Blessings and Sheep

This is the time of year to count our blessings instead of sheep, Bing Cosby croons in the cheery holiday classic "White Christmas". If you don't know the Irving Berlin song, look for it on YouTube: "When I'm worried and I can't sleep, I count my blessings instead of sheep. And I fall asleep, counting my blessings." Here in the ADK Mohican chapter, we have a lot to be thankful for. First of course are the many friendships we've formed over the years and the outdoor adventures we've shared. We are also lucky that we're able to maintain a rich calendar of outings – three or four hikes most weekends throughout the year, led by a roster of nearly 30 experienced leaders. Some clubs offer just a fraction of that. And when I'm counting my Mohican blessings, I always include the Westchester Trails Association, our vibrant sister organization, which marked its centenary in 2023, an awesome milestone. Still, nobody would mistake me for a starry-eyed Polyanna. There's plenty that keeps me up at night counting sheep: wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, ferocious political discord at home, climate change, the looming apocalypse. Going from the sublime to the ridiculous, I've also been fretting about the future of the Mohican chapter. Right now, I'm most concerned about getting our leaders to embrace the new certification requirements introduced by ADK headquarters. The deadline for completing Level 1 certification was December 31, 2023. As I write this in mid-December, 16 of 26 Mohican leaders had completed the training, or roughly 60%. Good but not great, I'd say, given that Level 1 training consists of two easy online courses that together take just 1^1/2 hours to finish. Who knows what will happen next year, when leaders of more strenuous outings will need to complete additional training that's more rigorous and time-consuming? In the era of no-rules, no-commitment Meetup groups, clubs like ours are imperiled – if not an endangered species, at least threatened. A recent ADK Advisory Council meeting opened with the announcement about the demise of yet another chapter, and a plea for ideas on how to recruit younger people into the ADK. What does the Mohican chapter need to survive and thrive well into the future? For starters, we need all our current leaders to get certified. We also need to recruit additional leaders – people who sign up understanding that they'll need to get trained. We also need to enroll the next generation of hikers. Inevitably, our membership profile is skewing older. We need to find ways to convince a younger, more diverse audience that we have something to offer. On the 60th anniversary of his death, it seems fitting here to invoke the memory of John F. Kennedy and his stirring inaugural, with its call to service: "Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country." Brent Laymon