In his “Corner” article on page 4, LAAC Scout Executive Paul Moore conveys his thoughts about heroism and five Troop 783 (Pacifica) Scouts who were awarded BSA’s Heroism Award for their diligent life saving efforts during a troop backpacking trip on Catalina Island. Andrew Boules, Ste-ven Breitenstein, Luke Bucklew, Nathan Dethlefsen and Brian Zhang received their awards at a Court of Honor held in October.

W H O A R E Y O U R H E R O S ? INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

Showing Our Colors 2

BSA & Social Networks 2

BSA Philanthropy 3

ESA Survey Results 3

Jamboree, What a Hoot! 5

Got A Minute? 5

Scout Exec’s Corner 4

Geocaching! 4

Eagles in Flight! Eagles in Flight! Newsletter Fall 2010

M E E T A A R O N I S A A C S O N

Eagle Scout (1993) Aaron “Ike” Isaacson is one of eleven injured soldiers partici-pating in the “Soldier to the Summit” challenge in Octo-ber. Ike and his colleagues will climb Lobuche East lo-cated just 8.7 miles from the summit of Mount Everest. At 20,075 feet, this striking peak will require good physi-cal conditioning and adequate time to adjust to the altitude. Ike has served three deploy-ments to Afghanistan and is

Upcoming LAAC Events:

October 29—Over The Edge Bonaventure Hotel rappelling fund raiser.

November 11—Glow In The Dark golf fund raiser at Norwalk Golf Course.

November 19-21—5th annual Mountain Man Thunder Rendezvous at FLSR.

December 4—University of Scouting held at Ribet Academy in Los Angeles.

For more information and registration for these events, go to www.boyscoutsla.org.

now part of the Kansas Army National Guard. Of his experi-ences, Aaron humbly claims, “I’m an average guy from a small Kansas town who is in-credibly fortunate to have got-ten to see the world, meet tre-mendous people, and experi-ence things that I never thought I would get a chance to see.” Yet this “average guy” has been awarded two Bronze Star Med-als, a Purple Heart, an Army Commendation Medal, an Army Achievement Medal and many other awards, including the

Order of St. Maurice from the Na-tional Infantry Association. Good luck, Ike!

Eagles in Fl ight ! Newslet ter

From time to time Eagle Scout user groups on Facebook, Twit-ter, and LinkedIn wind up dis-cussing when it is appropriate to promote one’s Eagle Scout award. “Should I include my award on a job application?” and “Do you wear an Eagle Scout lapel pin when meeting with customers and pros-pects?” are two often discussed topics.

Invariably, the consensus of

opinion affirms the appropri-ateness of doing both. Experi-ence has shown that many good things come about when two people become aware that they share achievement of the Eagle Scout rank in common. ‘Nuff said.

For the centennial year, Scoutstuff.org makes wearing a lapel pin even better by issuing a 100 year edition in Sterling silver! $24.99 online

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B O Y S C O U T S O F A M E R I C A A N D S O C I A L M E D I A — A G R O W T H O P P O R T U N I T Y

SH OW I N G OU R CO L O R S

bered to post their award when signing up on the net-work.

Looking for a Boy Scout or Eagle Scout Facebook user group to join? Today, you have over 500 you could join; there will be more tomorrow. While you’re looking, check out ScoutStuff.org’s FB page for special promotions and dis-counts on Scouting apparel and other merchandise.

Besides being great communi-cation channels, social net-works and related media add a “cool factor” to Scouting that can augment our camping, hiking, community service experiences. 500 million Facebook users and 5 billion video streams on YouTube per month suggest that being part of this cyberspace mainstream is important. Speaking of You-Tube, did you know that nearly

1,000 Boy Scouts were so proud of their National Jam-boree experiences that they posted their videos there? More importantly, those vid-eos have been viewed by nearly 500,000 people world-wide. Oh, and if videos were-n’t enough, there are 160,000 portfolios of photos on Flickr with the “Boy Scout” tag and another 20,000 tagged as “Eagle Scout.”

Scouting’s contribution to the social network phenomenon is centered in its sense of common purpose, motto, and law. It is this sense of com-mon purpose that spawns Facebook groups, LinkedIn connections, and Twitter followers.

So, be cool, get plugged in. Check Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter for the latest on Boy Scouts of America!

BSA and the realm of social media networks are celebrat-ing significant milestones in 2010 — Boy Scouts of America turned one hundred years old while the oldest recognized social media platform hit the ripe old age of five.

Although separated in age by almost two full generations, Boy Scouts and the myriad social media offerings provide each other significant advan-tages by collaborating. For instance, you can find 2,500 videos on YouTube when the search term is “Eagle Scout.” Many of these clips are of proud Scouts and their fami-lies at a Court of Honor. Searching for “Boy Scouts” generates twice as many hits.

At least 38,500 Eagle Scouts participate in LinkedIn, the business and professional social network and those are just the Scouts who remem-

“My Eagle Scout lapel pin is good

for two new friends a month.”

Robb Scoular Past-President,

LAAC

and at the Scout Store in LA and Cabrillo.

Eagles in Fl ight ! Newslet ter

It’s a well known and docu-mented fact that the state of the U.S. economy has impinged on all business sectors includ-ing charitable donations. Fortu-nately for Boy Scouts of Amer-ica, its youth development and leadership training programs for Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, Explor-ers, and Venture Crews appear to have been rewarded through sustained growth in private donations despite these reces-sionary times.

