The Board's Announcement
The GSNEO Board of Directors's plan for the camps was announced by Brent Gardner. Here is a transcription of his speech:
Thank you all!
What a neat opportunity for me to be here! I spent probably the last three weeks keeping this secret ---and I gotta tell ya---it's been tough on me! I have been looking so forward to presenting this to you! It really is an exciting thing.
One thing I want to do though....we didn't talk about the emotional and mental gyrations that the board, and especially the property committee and the visioning committee, went through. Those emotions that they went through are pretty extensive. I want to share with you a little bit because I think it will be helpful to you because you're going to go through some of the same emotions that the board went through today! So I'm going to share with you some of their thoughts and experiences of the board as they went through it, OK?
One of the things you have to remember is that this truly is a movement. This isn't a country that we belong to here, it's... a movement. What is a movement? Well, when we took our oath today our scout law and promise, when we do those , really, we do them as part of a movement. We don't stake our flag on our shores, and stake it out as territory. That's not what a movement is.
And if we look at our camps over their predominant life cycle, most designed in the 50's for troops much larger than they are today.That makes it difficult from a capacity standpoint when you've got a camp set up for 30 girls when really you've got probably four troops that want to use a particular area. But one troop can consume the resources for 30.
And so we looked at those issues. And the board, also the committee worked really hard at going through that mental process. We looked at numbers from every way you can look at them. We had factors upon factors; we doubled 'em, we tripled 'em, we crunched them every way we could crunch the numbers.
And really, it started with Glen Chin's report. Nobody wanted to believe what Glen Chin had told us. That was a very difficult pill to swallow! It pointed [out] to us the reality of our situation. So we didn't believe him. We started the visioning process. And we did our OWN evaluation. If you remember that scale [in the vision 2012 report], two camps ranked in the 80th -some percentile. They were the identical same camps recommended by Glen Chin! But we didn't stop there! We went into programming. We said the reality that Glen Chin recommended and that GSUSA recommends that we evaluate our outdoor experience based on this criteria and that is : Programming. Programming drives everything. And so we did. We looked at it from a programming standpoint. Everything you see today, everything you're going to see from us after this point, has it's roots in programming: What are we going to do in this movement to bring girls into a leadership position?
Now I can tell you : as the board went through this, there were lots of emotional experiences. Everybody on the board had some feeling, some passion for a particular camp, for a particular campsite, a plot of ground, a memory of some sort. But I gotta tell ya, our future isn't at all determined by our memories....but it's more about our dreams. This is what our future is determined by.
And so.......what I'd like you to do is to go forward with me – mentally- and let's see where our dreams can go....When you look at these pictures around the room, and the ones that we have on the board here, you're seeing some visions what what it could look like at any one of our camps. When we look at these visions, I want you to think about this: I want you to think about girls being there. I want you to think about utilizing resources wisely. Think about the overwhelming more than 50% of our girls that are not participating in using our resources. How are we going to reach them? Because truly, our mission is to reach all of our girls! Let them all share in this experience!
As you look at these photos around the room and the artists' renderings, you're going to see a couple of things come out. You're going to see really nice buildings. You're going to see really nice areas of outdoor programming areas [sic] . You're also going to seethe potential for leadership training. And we know that the future programming needs of every girl revolves around that leadership training. It cuts to the core of what we are. And so these new facilities - and they are going to be new facilities - are truly going to be Leadership Centers.
PREMIER Leadership Centers:
It's not JUST camping, but not WITHOUT camping. We're going to blend, and merge them both together!
We're going to address the swimming pool needs. We're going to address the housing needs. We're going to re-structure how we do troop camping on facilities so we can address the needs of troops today. And tomorrow. We're going to address the security needs. We're going to address the sewage needs. We're going to address all the facility needs that are out there!
