A Scoutmaster's Blog

Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts seem to really enjoy a good campfire program. But so do adult Scout leaders. Sometimes, the adults even enjoy performing for the campfire audience. Really. I am not kidding.

This entry to the Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast demonstrates that adults can have fun during a campfire program too. This video clip was taken from Troop 68’s annual Laughs For Lunch Show of 2002. It features the troop’s scoutmaster bringing some of his adult Scouting friends on stage to perform the song Vista! One of the friends does very well. One cheats. And a couple have a hard time keeping up when things get going fast.

I challenge you to try this song at your next campfire program. It may take a little practice but the audience will love it. By the way, you can find the words (at least the way I learned it) on our troop’s website by clicking HERE. ” Yip bap biddildee bang!”

I like to read your comments about this podcast. You can leave one here, or at the PTC media forums. If you leave a comment at the iTunes Music Store you will help the Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast climb higher in the ratings.

Download Podcast
Subscribe to MSPP through iTunes.

Yep, that is right. After only two weeks we have canceled the Grumpy Old Leaders podcast. There are a few reasons for this but it basically comes down to that it turned into something we really did not want listed on the PTC Media network. It did not fit well with the other shows.

Here is what Chris, the creator of PTC Media wrote on the website’s forum:

“After recording another GOL last night, we did some looking around to see what others thought of the show. Turns out that a lot of Packs and Troops use the PTC Media feed on their unit websites and by doing that, GOL was ending up on their website.

This is bad.

Boys and parents who have no idea what they are in for MIGHT unknowingly click on the link and “BANG!”, the Guide to Safe Scouting and Youth Protection get busted. We love all our Scouts and would never intentionally do any harm toward them. Because of that, Grumpy Old Leaders is being pulled as a recorded show.”

Oh well, it was a good experiment. This will now give Chris and me more time to concentrate on the regular PTC podcasts and hopefully get the PTC Media store up and running soon.

Let’s face it, as an adult leader in Scouting there are times when you can get pretty feed up with things and become rather grumpy. We have all been there. We have all done that. Some more then others.

PTC Media, the net-site of Scouting related podcasts, features such shows as The Leader’s Campfire (audio), An Hour A Week (audio), and Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast (video). This past week they have added one more show to their line up – Grumpy Old Leaders (audio).

Grumpy Old Leaders is an audio podcast that has been talked about for a few months. The first show was finally posted on Wednesday, April 9. The podcast will feature adult Scouters, both from Cub Scouting and Boy Scouting, who are cubmasters, scoutmasters, committee members, and unit commissioners. The show will be an outlet for adults to discuss the things they are finding difficult within their Scouting programs, things they find frustrating. It is not a show meant for Scout-age ears.

During the last few months I have found myself become a co-host for The Leader’s Campfire, since Bob, the regular co-host, needed to take a leave of absence. I have had a great time doing the podcast with Cubmaster Chris. During the last two months we have been discussing creating the Grumpy Old Leader podcast as a way to cover things that did not fit well into The Leader’s Campfire format.

Well, that first Gumpy hour-long episode has now been posted, and to tell you the truth, it has done pretty well. Within the first four days it has received over 100 downloads from the website, plus who knows how many from iTunes Music Store. It seems to have hit a spot with a lot of people who were waiting for this type of show. In fact, when we recorded our second show last Friday, Chris and I were shocked, and pleasantly surprised, to discover other leaders who wanted to be a part of the show. By the time we ended the recording session we had five other leaders from around the country joining us, and three more hour-long shows almost ready to go. (Watch for them in the next few weeks.)

It will be interesting to watch as this show develops. Chris and I really did not have a clue what to do with a format for the show, or even if the show should have one. We did not even know if anyone would listen to it. Well, it looks like it might become a popular PTC Media podcast, and we already have several more topics to discus in future episodes. Be sure to check it out and let us know what you think about it. Feedback will be important to this podcast’s development.

Check out all the PTC Media podcasts HERE.

There are not very many Scouting podcasts found on the internet yet, and most of the ones you find seem to be Cub Scouting related, not that there is anything wrong with that. My own Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast (MSPP) covers both Boy Scouting and Cub Scouting, but it is heavy on the Boy Scouting. MSPP is geared toward the entertainment and fun of Scouting. It does not hit the leadership and training side of things very much.

A new entry has recently joined this small group of Boy Scout related podcasts. Jerry and friends at The Scoutmaster Minute (http://www.thescoutmasterminute.com) have developed and produced a podcast that talks about Boy Scouting. I have listened to this podcast and I think they are doing a great job.

As I write this, Jerry has posted five audio podcasts so far. The average podcast is about 30-40 minutes long, probably as long as your commute to work. Topics have covered such areas as cold weather camping, bullying, the Scout Oath, and the Order of the Arrow Representative. It sounds like Jerry and company have quite a few more shows planned, which I think is great.

You can download his podcast from his website (see above) or from iTunes at
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=278092418

It is the nature of boys. They like gross stuff. They like to get dirty. That’s why so many of them like Scouting. It gets them outside where they can explore, play around, sit around the campfire, and have fun.

Okay, I don’t know why I missed this, but last Thursday was the one year anniversary of the first post to the Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast (MSPP). That first video introduced Buttons, the radical Boy Scout, to many people who had not yet seen him on Youtube.

What do you do as a Boy Scout troop in the dead of winter in Minnesota? You get out and have some fun in the snow! Add a nice big snow-filled hill and you the makings of a great evening activity while on a weekend outing.

The Scouts of Troop 68 spent a weekend at Camp Stearns in Central Minnesota during the last weekend of February. I had the video camera along so I thought it might be fun to record the guys having fun and catching some air as they went downhill sledding. Previous campers had made a few jumps on the hillside that the Scouts of Troop 68 liked to hit again and again, even if they got the wind knocked out of them.

After an hour, the Scouts had had enough and decided to head back to the building. They had a lot of fun on the hill, and a lot of exercise walking back to the top. Thanks to this video, they will have a way to look back on five minutes of the excitement, and you have a chance to see the fun yourself.

Anyone interested in joining us next year?

Don’t forget to leave a comment about this podcast. You can leave one here, or at the PTC media forums. If you leave a comment at the iTunes Music Store you will help the Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast climb higher in the ratings.

Download Podcast
Subscribe to Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast through iTunes.
Check out all the videos of Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast!

After a few days of thought, I have decided to leave the G rated world of Buttons and Boy Scouts skits behind with this podcast post, and enter the PG world music. Oh, do not worry, there will not be any Guns & Roses music or rap nonsense here. What I offer in this podcast is an original song by the Boy Scouts of Troop 68.

This video is of three older Scouts of Troop 68 in 1992, taken from a television show made by the troop for our local community access station. The Scout playing the guitar (he earned the rank of Eagle, by the way) wrote the melody. I wrote the lyrics. The song contains three verses with dark undertones. The first verse is about a pathetic dog. The second is of a boyfriend trying to please his girlfriend. The third is about a stray animal following a person home. I would suggest you listen to it before allowing your Cub Scout aged son to listen to it. The song is dark, but somewhat comical. It also might stick in your mind for awhile.

The song does not contain any bad language. This is a Scouting podcast, after all. I just wanted to try something different this time. I hope you enjoy it.

I like to read your comments about this podcast. You can leave one here, or at the PTC media forums. If you leave a comment at the iTunes Music Store you will help the Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast climb higher in the ratings.

Download Podcast
Subscribe to MSPP through iTunes.