A Scoutmaster's Blog

It is hard to believe, but this video is the 50th posting to the Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast! When I started doing this I never even considered making it this far, and I would not have if people would not watch the videos. I also would like to thank Bob, Chris, Jerry, and Dave for their help and support.

I wanted to do something special for this one. I knew it would have to include Buttons, the radical Boy Scout and mascot of the podcast. I also wanted it to be about Scouting, not just some jokes or skits. I have to thank the my troop for giving me the idea I used for this video. A couple weeks ago one of the Scouts read Lord Baden-Powell’s farewell message. I wondered if Buttons could read that for the internet audience. I tried it, and I think it worked pretty well, but you will have to be the judge.

Lord Baden-Powell’s message can also be read at my friend Jerry’s blog, The Scoutmaster Minute.

I also wanted to do something extra for this 50th posting, so I made a second part to the video. Follow the directions found in the podcast to possibly win a DVD of Buttons’ videos. (Yes, you will have to watch the video to find out what the directions are.) If a lot of people enter the contest I may even give out two DVD’s. Good luck!

If you enjoy the videos, I would love hearing from you. Go to iTunes and leave a review for Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast. Or, go to PTC Media and leave a comment on the forums. Or drop me an email at webmaster @ melrosetroop68.org
Thanks for watching.

Click here to DOWNLOAD this Podcast
Subscribe to Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast through iTunes.
Check out the other Scouting podcasts at PTC Media.

They are back! Buttons, the radical Boy Scout, and his friends Randall and Bones return in another video with more terrible jokes, more one liners, and more “Yo, dude”s. A fourth puppet joins the group and gives a quick little take on the thoughts of a wise man.

I want to thank Josh for helping me out this this one (and the next one). We spent over three hours filming the puppets last Saturday to end up with about 90 minutes of video. That footage will then be editing down to two shows, each taking about two to three hours per show to edit. Each show will end up being about 5-6 minutes long.

We had fun filming with the puppets and trying to come up with ways for Randall to be interrupted for each show. I was afraid that I might not find my voice back that I used for Randall, but I think I got pretty close. We spent more time filming scenes with Randall because my voice kept trying to slip back into doing Buttons, which I find much easier to do.

I hope you enjoy watching these shows. (We have one more planned. In fact, it has already been filmed. It just needs to be edited.) If you do enjoy them I ask that you go to iTunes, if you have an account, and leave a review for Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast. Or, go to PTC Media and leave a comment on the forums.

Or drop me an email at webmaster@ melrosetroop68.org
Thanks for watching.

Click here to DOWNLOAD this Podcast
Subscribe to Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast through iTunes.
Check out the other Scouting podcasts at PTC Media.

When I was a Boy Scout I attended summer camp at Parker Scout Reservation in Central Minnesota. We ate our evening meals in a dining hall. Once the troops were seated, one of the staff members would get up in front of the troops and lead us in a song. The Hole In The Ground song was one of the songs I learned during those meals.

The Hole In The Ground song is an audience participation song. The song leader sings a portion and the audience repeats it. Everyone joins in on the refrain. As the song continues it gets a lot longer and a whole lot faster. By the end of the song there are only a few people who will usually be able to keep up. It is a song that does require some practice if you plan to lead it.

Here are the words to the refrain of the song:

Refrain:
Well, in the ground, there was a hole, The prettiest little hole, that you ever did see. Well, the hole’s in the ground and the green grass grew all around and around. And the green grass grew all around. (The refrain will get longer with each verse.)

I invite you and your son(s) to watch this video posting to the Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast and let me know if you were able to keep up with the singers. Learn it and use it during your next campfire program.

Please leave a comment here using the link below, at the iTunes Music Store, or at the PTC Media forums. Or drop me an email at webmaster@melrosetroop68.org. It is great to hear what you think about the podcast videos.

Click here to DOWNLOAD this Podcast
Subscribe to Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast through iTunes.
or at http://feeds.feedburner.com/melrosescoutingproductions
Check out the other Scouting podcasts at PTC Media.

The Boy Scouts of Troop 68 have been performing a little skit/song called Star Trekking since the mid-eighties. (See blog post from August 2, 2006) It has been quite popular with most campfire audiences. In 1990 (wow, eighteen years ago) the troop performed this skit on a local television station station. This video was taped by one of the parents, luckily. Two and a half years ago I placed the video online at YouTube for the world to see. Since then, the video has received over 39,000 views, and averages somewhere around 50-60 views per day.

