NERF councils, Spring and Summer 2006

Nerf council, held over the weekend after the Vernal Equinox in Woodstock NY, reached a consensus to hold its next council on the Memorial Day Weekend, May 27-29, (New Moon) at the Stonewall site in the Green Mtns. of Southern Vermont.

Nerf council will support an “alternative camp out” in Vermont (someone's words) for “The Losers” (someone elses' words) who are unable to go out west this summer. Half Moon. Scouting for the August regional will occur at this event.

Speaking of an August Regional...Nerf council decided also to focus on a regional gathering during the Full Moon in August in Vermont. The memory of TC will be honored at this gathering.

Full moon is 2006-Aug-09 10:54 UTC

Another description

Here's a rundown of our recent council as I saw it.

We agreed on dates for a regional gathering: August 4th-13th. Site somewhere in the Granville area, TBD by a scout council at Rob Ford (Granville, lower site) on or around July 4th.
We agreed on a Memorial Day council to be held at Stonewall, which is near Mt. Tabor (Danby) Vermont. Directions are posted here.
Regarding the NERF army tent, we agreed that we really don't care what happens to it now. The general spirit on the matter is that this piece of gear is a common point of contention and would be best released to the universe to begin a new journey on its own.

we also consenced to have a TC memorial day on august 12. if we were unable to obtain any of his ashes, we would spread tobacco and beer or some facsimile thereof.

Rob Ford Vermont Regional Gathering

The gathering was 2006 August 4-13, at Rob Ford near Granville Vermont. Directions are on the page of Scouting and Directions , which can also be gotten directly from the main page by clicking the link to the left. Rob Ford directions are a few paragraphs down.

I got the following by email. Ordinarily, I would just flame anyone who sends me a MicroSoft Word document, since I do not use MS software and don't want to encourage anyone else to do so.

But in this case, it was not the sender that chose the format, but our U.S. Forest Service, so I forwarded the messages to someone who uses MS software and has a copy of MS Word. It only took two tries to get it sent so that it looked like an attached Word document to the person on the other end. Then we printed it, which required a re-boot of the MicroSoft machine (way to go MS).

I pulled the gist of the data out of the documents using the Unix strings command. I reformatted them into HTML and put them up here. This was relatively straightforward for the Rich Text Format, since that is an almost-sane data format, but I had to re-type parts of the Word document, since I could not find where in the file the printed output came from. I might have messed it up a bit, but here it is for what it is worth.

The Word document contains a first page, which I did not bother with, since it is all format and no data, It is just a bunch of blank spots for you to fill in your name, phone number, and other data.

Hi all,

At Scout Council, it was agreed that to talk with the District Ranger, Tracy Tophooven. She is currently on vacation, but has instigated the process of working out an operating plan. We decided to use the plan from the Sunbear Memorial Gathering in 2000 as a starting place. A copy of that plan is attached. This is NOT a draft of the operating plan for this gathering, as we have requested a few changes, such as where parking might take place. On Tuesday morning at 9, the Soil, etc, forester and some others will be checking out the area. Someone has agreed to walk with them and get back with the results. The Forest Service has set the 21st as their deadline to have everything together. Tracy returns on the 24th and will submit a draft to us then.

Meanwhile, of course, they want someone to sign a permit. I can't, as I will not be able to be there for the entire duration of the gathering, which is one of the requirements.

I am sending this to those folks who were at the Scout Council. If anyone else needs to see it, feel free to forward it to them, I just thought I'd keep it simple. I will let you all know as soon as anything else transpires, and please send feedback at any time. Also, if anyone else wants to be there on Tuesday, that would be good too. Hope you are all well.

Note: forwarded message attached.

It was great to talk with you today! Here's the Operating Plan I promised to send you. As I said, it is being reviewed over the next week by Forest personnel. One change will be to require a native seed mix and a biologically inert (no seeds) mulch for any re-vegetation needs to prevent the spread of non native species. We will be checking the lower meadow to see if it is adequate for parking as you've requested.

Here, too, is the application for the non commercial group use permit.

Best regards!

Forest Service permit (from a MS Word file)
Attached Exhibit B (from a MS rich text file)

I thought NERF would enjoy this picture of the Rob Ford Farm our Public Affairs Officer found in an archive. I'm sorry I missed the Gathering this year, but medical issues combined with urgent work deadlines of the "Surprize!" sort have kept me on a very short tether lately.

I trust all went well.

Best regards!

The Gathering

The email has been strangely silent about our sweet Gathering in the Hills of Vermont. It was put together by a small handful of folks who did a great job. The water system was the best ever, with a hydration station with prefiltered water. Awesome.

The TC Memorial was really nice, and NERF had a Council on Sunday. We did lots of clearing the air and healing some feelings, and saw folks we haven't seen for a while. The only consensus was the next Council, which is Equinox Weekend (Sept 22, 23 & 24) in Dixmont, Maine.

You are SO right. This VT gathering more or less reminded me of how successful regional gatherings used to be, save that lots of the happenings took place at or near the road by the trail-head (where TC would always be). To those of you who think that must have been awful, don't be deceived, it was beautiful. Very kind, kind gate, NO A-camp, plentiful food, spread out, yet close together, easy hike everywhere, clean, good attitudes, good spirits, and georgeous views everywhere. There really is no bad spot at this site.

The memorial was joyous, touching, humorous, healthy, and not over-blown. And wow, lots of sweet folks we used to see all the time.

If you're a purist, ya, there was meat and beer to be found, but it was just fine. Beautiful. I'm sure a couple/few might whine about it. My opinion, get over it. I only encountered one drunk, which was no big deal. Council was facilitated by a well known sister who deftly identified a few family members who too often "act out" and dominate, and reined them in. Soooo, a couple glitches aside, council was fairly productive and worthwhile. Big thanks are due to the folks who ran this shindig.