LDTG: 2017: 10th Anniversary
Where: Orchard Middle School in San Jose
When: Sunday, 19 November 2017
anh Don's Blog:
- Ban Ẩm Thực Tráng Đoàn LĐTG
- Người Đẹp Tráng Đoàn của Liên Đoàn Trường Giang
- Vũ Đoàn Phụ Huynh Nữ LĐTG
- Vở kịch “Tấm Cám & Bống Bống Bang Bang
Ten years ago, several scout leaders, including Tr. Sang Le, Tr. Thong Nguyen, Tr. Di Tran and Tr. Dung Nguyen, decided to join hands to establish LDTG to serve the Vietnamese American youths in the San Jose area. This is just a simple fact we know today, but in retrospect, it was not such a simple process. The creation of a new LD HD was truly a culmination of the founders’ belief in their life‐long mission to carry on the scout movement or “phong trào Hướng Đạo”. These scout leaders have truly practiced the “Once a scout, always a scout” motto. They have dedicated their valuable time, efforts, and knowledge to build up LDTG from its infancy state to the strong LD we have today 10 years later. LDTG’s mission is to offer a healthy and fun learning environment for boys and girls between the ages of 6 to 21 to learn and to thrive, the “scout” way.
What’s unique about Lien Doan Truong Giang is that our leadership is based on the democratic system where a board or “Ban Điều Hành” exists to coordinate and look after its organization and activities. BDH is consisted of LDT, the top leader, LDP Nội Vụ, in charge of internal operations, LDP Ngoại Vụ, in charge of public affairs, secretary, treasurer, and senior advisors. LDT is elected by Truong committee. He or she would serve a 2‐year term and can serve up to 2 consecutive terms. LDT then nominates and selects other board members to serve in each term.
Reflecting on our 10‐year history, it has been an absolutely amazing journey. We sure have grown a lot since our early days. Over the years, we have been blessed with many talented leaders and scouts who have contributed to LDTG. We regretfully have had to say goodbye to many dear friends, who parted ways due to various personal reasons, but no matter… this is what Hướng Đạo is all about: it is a community effort with a common goal to carry on the Hướng Đạo mission to groom the next generation of helpful, compassionate and active members of society. We have no shortage of people who share this belief. We truly appreciate those who have supported us over the years. We could not be here today without these supporters, all Truong and parents. In the first year, we started with 8 Truong and 20 scouts.
At the present time, we have 35 Truong and about 180 scouts registered with our LD. LDTG is made up of 5 units, starting from the youngest are:
Ấu đoàn Suối Tiên or Chim Non
Ấu đoàn Bến Nghé or Sói Con
Thiếu Nữ Hương Giang for girl scouts
Thiếu Đoàn Hùng Vương for Boy Scouts
Thanh Đoàn Bạch Đằng for Ventures
and Tráng Đoàn Gia Định for parents, and adult scouts.
Beside the history and background of LDTG, I am very proud and honored to share our successful accomplishments in the last 10 years:
In the area of advancement, LDTG has guided 28 scouts to earn Eagle Scout rank, the highest with Boy Scouts of America. Our cub scouts and boy scouts have been moving up steadily on their ranks. We have 5 girl scouts who earned the prestigious gold award, the highest achievement with Girl Scouts. We consistently have many girls earning Silver and Bronze award every year, 4‐5 girls on the average for each award each year.
Among the best memories we have had together were our annual camping trips, twice a year for the all‐LD camps and separate camps for individual units. The camp activities, big games, the delicious camp food, cooking contest and the performances were to be remembered and cherished for a long time. Boy Scouts have joined the annual Hi‐Sierra camp to advance their scout skills. We also hosted many picnic and hiking trips to promote healthy outdoors activities.
We would not be able to help our scouts achieve this much without investing in our Truong, in terms of scout knowledge and skills. With the help of our senior leaders from LDTG and other Lien Doan’s, our scout leaders have received training several times a year. We have done numerous indoors/outdoors training camps, and annual “đêm lữa trại”. Fourteen of our Truong have earned the “wood badge”, which is a highest achievement for adult leaders in BSA.
One of the best achievements was our active presence in the community. These community service activities truly give our scouts the opportunities to practice their scout promise: to be kind, caring and helpful. We participated in the American Clean Up day, feeding the homeless, sending care packages to young girls in Africa, collecting canned food for Second Harvest food bank, planting trees, erasing graffiti, and the list goes on...
Our active annual community activities include:
Food packing with Food4Others
Thanksgiving meal sponsorship for poor families in partnership with St John Vianney Church
On‐going partnership with Sunday Friends charity organization to provide support to underprivileged families
Volunteer at Sherman Oak Elementary School’s annual events
In summary, I will share with you the true meaning of “Trường Giang”, our LD’s namesake, as explained by our most senior leader, Tr. Sang Le. “Trường Giang” literally means long river. Long rivers are typically formed by many small streams from the source in the higher ground. As the streams join in to form a larger moving body of water, it gets wider, stronger and more active towards the lower and larger part, and in the end, it merges with the big wide ocean. This is symbolic of many hands joining in to help build LDTG as we nourish and groom our next generation to be even better than the last. In Tr. Sang’s words, “Trường Giang lớp lớp sóng sau đùa sóng trước, để được thấy thế hệ con em mai sau sẽ vươn cao, sẽ sống đẹp hơn thế hệ trước”
Thank you for being here today and hope you will enjoy the rest of the event.
On behalf of BDH LDTG,
Tr. Nhan La ‐ 11/19/17
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