Welcome to 2022. We are all experiencing changes in our council, some big and some small, but all will impact our Scouts.
Hopefully, one of these changes will be the lessening of the effects of COVID on our programs and permit units to get back to normal. This has hit Cub Scout packs hard. As a result, we have lost a number of Cubs and packs in the council. I encourage all commissioners to FOCUS on Cub Scouts for 2022. Visit and support our packs.
The Commissioner Service Team’s commitment to supporting your units has not changed. We are further reinforcing and encouraging unit attendance to all upcoming council activities, including the first International Scout Expo in Great Falls in June, and attending the council’s summer camp experience at K-M Scout Ranch. I am also pleased to say that, after two years of being nonoperational, Camp Melita Camp is full for 2022.
If you know units that have not yet registered for camp, please follow up with those units, and let’s get our youth to camp. There are open spaces at K-M Scout Ranch, one of the best-built summer camps in Scouting. We all know that if our programs are active and fun, the youth come in and stay.
On the commissioner front, we are changing how we will be delivering the College of Commissioner Science. We will offer regional colleges around the council offering degrees at the Bachelors level and taught by local instructors. These satellite colleges will be offered a few times a year with a shorter duration to be sensitive to our team’s time and be more targeted to WHEN commissioners could attend. The in-person college offering Masters and Doctorate degrees will be in March in Great Falls.
On to great things this year! As always, if you know someone who would make a positive addition to our team, let me or your district commissioner know.
Yours in Scouting,
Gary Ely
Montana Council Commissioner
