Last week, we kicked off our council’s year of Scouting with our annual meeting. We talked about how 2024 went and looked ahead to 2025. We elected our executive board for the new year and bid farewell to Steve Hammond as our council president while welcoming in Mike White to the role moving forward. It was a great meeting to talk about the business of Scouting.

This is important for our units because they rely on this group to conduct that business so they can focus on developing the young people we serve into the citizens we want them to become. The role of the board is to be a resource for our units, providing them with the tools they need to offer the Scouting program in our council. Our commissioners are there to link the units and the board. To talk with our units about what they may need so that the board can make sure they have it or come up with a way to make things work with what we do have.

As we begin this year we will celebrate 115 years of Scouting in the United States next month. That is also 115 years of commissioner service, because commissioners have been there from the very beginning. Our role has always been to serve our units, but we are always changing things up a bit to meet the needs of our youth. This year is no different but our role remains the same: serving our units. Helping our volunteers provide a quality program to our youth. We will continue to work with the executive board to provide those resources that our units need to carry on the activity of Scouting, letting the board focus on the business.

I am looking forward to another year of Scouting in our council, especially as we celebrate 75 years of Camp Shenandoah in Swoope. We have lots of exciting things coming.