Greetings to All.

This is the first of two post-Projectoree Newsletters. The next (last) Newsletter will be primarily directed towards your evaluations and suggested improvements for next year's Projectoree(s).

1) Finances I - To date, I have received only two sets of receipts. If you have receipts for reimbursement, please email me detailing what was purchased and the cost, and also submit the actual hard receipt by mail, immediately. If I do not hear from you by email by Friday, May 26^th, I will assume all receipts are in, and I will proceed with the accounting.

2) Finances II - There were three discrepancies in the final accounts:

A) Troop 624 paid $1 too much; B) Troop 1916 paid $28 too much; and C) The O/A paid $12 too much.

The O/A has already donated their overpayment to the Projectoree surplus fund (in grateful appreciation of our covering the shortfall on their Leadership Council 2000 JLT event several months back.) I need to know what Troops 624 and 1916 want me to do with their respective surpluses. If a rebate check is requested, please give me who it should be made out to, and where to send it. Thanks!

3) Finances III - Three Troops paid for extra Projectoree patches: A) Troop 104 - 1; Troop 167 - 2; and Troop 624 - 5. DID YOU RECEIVE THESE PATCHES??? If not, please give me an address to mail them to (Note to Troop 624 - If you prefer, you can take an extra patch to eat the $1 overpayment detailed in #2 above; if such is your desire, please so indicate.)

4) Patches, revisited - We still have about 30 leftover patches, so if any Unit wants more patches, please let me know. The charge is $1 each (actual cost to the Projectoree was $1.36 each.)

5) T-Shirts - We sold out of our original order of T-Shirts; however, a number of Troops had leftover T-Shirts for Scouts who bailed out late. If you still have any leftover T-Shirts, and want to try and sell them, please give me a specific list of numbers, sizes, and whether they're "regular" or "Staff" style. I'll post your lists in the last newsletter, and we'll see if anyone's interested. I do know that Ron Pelley would like one X-Large or XX-Large, either regular or Staff, if anyone has one leftover.

6) Lost and Found - There were two unclaimed items of note: A) A small standard Scout cap, with the name "Ben Y." inside. Not quite sure on the spelling; it's pretty faded. Ring anyone's bells? B) A "generic" Swiss Army Knife, no initials or other distinguishing marks, found (I believe) in the Staff area.

7) Ticks! - We noted a fair number of ticks in the tall grass at the firebuilding race area; however, these were all standard dog ticks. However again, where there are deer, there are sure to be deer ticks, and Camp Wilson has plenty of deer. It's now been 2 weeks since the end of the Projectoree, which is about the right incubation period for Lyme Disease. So, if you have any Projectoree attendees who have become mysteriously ill this past week or so (flu-like symptoms, aches and joint pain, large rashes, etc.), advise them to see their physician and request a check for Lyme.

8) Service Project - The Park Rangers were very pleased with our efforts on the Service Project, and our informal agreement to pay the minimum price for all of Camp Wilson each Spring therefore remains in effect. This saved us approximately $500 this year (i.e., about $2 per attendee.) Please thank your Scouts who participated.

9) Evaluations - For reasons which are definitely unclear, we got hammered pretty good on the Patrol evaluations this year. This was rather mysterious, since conversations with numerous Scouts (and Adults) indicated that everyone loved it. As usual, comparison of how a Patrol did on an event versus their corresponding evaluation score for that same event showed a solid relationship - that is, the worse a Patrol did, the worse the eval, and vice/versa. However, the overall ratings were a half point lower than last year. The suggestion has been made by a lot of people that the Scouts were taking out their frustration with the heat and humidity on the evaluations, and also that the evaluations actively solicit criticism. Perhaps. Nonetheless, this is worth discussing further with your Scouts, digging a little deeper to see if we need to do a full revamp for 2001. Read it and weep:

for an average eval score of 2.4 (last year's combined average for both Projectoress was 1.9.) 18 of 22 Patrols turned in evaluations. Of this year's evals, the Cave Rescue and Radioactive Basketball evaluation scores were the most distressing; I watched both of these events for several rotations, and everyone seemed to be having a great time at each. Go figure....

