Nominating Committee
New Dates and Location for District Committee
At the last District Committee Meeting, 2018 District Chair Mark Maucere proposed moving the date and location of the District Committee meetings. Mark reported that the District’s new Nominating Chair is Zionsville Mayor Tim Haak. His Honor has offered the Zionsville Town Hall for our meetings. The committee members approved the new location.
The District Committee will meet beginning in March on the third Thursday of each month at 7:00 pm. The next meeting will be on Thursday, March 15, 2018.
Thank you to His Honor Tim Haak for accepting the role of Nominating Committee Chair and offering us such nice facilities.
The Town Hall is located at 1100 W Oak Street, Zionsville, IN 46007.
Please let Tim know about any scouters you would propose join our District team!
New District Leadership for 2018
District Chair John Wiebke and District Commissioner Jeff Heck are pleased to announce that the nominees for District Chair and Commissioner for 2018 have accepted the nominations.
Mark Maucere has accepted the Nominating Committee’s proposed nomination as the District Committee Chair for 2018. Mark has served as the Chartered Organization Representative at St Alphonsius Catholic Church, serving Troop 358 and Crew 358.
Stephen Heath has accepted the Nominating Committee’s proposed nomination as the District Commissioner for 2018. Stephen has served as the Troop and Crew Chair for the same units at St Alphonsius. In his time as Chair, Troop 358 grew from being a large troop of under 100 scouts to now serving nearly 150 scouts. Stephen’s sons both are Silver Palm Eagles.
These nominees will be presented at the District Elections on Thursday, January 4, 2018 at 7:00 pm. Upon ratification by the Chartered Organization Representatives, District Committee Members-at-Large and the Council Committee Members-at-Large resident in North Star, their recommended election will be forwarded to the Council Committee for inclusion on the Council Elections at the next Annual Meeting of the Council in early February. They will begin service January 1, 2018 under a temporary appointment, pending final Council ratification.
John Wiebke and Jeff Heck have agreed to remain involved in the District after stepping down from their respective positions. John’s final assignment is yet to be determined. Council Commissioner Ron Penczek has asked Jeff to also serve as the Assistant Council Commissioner for Communications 2018, which Jeff has accepted.
We look forward to seeing the team that Mark and Stephen build to support their efforts in North Star.
REMINDER: December District Meetings
Normally, we would have district elections in December. We are a bit delayed in slating the candidates, so that will be postponed to the first District Committee Meeting of January 4, 2018 at 7:00 pm at Second Presbyterian.
Instead we will hold the last District Committee Meeting of the year at Second Presbyterian Church, 7700 N Meridian St, Rm 401, Indianapois, IN 46260., Thursday, December 7, 2017 at 7:00 pm.
The Commissioner Meeting will be held on the same day at 6:00 pm in Room 405.
This Sunday, December 10, 2017, the Winter Camporee Planning meeting will meet at 6:00 pm at St Luke’s United Methodist Church, 100 W 86th St, Room C115, Indianapolis, IN 46260. It will be chaired by co-chairs Con Sullivan and Thomas Jacoby of Troop 174. The location is to be determined. Please send a scoutmaster or proxy to participate in the planning process. The camporee will be January 19-21, 2018.
The following week on Thursday, December 14, 2017, we hold the last Roundtable of the year.
Our district elections will be Thursday, January 4, 2018. More information to follow. Please have your Chartered Organization Representatives and District Members-at-Large (that is district committee members) and Council Members-at-Large who live in North Star District attend. They are all eligible to vote.
District Nominating Chair named
District Chair John Wiebke has announced that he has appointed Matt Rekeweg of Troop 358 at Zionsville’s St. Alphonsius RCC as the new District Nominating Committee Chair.
We learned the importance of the Nominating Committee from Council Vice-President of Operations and District Support Stroh Brann at the re-organization meeting for North Star District in March 2015, At that time, Stroh told the District to get a nominating committee in place. We did. Stroh told us to keep the nominating committee active to keep a healthy district. We did. As a result, North Star scored the highest of all district in 2016 Journey to Excellence. (The linked article is not quite right. We later learned that North Star was only 300 points from perfect.)
Matt Rekeweg works at Dow Agro and is a newer member of the Willie Gillies (that is Wood Badge recipient in North Star District; a Willie on his way back to Gillwell.)
Matt will be working with units to find volunteers for the District Committee and Commissioner Service.
Matt has been tasked with working with Chartered Organization Representatives to find positions in the District for those representatives to fulfill their duties to District.
Matt is tasked with holding meetings of the Nominating Committee and recruiting additional member for the Committee.
