was also inn attendance. Their club has a “Clean up the Lake” day on May 13. They go out in boats and remove trash from the water and some of the beaches. They are getting a few new younger members. The fishing derby did make their fundraising goal because, despite the warmish weather, there was ice on some of the smaller lakes.
Respectfully submitted,
Lora Miller, secretary