Boy Scouts of America Troop507

I met with the new priest at St. Marks yesterday to get some paperwork signed. Father Stephen is a younger man (late thirties)who was never a Scout as a youth. He didn't know much about the Scouting program. He was unaware that St. Marks even had a Scouting program until I met with him.

In the past, Father Ken was very much a hands-off kind of Chartered Organization Head. He pretty much let us do our thing and popped in on a very rare occassion. Father Stephen is probably going to be a little more involved.

Since he has no experience with Scouting, he is leaving the bulk of the operations up to the Pack and Troop (the same as it's been) however, h'd like us to be more involved in church operations. To that end, I'll be the Chartered Organization Representative for Pack 507, Troop 507 and the Girl Scouts. I have to report to the Parish Council. One thing we'll do is present the annual Charter to the Council each March with a report on what we've been up to the past year. He wants us to be more of a part of the Outreach Program at St. Marks -doing things like Scouting for Food. He specifically mentioned when we do things like Scouting for Food, that we let the Parish know so that more Parish members could help us.

What he is asking of us is to adopt part of the facilities at St. Marks. Since the Pack meets down by Berg Hall, he wants them to adopt it, keep it clean and in good repair. The same goes with the Strenski Center and the Troop. He'd like to see us put more effort into the grounds and building at the Strenski Center.

St. Marks has a Youth Program, but it is almost non-existant. He would like to see Scouting at St. Marks and the Youth Program have a better relationship as well. This is not to make Scouting more "churchy" but rather to give the youth at St. Marks (he mentioned specificially the Hispanic youth) a place to belong. "Why rebuild a youth program from scratch when we already have a very active program in place with Scouts?"

When the Troop Calendar is completed in the next couple of weeks, you'll see a few more service hour opportunities for our Chartered Organization - St. Marks.