It felt hollow, our last Court of Honor. People shared their memories from a bygone era and mourned the lost of that which they left. I'm sorry I don't know the troop 831 of the 90s or 2000s, and that I barely recognize anyone that showed up. Here's my sidebar: yes it was a magical reunion of yore, but it was the mourning of something completely preventable. They mourned their memories of 831, not the 831 that held that court of honor.
As the scouts from years past walked up to speak about their memories or advice or whatever, each one of them recounted memories and punctuated their speeches with a near-condemnation of the current administration for ending it. Here's the deal: we had 4 scouts legally under 18 and on the books.
I saw this coming back when I was SPL: we lost our feeder pack because the Cubmaster pulled the jenga blocks and left, leaving it to collapse in the hands of someone who supposedly abused the money or something, and while that's a nice little excuse it isn't a good one. In 2010 and 2012 we needed to look at recruitment, not sustainability. Because without the first one, the second was and proved to be impossible. Not once did Troop 831 take up an independent scouting recruiting effort. I understand that it's hard to recruit teenagers into scouting: I attempted to do it and it didn't work once. We reached out nowhere packwise, and this grand network of alumni remained silent and detached until April 26th. That's the reality.
It wasn't overnight, people just didn't join. And those of us that were there aged out. So before you fault the scoutmaster for overnight killing your childhood, realize that you detached yourself from it, and ignored the Eagle Promise to give back to scouting. The time it could've been saved was between 2010 and about 2013. I will admit I was SPL within that window, but at the same time this needed to be a boy and adult-led effort. It's done, and over. Just don't blame us.
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