Nominating Committee Member is a position that can have an enormous impact with very little time spent. A Committee Member who identifies a prospective District Committee member and helps recruit that future volunteer will often have an impact that last long after the Nominating Committee member has rotated off the committee. If you are asked to serve on Matt’s committee, please seriously consider it.
We are delighted to have Matt Rekeweg as our new chair. Wish him well.
District Committee Agenda
At this Thursday’s Committee meeting, according to the 2016 District Chair John Wiebke the following topics will be on the agenda:
- Communicating around the District Planning and out intent to meet individually with people
- Winter Camporee- Stu Bowes, Camporee Chair will be seeking your input
- Finance- review schedule of FOS presentations
- Recruitment- Sharla’s ideas for the Spring
- Nominating committee update.
Thank you to 2015 Chair
With the excitement of a new election and new officers comes a moment to pause and thank our immediate past Chair for 2015, Steve James.
Steve James played an instrumental part in reorganizing the North Star District. When the District was being threatened with drastic reforms from Council, Steve stepped up to serve as the District Chair. He made himself available as long as the District needed him.
Steve was persuasive in recruiting new participants to the District Committee. He was reliable in carrying out each promise that he made. He helped finish the year with Friends of Scouting so that the District was making its fair-share contribution to the costs of administering the District and Council.
As a long-time volunteer at the District, Steve had already served as District Commissioner and various other positions. Even so, he took it as a personal responsibility to make sure that District was served when crisis loomed.
Steve may be stepping down as District Chair, but he is not leaving District leadership. Steve was an important part of the Nominating Committee for the District. Steve has also agreed to serve as a Vice-Chair in the District for 2016.
Thank you to Steve James for his willingness to lead when times were difficult, and his continued participation in the District leadership team in the 2016 calendar year.
Congratulations to our New District Chair
Image Posted on Updated on
On Thursday, December 17, 2015, North Star District Nominating Committee, chaired by Scott Claybaugh, presented its slate of proposed district officers for the 2016 calendar year. The slate was passed unanimously. The slate was ratified by the Council’s Executive Board, too, at its December meeting.
Topping that list was John Wiebke (web’-key), as District Chair.
Congratulations to John on his elections. Thank you to him and his family for his service in 2016.
John is a life-long scouter with many unique positions on his scouting resume.
For this biography I am relying on my own memory, so please forgive any errors.
John was an Eagle Scout, whose troop regularly did summer camp at Scouts Canada’s Halliburton Scout Reserve in Ontario Province, part of the Greater Toronto Council. This led him to serving on staff at Philmont for two seasons. He followed this with two seasons on staff at the International Scout Centre in Kandersteg, Switzerland.
As John tells the story, he went to Switzerland with a back pack and a uniform. He returned home 13 years later with a wife, two kids, and a dog.
John met his future wife on his trip to Switzerland. She is Swedish by birth. Consequently, when they married, John moved to Sweden.
John remained active in scouting in Sweden. In fact, John earned his Wood Badge from the Swedish Scouting Association, where he was in the Tern Patrol. John explains that the patrols were all named for Swedish sea birds.
After returning to the states with his family, John went on to serve in various scouting positions,
including a three-year stint as scoutmaster of Troop 358 at Zionsville’s St. Alphonsius Roman Catholic Church. (He introduced Troop 358 to Halliburton Scout Reserve, which has become a biannual tradition for the troop.) He has served the past year or so as the Scout Roundtable Commissioner. For Wood Badge Course #C6-160-15-2, he served admirably on staff. As a result the Wood Badge song had an added verse for his Tern Patrol.
Most importantly, John has passed his passion on to his sons. His son Jesper passed his Eagle Board of Review on December 9, 2015! Congratulations to Jesper, his family, and his proud papa, our new District Chair John Wiebke.
In his professional life, John is the Controller at Baker Hill, formerly of Experian.
Notes for chartered organization representatives
For our chartered organization representatives, we are entering the busiest season of the year, where your services are most uniquely needed for Boy Scouts.
First, the district elections for 2016 officers will take place at our regular December committee meeting on Thursday, December 17, 2015 at 7 PM in Brandt’s Lounge on the first floor of Luke’s Lodge at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church, 100 W. 86th street, Indianapolis, IN 46260. The Lodge is the outbuilding on the northeast corner of the church’s campus.
Second, the council elections will take place at the annual meeting for Crossroads of America Council at the Belzer Activity Center on Camp Belzer’s campus, 6102 Boy Scout Rd., Indianapolis, IN 46226. The meeting begins at 5:15 PM.