How many needs are there? I'll tell you; we took an evaluation to bring all of our camps up to an accreditation standard, or up to LEED standards. And to replace the items we have been neglecting over decades, it will take us about thirty plus million dollars to address them all. Not within our capacity. If you look at our camps, they represent about eleven million dollars of our 22 million, 23 million dollars in assets. That is a sizable portion of our asset portfolio. There is NO WAY thirty-some million is achievable. It's just not. So we have to come up with another way. We still have to carry this to the next one hundred years.
But we had to come up with another way. And what we are going to do: we're going to share with you how we're going to get to that.The board made a decision - obviously, some of you are aware of it. I could tell! And we're going to fund these two new leadership centers at two of our camps that we have now . One is Camp Ledgewood and the other is Camp Timberlane. We're going to fund that by moving the other camps into those from an asset standpoint, from a historical standpoint, from a memory standpoint. We're going to be respectful, we're going to do it correctly.
We're hiring site planners. Master site planners - to help is with this process and walk us through. What you are actually seeing here today are some work that some of these camp experts have done in other camp settings.
We're going to re-brand our camps-- I've hinted to that by calling them Premier Leadership Centers. And they are going to be that.They are going to be much BIGGER than a camp. They have to be. Our girls need it. The girls of the future are going to need it.And we have to bring more of our membership into utilizing the majority of our resources. We are going to go ahead and prioritize and prepare for a December eleventh closing.
Now I know that that's a tough pill for some. But let me share with you a thought: None of us on the board, none of us on the visioning committee enjoyed looking at the downside to this event. In a perfect world, if we could somebody to write us a check, and to continue to fund us , to get that thirty million dollars, we wouldn't HAVE to re-deploy our assets. But - in this situation, we do. What we propose to do is use all of those assets right back in the resources they've been in, which is programming and outdoors. It's not going to fund anything else. It's not. We crunched the numbers down. We have to do this.
It just makes good sense to get our experience in scouting to our girls of the future. Once we do that, we'll go through the bidding process to get the facilities built and also to disperse the properties as we can. At this point, I'll turn it back over to Dan and we'll answer questions.
Thank you all!
What a neat opportunity for me to be here! I spent probably the last three weeks keeping this secret ---and I gotta tell ya---it's been tough on me! I have been looking so forward to presenting this to you! It really is an exciting thing.
One thing I want to do though....we didn't talk about the emotional and mental gyrations that the board, and especially the property committee and the visioning committee, went through. Those emotions that they went through are pretty extensive. I want to share with you a little bit because I think it will be helpful to you because you're going to go through some of the same emotions that the board went through today! So I'm going to share with you some of their thoughts and experiences of the board as they went through it, OK?
One of the things you have to remember is that this truly is a movement. This isn't a country that we belong to here, it's... a movement. What is a movement? Well, when we took our oath today our scout law and promise, when we do those , really, we do them as part of a movement. We don't stake our flag on our shores, and stake it out as territory. That's not what a movement is.
And if we look at our camps over their predominant life cycle, most designed in the 50's for troops much larger than they are today.That makes it difficult from a capacity standpoint when you've got a camp set up for 30 girls when really you've got probably four troops that want to use a particular area. But one troop can consume the resources for 30.
And so we looked at those issues. And the board, also the committee worked really hard at going through that mental process. We looked at numbers from every way you can look at them. We had factors upon factors; we doubled 'em, we tripled 'em, we crunched them every way we could crunch the numbers.
And really, it started with Glen Chin's report. Nobody wanted to believe what Glen Chin had told us. That was a very difficult pill to swallow! It pointed [out] to us the reality of our situation. So we didn't believe him. We started the visioning process. And we did our OWN evaluation. If you remember that scale [in the vision 2012 report], two camps ranked in the 80th -some percentile. They were the identical same camps recommended by Glen Chin! But we didn't stop there! We went into programming. We said the reality that Glen Chin recommended and that GSUSA recommends that we evaluate our outdoor experience based on this criteria and that is : Programming. Programming drives everything. And so we did. We looked at it from a programming standpoint. Everything you see today, everything you're going to see from us after this point, has it's roots in programming: What are we going to do in this movement to bring girls into a leadership position?
