More planning details. The plan now is to start in the morning at Deer Grove park early in the morning, around 6:30 am. We should be finished at 10 am or so. The ceremony will tentatively be at St. Peter Lutheran Church in Arlington Heights. I am working on getting Bartz Hall, and the ceremony should go for an hour or a bit longer. Finally, the dinner will be at Piatti Pronti in Arlington Heights, at around 7 pm.

The first and third parts will be for fathers & sons only, and family members are welcome to the ceremony.

The breaks between events will provide time for reflection and discussion between fathers and sons.

I had a thought about how to make this all work. After watching part of ‘Raising a Modern Day Knight’ I realized that I need to have Jacob’s closest male peer friends participate. We could start early in the morning at Deer Grove, perhaps at 7 am, before it gets hot. If we have 10 men and allocate 20 minutes each, this gives 200 minutes (3 hours 20 minutes). There will be some variability due to different walking speeds, but we should be complete by 10:30.

The ‘journey’ will be separate from the ceremony. I would like to have the ceremony in the afternoon, around 3 pm. Although I haven’t planned it, I’m thinking something around an hour and a half, and will have an audience of families and friends. During the ceremony, Jacob’s friends will read their short letters, we men will say some things, there will be a charge (obligations of manhood), a blessing, a ‘knighting’ with the sword, and a prayer.

Dinner will be 7 pm in Arlington Heights. This break will provide an opportunity for fathers to talk with sons about what they witnessed and participated in, and how it relates to them. At this time, I would like to have the dinner in a private room at Piatti Pronti. The chef - owner is a personal friend, and she has agreed to create a special meal for us. I’m thinking at present that men participants and their sons will be invited to the dinner, where we will fellowship together and continue the celebration.

I’ll start a discussion topic on this subject, so please chime in with your thoughts. To participate in the discussion area, you will have to create a log in with a password. Email me if you need assistance.

In watching the ‘Raising a Modern Day Knight’ video again, I saw the portion where affirmation by peers is described. In light of this, I am going to be asking some of Jacob’s friends to write a short letter to him, and ask them to read it aloud during the ceremony. Affirmation of what others believe you are good at is important to all men, especially so to those early on the journey. See the Jacob’s Friends page.

The candidate dates are August 12th & 13th. Jacob’s Eagle Scout Court of Honor is scheduled for the 14th.

This new website exists because I got fed up with the hosting services offered by Apple (.Mac) and my Internet provider, Speakeasy. Although web hosting is an offered feature, it was overly difficult to get working. So, I bit the bullet and purchased a dedicated hosting service and domain name. It took about 10 minutes, and the result is well worth the extra cost.

One of the immediate benefits is correct operation of the Discussion page. We can now have threaded discussions where questions can be asked, comments offered, and information passed efficiently to all involved.

I will be adding more content to the site in the coming week.