The chartered organization representative is the only person who is entitled to vote on behalf of your chartered organization and the scouting units that your organization has. (Other eligible voters for the 2016 District Committee Elections include the 2015 District Members-at-Large, that is anyone duly registered to serve on the District Committee, and 2015 Council Members-at-Large, residing in the North Star District.)
It is exceedingly important that your chartered organization representative be in attendance at both of these elections.
At the December meeting, you will be voting for the officers of our district for the coming calendar year. The District Chair, elected at the District Election, has the duty to represent our district to council for quarterly executive board meetings in 2016 and will be our official vote there. In addition, we elect the chair’s cabinet for 2016. If anybody has nominations for any of these positions, they need to be directed to our nominating committee chaired by Scott Claybaugh. The nominating committee is on track to announce the slate of District Chair and Vice-Chairs shortly before Thanksgiving. The nominating committee expects additional positions to be slated in early December.
At the January meeting, you will be voting on the council’s officers for the coming year. In addition, any resolutions for bylaw amendments or policies to be addressed pursuant to the bylaws will be voted on, too. Eligible voters should have received a letter inviting them to attend via US Mail this past week. See that written correspondence for further details and deadlines for nominations and resolutions to place on the ballot.
It is too early to provide any guidance regarding what else is going to be on the agenda for either meeting. Monitor this website for information as it becomes available.
In the meantime, cubmasters, scoutmasters, and committee chairs should be contacting their chartered organization representatives to confirm that the chartered organization representatives have these dates on their personal calendars.
Nominating Committee Update
Our District Chair Steve James announces the appointment of the District’s new Nominating Chair, North Star District resident, and our immediate past Council Scout Executive Scott Claybaugh.
Scott will convene a meeting on October 15, 2015 to begin the process of reviewing our existing committee’s vacancies and recommending the slating of new members for Calendar Year 2016.
If you have nominees, feel free to communicate them to the District Chair or Commissioner to pass on to the Nominating Committee.
Good nominees are retiring from unit leadership but want some remaining connection with scouting or community members who seek to make connections, such as salesmen, bankers, and insurance agents.
Informal Minutes of June 2015 Committee Meeting
I was not appointed as the Committee’s secretary, so I did not take notes with an eye to that thoroughness. Nor was I a participant in each break-out session. With those warnings, I will highlight some of the discussions from the Committee Meeting.
Steve James, the District Chair, opened the meeting and emphasized that District needs to be focused on membership recruiting for August 27, 2015. He said, “We are in All-Hands-On-Deck mode. We need all Packs, Troops, and Crews to be part of the process.” Steve introduced our new District Executive Cornellius “Con” Sullivan. Con rapidly covered the points about our Council-wide Back to School Night that Darin Stendl, Con’s supervisor, had covered at the May Roundtable. Jump to the link for a detailed report. The most important part of the presentation for this report is that the marketing campaign’s call to action for the general public is “Sign up at your local elementary school.” This means that we need personnel at all of our District’s elementary schools.
During his presentation, Con emphasized that we have nearly 43 elementary schools to cover at sign-up night, while we only have 35 chartered units and 18 Cub Scout Packs. There is no way that the Packs can man all of the elementary schools. Con also underlined that there is a Recruiting Rally at Victory Field in downtown Indianapolis on the evening of July 16, 2015. (Literature about the campaign is available on the Council website, too.)
In Darin’s earlier presentation he had emphasized that the call to action does not emphasize Cub Scouts. It is a general call to join Scouting. This means that Troops and Crews could receive new members, too.
Con reported that North Star District’s Cub Packs are encouraged to participate in a District-wide Pack Overnight Campout on October 17-18, 2015 (I will need to review my notes to double check dates) at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Other weekends and campsites are available if Packs have fewer conflicts, but IMS is being pushed for North Star. IMS is close to home and exciting. Race cars and another race themed aspects will be emphasized through the weekend.
After Con’s presentation, there was a general open discussion of some of the logistics. One issue brought up is that customarily Packs collect the initial dues from new families on sign up night. Council then asks for a check from the Pack to Council to cover the new recruits’ BSA dues. This lead to some surprise and frustration. In addition, there was confusion about how much BSA dues the Pack should collect the first night to be considered a completely “registered scout.” Con did not have the answer at that time. These topics would be addressed in more depth later. For the duration of the meeting, the Committee agreed to take the issue under advisement and focus on the immediate mission of recruiting. At the meeting Con promised to clarify a few of these issues as quickly as possible.
This morning, he emailed me some clarifications. Read the rest of this entry »
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