Donations to the country’s 400 biggest charities suffered the worse decline in giving since the Chronicle of Philanthropy started ranking fundraising

organizations two decades ago.

The Chronicle’s Philanthropy 400 rankings for 2009 show six of the top ten charities reported declines in donations, including United Way Worldwide (off 4.5 percent) and the Salvation Army (off 8.4 percent.)

BSA is ranked number 35 in the Philanthropy 400 and actually gained by 2.0 percent over 2008’s level of giving. Unfortu-nately, other youth-serving or-ganizations did not fare as well. YMCA donations were down 17.2 percent while Boys and

Girls Clubs of America slid by 7 percent from its 2008 total.

Still, while it’s clear that the economy has yet to rebound fully, another survey published by Blackbaud found that chari-table giving actually grew dur-ing the summer months sug-gesting better times ahead for America’s human-services organizations.

LAAC is in the midst of its an-nual fund development plan; several events are scheduled throughout the year— check out our table on page 1 and www.boyscoutsla.org.

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T H E R E S U L T S O F E A G L E S C O U T A S S O C I A T I O N S U R V E Y A R E I N !

B S A’ S M E S S A G I N G R E S O N A N T S W I T H A M E R I C A ’ S D O N O R S

Our thanks to all the Eagle Scouts who participated in our online survey in September. We received some great guidance and additional suggestions for social and support activities. It’s gratifying to note that virtually every respondent is eager to participate in upcoming events designed to improve the quality of our camping facilities and the programs they offer. We’ll be promoting them in later issues of Eagles in Flight. As to the social aspect, we had a neck-and-neck tie between meeting in sports bar to watch Monday Night Football or similar programming and a more upscale event held at Club 33. Both are being worked on now. Here’s how the voting broke down.

Additional social event suggestions provided by the group included weekend campouts, a hiking out-ing and chili cook-off, Dodger or Angels baseball, go-kart racing, a dinner cruise and a rotating down-town breakfast series. All good thoughts; thanks for the extra ideas. Thanks again for taking part!

“Hello, we are Eagle Scouts--

how about a local hike or

backpacking trip?”

Nicolas Nelson

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Eagles in Fl ight ! Newslet ter

Who Are Your Heroes?

We speak in Scouting of putting young people un-der the leadership of good role models, who often become their heroes. But every so often, we see young people who become our heroes. It was my privilege to meet five such Scouts recently, at a Court of Honor for Troop 783 in Rolling Hills. These young men are pictured in the photo on page 1.

Vice-President John Jaacks and I were invited to attend and to present BSA Hero-ism Medals to these young men. They worked to save the life of one of their adult leaders, and the father of one of the group. They were not able to save his life, but his family has the comfort of knowing that knowledgeable, caring peo-ple were there to do every-thing that could have been done for him. Troop 783 is an out-standing troop, with many activities, plenty of ad-vancement, and a large group of handsome young men in perfect uniform. They are fortunate to serve an affluent area, but they serve Scouts who need help as well. And they serve youth who have many options in life, and choose to be Scouts. Whether in LA’s areas of extreme poverty, or areas of affluence, heroic adults

are creating heroic youth. LA Scouting is a great place to be!

Paul

have a safe time while searching for geocaches

Geocaching etiquette and how the principles of “Leave No Trace” apply

Geocaching terms

How GPS technology works

Steps for finding and log-ging a cache

Here’s another example of BSA moving forward. There are cur-rently 1.2 million geocaches in operation worldwide. Find one today at geocaching.com.

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S C O U T E X E C U T I V E ’ S C O R N E R

T I M E L Y T H O U G H T S F R O M P A U L M O O R E

As the Centennial year winds to its conclusion, Boy Scouts of America is starting the roll-out of its newest merit badge—Geocaching. The design work for the badge was issued in April and in October Garmin (the GPS folks) unveiled the artwork for the booklet on its website.

Those earning the Geocaching merit badge will learn:

Precautions necessary to

“On My Honor, I’ll Do My Best”

W H O W I L L T H E F I R S T T O E A R N T H E N E W G E O C A C H I N G M E R I T B A D G E ?

Editorial note: Only 82 of these medals were awarded nationwide in 2009.

2333 Scout Way Los Angeles, CA 90026

LAAC Eagle Scout Associat ion 2010 NA T I O NA L JA M B O R E E:

WH A T A HO OT!

LAAC ESA Committee

John MacAllister Chairman Brian Curtis Staff Advisor Hannibol Sullivan Staff Advisor Don Crocker Robert Gierat Gary Jones Paul McNulty David Meshulam Greg Mitchell Gerry Morton William Plourde, Jr. John Pollock Rick Richmond Steven J. Rothans Nobby Schnabel Robert F. Scoular Steve Silbiger David Tomblin Bob Ulrich

Volunteers are always welcome!

The Los Angeles Area Council and our Association were well represented at the 2010 National Jamboree this summer. Our contingent include four Boy Scout troops, our Scout Executive and numerous volunteers fulfilling valuable roles throughout the encampment. Here are a few (but not all) of the boys, staff, and vol-unteers who experienced a once-in-a-lifetime event.

Got A Minute?

The LAAC Eagle Scout Asso-ciation is looking for volun-teers to help round out our advisory committee. Clever and enthusiastic Eagle Scouts (goes without saying, we guess) are asked to con-tact John MacAllister at the offices of Dorado Industries (310) 544-1316 or Brian Curtis at the Scout Center (213) 413-4400.

LAAC staff and volunteers prop up the National Scout Executive!