Well, it seems that several of this year’s Buckskin staff at Many Point Scout Camp has seen the video. Some more then once. One Friday, the last full day of camp, our camp commissioner visited our campsite and asked me if I was the one in the video that was on YouTube. I said I was and gave him a quick explanation how that all came about. He was grinning from ear to ear when he asked me to sign his cap, and then asked me if I would perform the skit with some of the camp’s staff during the Friday night closing campfire program. I agreed, but wondered when we would have time to practice. After all, the staff would be busy all day. He replied that I should meet them at the camp lodge at 9:00 that evening.

The campfire was scheduled to start at 9:30 pm. Not much time to practice.

I was at the lodge at 9:00, which was a one minute walk from our troop’s campsite. Only half of the staff that were to be a part of the skit were there. The rest showed up as they arrived from their program areas. Unfortunately, we did not really have much time to practice. In fact, all we had time to do was to choose who would play what roles, go over each person’s lines once, and practice the refrain. We did not even get to run through the song one time. This could be interesting, I thought to myself as I walked back to my campsite. Luckily, most of the participants had viewed the skit on YouTube and had a good idea how it was done.

I brought my camcorder along to the campfire program and was able to find another staff member to record the skit. When the time came, I left my seat in the audience to join the staff at the side. As we walked out to center stage I could not help but think of the possibility of the train wreck that was about to occur. After all, we really had not practiced together.

I did not have to worry. The staff came through with flying colors. And better yet, the hundreds of Scouts and adult leaders in the audience loved it. The cheering at the end of the skit was overwhelming. We had pulled it off, and pulled it off well.

Once I returned home from summer camp I had a problem with the camcorder. It began eating my tapes. One of the tapes it tried eating was the one that had the footage of Star Trekking. I had promised the staff that I would put this video online for them to see. I needed that footage. I bought a new camcorder, and luckily was able to retrieve the video from the campfire program. In fact, I should be able to get a few podcasts from the footage. Unfortunately, the footage is pretty dark since it was filmed after sunset.

So here is that video of Star Trekking, performed at the Many Point Scout Camp closing campfire program on July 18, 2008. This video is dedicated to the 2008 Buckskin camp staff, and to the camp’s Ranger Scott, who appears in that YouTube video.

Please leave a comment here using the link below, at the iTunes Music Store, or at the PTC Media forums. Or drop me an email at webmaster@melrosetroop68.org. It really is great to hear what you think about the podcast videos.

Click here to DOWNLOAD this Podcast
Subscribe to Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast throughiTunes.
or at http://feeds.feedburner.com/melrosescoutingproductions
Check out the other Scouting podcasts at PTC Media.

Twenty years ago I joined the board of directors for our local television cable access channel, Mel-TV. Earlier that year, several other people and I were learning how to properly use a camcorder. We decided to produce an interview-style show for the station featuring local men who were involved with the Scouting program to develop our camera skills.

After finding a host for the show we found five men who were willing to be interviewed for the show. One had been a cubmaster for several years. One had been a troop committee chairman, and a scoutmaster for a few months. One had been a member of the pack and troop committees. One had been a den leader and the chairman of the Boy Scout committee. The last one was a committee chairman and a unit commissioner. Each of them with bring different experiences to the show. And each of them knew each other thus adding a few more interesting stories.

The first person to be interviewed was George. George was one of the people who decided that Melrose needed a Boy Scout troop in 1979 and became one of the original troop committee members. He soon held the chairman position. When the troop’s scoutmaster decided to step down a year later he took the position until a new scoutmaster could be found. During the interview they discuss the scoutmaster position, troop funds, rock climbing, poison ivy, and other topics.

This video post to the Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast features the interview with George. It is interesting to point out that nearly everything they talk about twenty years ago could still apply to Scouting today. It will be the first of five or six video shorts being created from the original show. The rest will be posted over the next few months.

Please leave a comment here using the link below, at the iTunes Music Store, or at the PTC Media forums. Or drop me an email at webmaster@melrosetroop68.org. It really is great to hear what you think about the podcast videos.

Click here to DOWNLOAD this Podcast
Subscribe to Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast through iTunes.
or at http://feeds.feedburner.com/melrosescoutingproductions
Check out the other Scouting podcasts at PTC Media.

On January 9, 2006, I began what was to become a new hobby when I posted a Scouting video on YouTube. It was the BSA’s “Scout Zone” video, which has been viewed 51,000 times since it was posted. The YouTube bug had bitten me, and I began to look for other videos to post online.

I posted BSA videos that I had collected over the years. I posted videos of my troop performing songs and skits. I have tried to keep most of my YouTube videos Scouting related, but there have been a couple other subjects that have found there way into my “channel”.

