Second Anniversary Letter from the SCOUT eh! Chair

August 4th, 2006

Fellow Scouters,

Today is the second anniversary of the founding of SCOUT eh!. It has been an interesting two years with plenty of highs and lows. However the fire still burns and the task is still before us. Having to adapt to a constant change of players and policies makes our job challenging. Despite our own work schedules and Scouting chores we have accomplished much. Someone is always ready to carry the torch when others do not have the time or resources. Thank you all for standing with us.

The SCOUT eh! Rescue Rally is on August 26th in Ottawa. We hope it will be well attended. The more of us that attend, the larger the impact we can have. So if you can lend your support even for a couple of hours, please do. Most of us are making a weekend of it. For more details see our website at www.scouteh.ca.

Glenn Armstrong, our National Commissioner, has told us that nobody from National Staff, the Board of Governors, or the Management Committee will show and meet with us. This is an affront to all of our efforts at all levels of Scouting. We have re-invited them after trying to allay their fears about such an event. It is my hope that somebody in one of these areas will have the courage to attend and start the much-needed dialogue again.

We will also be using this event to start our Petition for Democracy. We will have hard copy petitions for people to sign, copies for you to take home with you, and an Internet version made available. We will use the time before the AGM (scheduled for November 24 in Winnipeg) to amass as many signatures as possible to present to our National Commissioner at that time. I would like to set a goal of 10,000 signatures. That means each one of us must collect about 12 signatures each. This is an extremely simple thing to do, especially in light of the fact that Democracy is a fundamental and cherished right in Canadian society. We will have more on the petition at the Rescue Rally.

In addition, you will receive an e-mail from me in the next week with a PDF and DOC file that, when printed out by you, will contain a brochure that we can use to generate national publicity on the work we are trying to do.

Each person will be requested to print at least one copy and send it to a local newspaper, radio station, television outlet, etc. in order to raise questions on the governance, finances and stewardship of this Canadian institution we call Scouts Canada.

Imagine if 750 of these brochures are given out to key media outlets across the country what we could accomplish??? Join me in promoting this SCOUT eh! initiative.

Look for it in your e-mail, the SCOUT eh! Forum, and website soon.

Until we meet in Ottawa, good hunting, good camping and good Scouting.

Yours in True Scouting Friendship.

Michael "Manitou" Reid
Chair, SCOUT eh!