Scouters Club
30 September 2013
Tim Hortons, Findlay Creek
In attendance
Bill BaggsDAC Scouts/President
Brenda CummingTreasurer
David Ross28th Ottawa/Secretary
Sara Walker101st Ottawa
Charles Mandeville137th Ottawa
Nick Torrington-Smith1st Greely
Janice Chasse1st Greely
Opening
- Meeting was called to order at 7:05 p.m.
Review of Previous Minutes
- Minutes of the 10 June 2013 meeting were accepted as published.
Financial
- Nothing significant to report.
Old Business
- PL/APL and Outdoor Skills Training Recap. 40 youth attendees, 6 Venturers and 15 adults, which was a greater number of adults than anticipated. Weather was wet but the day successful. Venturers ran most of the training sessions. Feedback was good, especially for the PL/APL training portion of the day. There was some discussion of creating a canned training package for outdoor skills that would centre the training on permits (and possibly award participants the permit pins available from the Scout shop). The weekend turned a slight profit.
- Brotherhood CampRecap. Nick and Sara said the camp was well run with approximately 1600 Canadian and American Scouts in attendance (with a 40/60 Can/Am split). Weather was great and youth enjoyed themselves.
- Apple Day. 5-6 Oct 13. Most groups are participating.
- Rideau Area Activity Day (RAAD). 26 Oct 13. The 28thOttawa will run two Geocaching instructional sessions of one hour each. Although AndyShieldsPark contains seven registered caches, David said he would put out several (filled with nut free Halloween candy and surplus crests) just for the day. David is looking for Geocaching-savvy leaders to help run the day as well as basic GPS receivers and a call has gone out from Yvonne van Lith, the event organizer.
- Food Drive. 2 Nov 13. Three locations/three shifts per location this year plus the food bank itself. Participation responses due to John Staff ASAP.
- Klondike Derby. 1 Feb 14 (or alternate date 15 Feb 14). 1st Manotick organizing. Discussion deferred to next meeting.
- BridgeBuilding. 26 Feb 14. The 28thOttawa is running this biannual event. David will investigate RideauParkUnitedChurch again as a venue. It will soon be time to locate the trophies.
- Soapbox Derby. 13 Apr 14. Terry Fox Athletic Centre. The 28thOttawais organizing the event and will soon post details to the Rideau Area and Voyageur Council website.
- Paddle Night. 2 May 14. CarletonUniversity pool. Bill is organizing and he does not anticipate difficulty booking the pool again. Three hours of instruction worked well for the 2013 paddle night, so he will pursue this format again. There was some discussion about opening it up to other Areas.
- Rideau Challenge Journey 9-11 May 14. MarlboroughForest. 1st Manotick organizing. Discussion deferred to next meeting.
- Rideau Area Spring Camp 30 May-1Jun 14. Camp Sheldrick. 1st Greely organizing.
New Business
- Trophies and Crests. Bill handed out Scout Trucks trophies, Scout Truck crests (28thOttawareceived six but still needs 15 more) and 2012/2013 paddle night crests. David handed out Soapbox Derby crests. Bill mentioned his success with ordering crests from Emblemtek ( Trophies from Earl Bullis Engraving (
- Communication. Bill reinforced the importance of groups responding YES/NO to event organizers and then keeping them apprised of any changes. Bill will send out the Rideau Area troop contact list soon and will request groups populate it with the names of all section leaders, to include those who are still in training.
- Troop Visits. Bill will begin visits this week and noted he would like to see troops complete a meeting plan for each meeting. He outlined his evaluation checklist, which looks at items such as ratio and registered members.
- Properties. There was some discussion at Group Forum about a new Scouts Canada policy for use of private property. Bill outlined what was known and fieldedcomments and questions.
- CampNo’Chimik. The camp is closed and any group with equipment onsite is requested to remove it by end-March 2014.
- Scouters Conference 9November 13. The venue has changed from SmithsFalls to SirRobertBordenSecondary School on Greenbank Road. More information can be found at
- Troop Reports.
- 137thOttawa. 12-13 Scouts/5 leaders. Over the summer the troop camped for a week at Timber Lake Scout Camp.
- 1st Greely. 24 youth/11 leaders. The troop undertook a 3 night canoe trip to AlgonquinPark and sent two youth to the 2013 Canadian Jamboree (CJ ‘13).
- 101stOttawa. 10 youth/lots of new leaders (to include Cub leaders for ratio. The troop sent one youth and one adult to CJ ‘13.
- 28thOttawa. 29 youth/9 leaders. 22 Scouts, Venturers and leaders travelled to Perufor a Canadian Scout Brotherhood international community development project.
Adjournment
- The next meeting of the Scouters’ Club will be held 4 Nov (pending possible alignment with the next Scouters’ Summit) at Johnny Canuck’s in Findlay Creek
- The meeting was adjourned at 8:40 p.m.
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