Now I can tell you : as the board went through this, there were lots of emotional experiences. Everybody on the board had some feeling, some passion for a particular camp, for a particular campsite, a plot of ground, a memory of some sort. But I gotta tell ya, our future isn't at all determined by our memories....but it's more about our dreams. This is what our future is determined by.
And so.......what I'd like you to do is to go forward with me – mentally- and let's see where our dreams can go....When you look at these pictures around the room, and the ones that we have on the board here, you're seeing some visions what what it could look like at any one of our camps. When we look at these visions, I want you to think about this: I want you to think about girls being there. I want you to think about utilizing resources wisely. Think about the overwhelming more than 50% of our girls that are not participating in using our resources. How are we going to reach them? Because truly, our mission is to reach all of our girls! Let them all share in this experience!
As you look at these photos around the room and the artists' renderings, you're going to see a couple of things come out. You're going to see really nice buildings. You're going to see really nice areas of outdoor programming areas [sic] . You're also going to seethe potential for leadership training. And we know that the future programming needs of every girl revolves around that leadership training. It cuts to the core of what we are. And so these new facilities - and they are going to be new facilities - are truly going to be Leadership Centers.
PREMIER Leadership Centers:
It's not JUST camping, but not WITHOUT camping. We're going to blend, and merge them both together!
We're going to address the swimming pool needs. We're going to address the housing needs. We're going to re-structure how we do troop camping on facilities so we can address the needs of troops today. And tomorrow. We're going to address the security needs. We're going to address the sewage needs. We're going to address all the facility needs that are out there!
How many needs are there? I'll tell you; we took an evaluation to bring all of our camps up to an accreditation standard, or up to LEED standards. And to replace the items we have been neglecting over decades, it will take us about thirty plus million dollars to address them all. Not within our capacity. If you look at our camps, they represent about eleven million dollars of our 22 million, 23 million dollars in assets. That is a sizable portion of our asset portfolio. There is NO WAY thirty-some million is achievable. It's just not. So we have to come up with another way. We still have to carry this to the next one hundred years.
But we had to come up with another way. And what we are going to do: we're going to share with you how we're going to get to that.The board made a decision - obviously, some of you are aware of it. I could tell! And we're going to fund these two new leadership centers at two of our camps that we have now . One is Camp Ledgewood and the other is Camp Timberlane. We're going to fund that by moving the other camps into those from an asset standpoint, from a historical standpoint, from a memory standpoint. We're going to be respectful, we're going to do it correctly.
We're hiring site planners. Master site planners - to help is with this process and walk us through. What you are actually seeing here today are some work that some of these camp experts have done in other camp settings.
We're going to re-brand our camps-- I've hinted to that by calling them Premier Leadership Centers. And they are going to be that.They are going to be much BIGGER than a camp. They have to be. Our girls need it. The girls of the future are going to need it.And we have to bring more of our membership into utilizing the majority of our resources. We are going to go ahead and prioritize and prepare for a December eleventh closing.
Now I know that that's a tough pill for some. But let me share with you a thought: None of us on the board, none of us on the visioning committee enjoyed looking at the downside to this event. In a perfect world, if we could somebody to write us a check, and to continue to fund us , to get that thirty million dollars, we wouldn't HAVE to re-deploy our assets. But - in this situation, we do. What we propose to do is use all of those assets right back in the resources they've been in, which is programming and outdoors. It's not going to fund anything else. It's not. We crunched the numbers down. We have to do this.
It just makes good sense to get our experience in scouting to our girls of the future. Once we do that, we'll go through the bidding process to get the facilities built and also to disperse the properties as we can. At this point, I'll turn it back over to Dan and we'll answer questions.