Ethical Navigators Weekly Update – April 12
Summary:
- Our next outing will be a trip to the Clayton Fire Department on April 18 at 10:30 am.
- Tentative plans in place for outings and add-ons from April through July.
- Our next General Meeting will be April 26 at 9:45 am.
- Update: We had a good Council Meeting this morning.
April 18: Fire Station
Our next outing will be a trip to the Clayton Fire Department at 10:30 am on April 18. We will see where firefighters live and eat and the vehicles they use. A police officer will meet us and teach about stranger danger and show a police car. Navigators will their earn bronze Safety Badge, and older kids will be able to help younger kids.
This event should be free – please plan to meet at the Fire Station at 10 N Bemiston Ave, Clayton, MO 63105. Haley Pepper is planning this event.
May 22-25: Camping/Civil War/Shut-Ins
We have selected Silver Mines Campground in Mark Twain National Forest for our May camping outing. This campsite is less than an hour drive from both Johnson’s Shut-Ins State Park and the Civil War battle site at Fort Davidson State Historic Site. We have a reservation for Memorial Day Weekend (May 22-25), and more details will come soon. Stuart Morse is also planning to organize higher-impact Senior Navigator activities.
May 31 Add-on
Family Float Trip/Paddle for a Cause on Sunday, May 31 at 1:30pm.
Join the Open Space Council for a fun-filled summertime float trip on the beautiful Courtois, Huzzah, and Meramec Rivers to raise funds for this year’s Operation Clean Stream! This family-friendly float trip is approximately 3 hours long. A delicious picnic dinner and outdoor games will follow the float.
Early bird registration is available until May 15, 2015 and tickets may be purchased for $55/adult and $15/youth (age 15 and under). Tickets purchased after May 15, 2015 are $60/person for adults and $20/youth (plus service fee if purchased online.)
Tickets may be purchased online. Tickets include paddles, canoes, life jackets, shuttle, and dinner. All money raised from this event will go to support Operation Clean Stream, an annual river cleanup and restoration event in the Meramec Watershed.
Reminder: An add-on is an event that some families in Navigators might attend, but not an event for which we are having a formal presence. If you know of other events that might be fun for Navigators, please let us know, and we will advertise them and add them to our calendar.
June 26-28: Camping/Caves/River
We will camp at Onandaga Cave State Park the weekend of June 26-28. This park will provide opportunities for spelunking, hiking, and playing in the Meramec River. Lance Finney is planning this weekend, and more details will come later.
July 5-11: Camp Quest
Camp Quest is a “place for fun, friends and freethought for kids ages 8 to 17. We provide a traditional sleepaway summer camp experience with a wide range of activities, including sports, crafts, games, swimming and campfires.” If you had experience with a sleep-away church camp and wish your children could have the same experience except replacing the religious message with “critical thinking, ethics, scientific inquiry, philosophy and comparative religion”, this is the place for you. Camp Quest is open for children ages 8-17.
Camp Quest Kansas City will be running July 5-11 at Knob Noster State Park, between Kansas City and Sedalia, Missouri. We do not expect this to be an official Ethical Navigators event, but we view this as a “Super Add-On.” At least one family in our chapter is considering participating, and at least one of our leaders is considering volunteering as a leader.
Camp Quest is only $380 for a full week of sleep-away camp (through May 1- the price rises to $430 after that). Let us know if you have any questions, and we will try to facilitate this as much as possible.
July 17-19: Camping/Float Trip
Our formal outing for July will be be another float-trip camping weekend at Meramec State Park, where we went in July 2014. We have campsites reserved for July 17-19 Tom Draney is planning this weekend.
General Meetings
April 26
Our next General Meeting will be April 26 at 9:45 am at the Ethical Society as part of a S.E.E.K. morning. We probably will discuss summer family camping.
Organization
April Council Meeting
This morning, three members of the Council met in the Ethical Society Nursery School’s Green Room:
Lance Finney (Communications), Stuart Morse (Senior Navigators), and Ellen Wilson (Quartermaster).
The meeting was mostly focused on the details of upcoming meetings and outings as described above. In addition, we discussed the following topics:
- AEU Assembly – The National Organisation for the American Ethical Union has expressed interest in the Ethical Navigators, and they want to learn from us for use at other Societies. Unfortunately, their national meeting is the same weekend as our campout to Onondaga Cave, so we probably won’t send a delegate. Instead, we will probably talk to Assembly participants in advance so that they could be our proxy. An additional idea is using Skype/Facetime/Hangout from the campsite to answer the questions.
- Navigator Regional Meeting – Navigators USA is holding two Regional meetings for discussions about curriculum, leadership, etc. The closest meeting for us is in Indianapolis, IN on June 6. If you are interested in participating either in person or online, please let us know.
- Pinewood Derby – We plan to have a Pinewood Derby as a fall General Meeting activity. Originally, this was going to be a September activity, but we might move it to October to make room for an opportunity to camp at a Society member’s cabin for free on a September weekend. Additionally, we might want to make construction of the cars be a multi-week SEEK Special Project. We will have to co-ordinate with the SEEK leadership as the fall approaches.
- Senior Navigators – We have started discussion about building the Senior Navigator group. Currently, we do not have very many active members at that age, but we have some very involved older Junior Navigators. In order to be able to focus more on Senior activities, Morse proposed having 4 activities planned per year that are dedicated to the older and more skilled Navigators. This would potentially include some of the older Junior Navigators, as appropriate. Additionally, this might be more appealing to friends of our current Senior Navigators to help bring them into the group. Morse will start working on this new approach.
May Council Meeting
Our next Council meeting is scheduled for 9:30 am on May 17 in the Nursery School Green Room. All are welcome to observe and comment.
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