I felt that YouTube was a great way to spread the word about Scouting. It was, and still is, quite popular with all ages, especially with the teenage crowd that is the target of Scouting. Some of the videos posted did quite well and received tens of thousands of hits. Others did not fair as well, receiving no more then a few hundred hits. But I kept posting, hoping to build a little excitement about Scouting and provide a little entertainment at the same time.

On August 17, 2006, I began creating new original content when I picked up a puppet that had been lying in a closet for a few years. Buttons, the radical Boy Scout, was born and has since taken on a life all his own.

Although YouTube offered a means to share these videos with the world I noticed that some of the video quality was lost in the processing. I began looking for other ways to share the videos and keep the quality. I posted the videos to our troop’s website, but it did not have the traffic of YouTube, of course.

Video podcasts had started becoming a more popular and accepted way to post videos online, due in part to the iTunes Music Store listing them. With the help of Mr. Bob, a Cub Scout leader who had his own audio podcast, I began a video podcast called Melrose Scouting Productions. My podcast was accepted by the iTunes Music Store and people began watching. A short time later, I was invited to join the PTC Media family of Scouting podcasts.

Slowly but surely, the podcast has been gaining viewership. In fact, the latest video posts have been receiving more hits through the podcast then they have through YouTube. For example, the “Buttons and Randall Show”, which was posted a month ago, has received nearly 700 hits through the podcast but only 71 hits on YouTube. I will admit that I have been promoting the podcast more then the YouTube site for the last few videos, but I think that people like the podcast more because through the podcast they can download the videos to their computers to watch anytime they please. By subscribing to the podcast through iTunes or a RSS reader the computer downloads the videos automatically.

Here is a question for you. Do you prefer watching the Melrose Scouting Productions videos through the podcast or through YouTube?

“What time is it?”, is a question asked in a song during the hit television movie High School Musical 2. But in today’s addition to the Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast the Boy Scouts of Melrose ask the question, “Is it time yet?”

This is actually an easy skit for any Scout troop to perform, but it does take a little practice to get the timing done well. The only props needed are a chair for each participant, or a couple benches placed before the skit begins. When the troop first saw this skit performed at summer camp it was done with 5 or six people. We decided to take it a little further when the troop performed it during one of their Laughs For Lunch Shows.

I like this skit. It builds up the anticipation in the audience, and then has a punchline that is unspoken. There are not very many skits done in that manner. Have you ever scene this skit performed at a camp you attended?

Please leave a comment here using the link below, at the iTunes Music Store, or at the PTC Media forums. Or drop me an email at webmaster@melrosetroop68.org

Click here to DOWNLOAD this Podcast
Subscribe to Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast through iTunes.
or at http://feeds.feedburner.com/melrosescoutingproductions
Check out the other Scouting podcasts at PTC Media.

I have written in earlier blogs about how I feel the Boy Scouts of America’s national office should be doing more to promote the Scouting program to the American public. It the past, it seems as if they have relied more on the local units to promote the program then trying to do it nationally, and I can understand that, up to a point. During the last five years it has seemed that the national office has disappeared into a cave, ignoring much of the negative press Scouting has received over recent issues, and allowing many people to bad-mouth a great and established program to help boys and young men without making any statement what-so-ever.

Things seems to be changing now that we have a new national Chief Scout Executive, Robert “Bob” Mazzuca. He does not appear to be afraid of talking to the media, and has already done a few interviews promoting the Scout program and letting the public know what Scouting can offer their boys and families.

The BSA has produced some good video commercials during the past ten years or so. Unfortunately, I have not seen many of them on national or local television. The only place I see them is at council roundtables, award ceremonies, and a couple websites. That is a shame, but I realize it costs money to air them during a television show.

So, with this podcast, I am hoping to get some of these commercials seen by more people through the internet. After all, I can not afford to air them on television either, although I have aired them on our local cable access channel as part of our troop’s courts of honor.

This podcast posting includes five commercials produced by the Boy Scouts of America. Each commercial uses a point of the Scout Law as its theme: trustworthy, helpful, obedient, thrifty, and reverent. I hope you enjoy them as must as I did when I first saw them.

Please leave a comment here using the link below, or at the PTC Media forums, or at iTunes. Or drop me an email at webmaster@melrosetroop68.org

Click here to DOWNLOAD this Podcast
Subscribe to Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast through iTunes.
or at http://feeds.feedburner.com/melrosescoutingproductions
Check out the other Scouting podcasts at PTC Media.