If you were unable to attend our annual dinner this past weekend, here's
the transcript of Council President Bob Confer's speech...
If you’re a sports fan, you know that the sports world was full of improbable comebacks over the past year.
Down 3 games to 1 in the NBA Championships against the best team in history, Lebron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers came back to win it all.
Then, in the Major League Baseball playoffs, the Chicago Cubs also came back from a 3-1 deficit to eliminate more than a century of misery.
And, last week….we got to see one of the most exhilarating Super Bowls ever when Tom Brady willed the Patriots to a win after being 25 points down.
Those were all awesome wins.
But they’re sports.
They're fun to watch, but do they really impact our day to day lives?
No.
But we were all involved in a comeback that did matter.
Everyone in this room contributed to a team effort that saw us win our own championship of sorts.
To understand that comeback, let’s go back in time to 2015.
2015 was not a good year for us. The Council’s finances were in the red. Camp attendance was down. Membership was down by more than 6%.
A lot of Councils would have a hard time coming back from that. Some never do.
But, like LeBron James and Tom Brady, everyone in this room, and all of our teammates not with us tonight, had a commitment to excellence…a sense of urgency…a desire to win our game ---- which is the game of Scouting.
2016 was one of those magical comebacks.
We went from being down in the dumps, to reaching the pinnacle --- in 2016 we became a Gold Council, something that less than 25% of all councils achieve in a given year.
That’s means we are the best of the best.
Fall recruitment was more than 20% higher than 2015 despite significant and immediate drops in the population of available youth in the area that surpassed 20% over the past 4 years.
Now, 1 in 4 boys who are of Cub Scout age across our 5 counties are Cub Scouts.
Camp attendance exploded, not only because of Zion’s camp but because of our scouts having a renewed interest, a new love affair, with our wonderful camps.
For the 10th year in a row we led all of NY in camping.
And, the Council made money.
We all came back.
The Council succeeded because YOU succeeded.
YOU are the Council.
It’s a team effort --- from our packs, troops and posts….to our district and council committees…to our executives and office staff…to our camp staffs and rangers.
It takes a lot of people with special talents to make a sports team win….it takes a lot more people with more special talents to make a Council win.
And how do we measure our wins?
Being a Gold Council is nice…as a matter of fact, it’s pretty darn awesome.
But that’s not our Super Bowl trophy or World Series ring.
What’s our trophy?
It’s the smile on the cub scout having fun at the Pinewood Derby.
It’s the young man becoming having that Eagle Scout medal pinned to his uniform.
It’s the pride we take when one of our scouts goes on to become a great husband, father and citizen.
Our trophies don’t sit on a shelf.
Our trophies are real.
So, thank you for engineering that comeback in 2016 and for being at the top of your game.
You do things that really matter.
And, America can’t thank you enough for that.
Thank you!
