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The 2001 Scout-O (Nov 10-11) was a huge success again this year with well over 400 youth representing 47 scout units from all over Central New York, from Watertown to Binghamton and from Ontario to Holland Patent, in addition to 30 recreational public over the two days. The scout units consisted of 31 BSA Troops, 2 BSA Venture Crews, 9 BSA Cub Scout Packs, and 5 GSUSA Troops.
The great success was due in large part to the consistently high level of organizational efficiency among the CNYO volunteers for this event. (Just getting better and better all the time!) This is evidenced by the repeated returns over the years by many of the troops. They love the Scout-O. In addition, this year set a record for weather comfort -- with bright sunshine, balmy temperatures and no wind, we kept pinching ourtselves to see if this really was a Scout-O, as the norm has been rainy/snowy/windy/cheerless misery.
Thanks (that word doesn't begin to convey the depth of gratitude) go to many folks: to Steve Bayes who designed the White, Yellow, and Orange courses, took charge of the on-going instruction for hours on Saturday morning and then with his son Bryan helped post results; to Mark, Barb & Ramana Dominie for laying out the Start chutes and recording 303 Start times Saturday plus 60 more on Sunday, in addition to having spent untold hours preparing the maps -- a multi-task which included overprinting the courses, creating and attaching control description sheets, folding and stuffing into map cases, sealing them, and stacking them in their respective course boxes; to Eric Smith and to Wendy Alberg who worked Finish on Saturday and to Ann & Charlie Leonard at the Finish on Sunday, a job by the way which included not only recording finish times but also checking punchcards and hanging them up; to Larry Parmelee who so ably assisted me at Registration and Snack/Souvenir sales all day both days; to Mitch Hansen who arrived early Saturday to pre-run and stayed on to help out where needed; to Peter Dady and to Shawn Forney for likewise helping out throughout the weekend; and of course, to Bob Ireland, director of the popular Sunday Score-O patrol team event which attracted 22 teams, approximately 125 kids. I can not say who all participated in control pick-up/Turkey-O set-up, but there were quite a few and I thank them. If other helpers are left out of this message, please forgive me the oversight and send a correction. I did not get outside the registration area for very long either day, so I may well have missed seeing other workers who were there.
Several suggestions for revising the format of our Scout-O have been brought up and we'll be in the process of working out details for future Scout-O's during the coming months. If you have ideas, jot them down and send them soonwhile it's still comparatively fresh in mind, to be compiled for discussion. (Doing this last year helped a lot in the planning for this year.) The upcoming dates are 9-10 Nov 2002 and 8-9 Nov 2003 (Highland Park wanted to put the 2003 dates on their calendar and troops are reserving cabins already).
Again, many thanks to all who volunteered with this effort......