10) What Went Right?/What Went Wrong? - I have decided against holding a Projectoree debriefing meeting this year. Attendance the past 2 years has been so thin as to render their value somewhat dubious. Therefore, I'd like your opinions, if any, via email. I'll read `em all, and will publish a summary of salient comments.

From my view (take a deep breath):

A) Administratively - being a hard-core jerk paid off very nicely (at least, for me!) Virtually all administrative paperwork was completed well before the Projectoree took place. This was in stark contrast to past years, where nearly everything arrived late - or not at all. I generated probably one tenth the number of emails as last year, a definite plus (for you AND me!) There were no significant errors in registration, and the campsite allotments seemed to work well - minus the cars, that is. Adherence to the schedule, from opening flag ceremony to the closing campfire, was distinctly better than last year (and last year wasn't bad!) Estimated pre-registration was 262, and actual attendance was 257; add 3 District level personnel who day-visited on Saturday, and total attendance was 260. That's remarkable. We had 24 pre-registered Patrols; actual was 22. There were no serious injuries, and only a few minor injuries. Sunday cleanups went well, and the Rangers were (again) very pleased with the Projectoree. I haven't done the accounting yet, but I suspect we'll once again end up in the black - 7 straight Projectorees without a deficit.

B) Health and Safety - Although several Units had some borderline heat exhaustion cases, enforced water intake at all competitive events precluded any serious heat injuries. One of Troop 111's major complaints (by the collective Scouts) was having to go to the bathroom all day long (works for me!) Considering that this was the first truly hot weather stretch of the Spring - and also that it followed a two-week long stretch of cold, rainy days - we did very, very well. The enforced water intake policy is certainly a keeper for future Projectorees, especially hot ones.

C) T-Shirts and Patches - Although two evaluations complained that they wanted new T-Shirt designs, the collective impression I got was that everyone liked both the T-Shirts and patches.

D) Events - Several games were not run as designed, but still worked OK. We had just enough staff at the short events and firebuilding, and use of Patrol escorting Adults as "spotters" at the obstacle course climbing net alleviated the otherwise somewhat thin staffing there. The SAT's hurt us, but didn't kill us. The time allotment for each event seemed reasonable, although several Patrols finished certain events amazingly quickly; e.g., I believe the top placing Patrols in the Nuclear Reactor and Radioactive Basketballs events finished in less than a minute, which left them a overly long 15 minutes to wait til the next event (not much of a reward!) We'll probably have to increase the length of the course for these two events in future years. Despite the lower evaluations, most Scouts I talked to indicated that they had a great time.

Final Patrol Standings (from Neal Wood) will be published in the last Projectoree Newsletter.

E) Late Afternoon Activities - I have no feel for how these went, and would appreciate hearing from Troops 128 (Firebuilding), 167 (Stove and Lantern Safety), 505 and 624 (Knot tying and Lashing) on their respective instructional activities.

F) Campfire - Seemed to be our best ever. The flag retirement went perfectly, the skits and songs were all reasonably fresh and well performed, and the crowd was both enthusiastic and decently behaved. Every Troop contributed a song or skit.

G) Miscellaneous: 1) Use of the Motorola FM Radios was not successful; we had four sets of radios, none of which could communicate with any other set. So much for Motorola's claim of interoperability. Either we need to learn the intricacies of these radios a lot better, or we'll have to return to CB radios for communications at future Projectorees. 2) To my knowledge, no or very few vehicles were parked overnight in the camping areas; several, however, spent most of the day and evening there on Friday before being moved. There was plenty of remaining parking at the old Dining Hall and elsewhere. 3) There were, to my knowledge, no incidents of vandalism. I suspect every Scout was far too exhausted (and satiated) for such boredom-caused behavior to break out.

Most of the"veteran" Projectoree Adults - defined as having attended at least four Projectorees - stated to me that this was our best Projectoree ever. I am inclined to agree; certainly this was the easiest for me to run (not, mind you, that it was particularly easy.) Nonetheless - and as you have heard from me before - there's always room for improvement! Towards that goal, I hope to hear your thoughts on Projectoree 2000 sometime this week. Thanks!

- Dr. Bob

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28 May 2000