A Scoutmaster's Blog

I recently had the opportunity to chat with Garrett Batty, the writer and director of the new film Scout Camp: The Movie, during a recording of the Leaders Campfire podcast. Garrett was nice enough to give us an hour and a half of his time. The episode came in at about 45 minutes after editing. Check it out at the Leaders Campfire site or the PTC Media site.

I just discovered this video on Youtube featuring behind the scenes pictures from Scout Camp: The Movie, which is being released on dvd this month. I am looking forward to seeing this movie. I think the troop will be having a movie night after I get a copy.

And here is a short clip from the movie featuring the Boy Scouts as they arrive at the beach for their swim checks.

It appears that there will be a new movie making its way around the country this year. It is about spending a week at a Boy Scout summer camp and is called, oddly enough, Scout Camp. From the preview it looks to have some humor and some serious moments. I have read it a Scout forum that the movie is written by guys who were Scouts themselves growing up, and it does not follow the guide to safe scouting very well. Oh the horrors!

I am hoping this film comes to central Minnesota. I would like to see it and perhaps bring the troop along. After all, there are very few movies made about Boy Scouting. I love one line from the preview, “I’m fine. I am the scoutmaster.”

Here is the preview of the movie:

I still had my copy of the Boy Scout Handbook I used as a youth when I became an assistant scoutmaster in 1980. I bought a new handbook so I would be current, and picked up a scoutmaster handbook so I would have an idea what I should be doing. Then I bought a committee guidebook. Before I knew it, Scouting books began taking up space on the bookshelf. It did not take long before I had a small collection of Scouting handbooks.

The book collection kept growing during years as I began adding older editions of the books. I started with Boy Scout handbooks and scoutmaster handbooks, but soon expanded to committee books, fieldbooks, and Explorer handbooks. Soon there were handbooks about wolves, bears, lions, and a thing called Webelos in the collection. I began looking through used bookstores and flea markets trying to find new treasures.

I finally built a small 36″ wide, two shelve case for the collection. Grooves in the top and bottom pine boards allowed me to install a couple pieces of glass to be used as sliding doors, thus keeping most of the dust away from the pages. Several years later I built a three shelf case to house the growing collection. Today, both of those cases are nearly full.

In the eighties I could buy used handbooks that were in good shape for very good prices, usually only a few bucks apiece. Then, in the late eighties and early nineties, something happened. More people began collecting Scouting-related books. Handbooks became harder to find, and were more expensive when I did find them. I began passing on the few books I found because the prices were higher then I was willing to pay.

There are a couple of books that I am proud to have as part of the collection. The first is a 1941 two volume hardcover scoutmaster handbook set that is in near mint condition. One of my committee members found it at a flea market and called me to ask if he should pick it up. After hearing the price, I almost said no, but I am glad I said yes. The second is a 1932 edition of the Handbook For Boys (the Scout handbook at that time.) I picked that one at a local auction. It is the oldest Scout Handbook that I own. Someday, if the price is right, I hope to add an original Handbook for Boys to the collection.

The collection has not grown much during the last few years. I do not actively search for books any longer, but if I come across one I need to fill a gap in the collection, and it is a decent price, then I will leave the store with it.

I do not subscribe to very many magazines. I receive Boy’s Life and Scouting magazines, of course. I own a Macintosh computer so I receive Mac/Life and MacWorld magazines. I also get Entertainment Weekly just for the fun of it. Once in a while I may subscribe to Consumer reports or Popular Science. A magazine I once subscribed to and enjoyed was American Scouting Digest (ASD).

I liked receiving American Scouting Digest. It was a magazine published and written by people who cared about Scouting. The articles were well written. The photographs were outstanding. There was even an “Ask Andy” section of the magazine.

The magazine was a high class printing. Each page was thick stock paper and in color. The photographs were great to look at. The articles were well written. Each issue was only about 44 pages long, but they were worth looking at. The magazine was a fine addition to the official magazines I receive that are published by the Boy Scouts of America.

Tonight, I was sorting through a pile of magazines that had accumulated in my rack (about a two foot tall pile) and I came across my last issues of ASD. The last one I recieved was the Fall 2007 issue. I do not recall getting a subcription notice in the mail so I went online and checked out their site, and noticed it was very out of date. My first thought was, “I guess they quit printing the magazine.”

I did a little more digging on the site and found a phone number to call about subscribing, so I called it. To tell the truth, I did not expect to get on answer, or if I did that it would be the operator telling me this number has been disconected. I was surprised when, after a few rings, Ron Miller ( I think) answered the phone. Mr. Miller is the publisher of ASD.

After a short conversation with Mr. Miller, I discovered that the magazine is printed only after they have enough advertising to cover the printing costs. They do not accept paid subscriptions anymore, but send out issues free to those who ask for one, when they get around to printing one. I asked that he add my name to his mailing list.

I look forward to once again receiving American Scouting Digest, but I realize there may only be two or three issues per year. I hope they find more advertisers to get things running again to printing four to six issues per year. That would be great.

My assistant scoutmaster is eighty years old. His name is Eymard, which is a unique name in central Minnesota. He has been my assistant for nearly twenty years. Eymard is very active in the church and community. He is active in several organizations and wears many hats. He has held many titles over the years.

This week he adds one more title to the list. Eymard is now an author. He has finished writing a book about his life experiences and thoughts. It is a project he has been working on for over two years.

The first draft was written by hand in a spiral notebook. After many revisions and corrections, Eymard had a family member type the book into a computer. Once again, corrections were made after the first copy was printed on a home printer.

I entered the process when Eymard asked me to help him get it published as a softcover book. He was not looking to get it placed in any bookstores, but he wanted to have two hundred copies of the book made for family, relatives, and friends. He had checked with a few local printing companies and discovered the cost would be higher then he would like to spend. Someone suggested to him to have it printed through an online publisher. He knew I spent a lot of time on the internet so he asked for my assistance.

The first online publisher we checked out was not what I would call “user friendly”. Then I remembered hearing about a site called Lulu.com. We found it much easier to use, and it had very reasonable prices.

I quickly discovered that I needed to have the book formated as a Word document. I am not fan of Word, being the Mac guy that I am, but I did have it on my computer so I used it. We had to set up the novel exactly the way we wanted it to appear in the book. All chapter headings, margins, and the overall design of the book had to be done before I uploaded it to the website. I also needed to design a front and back cover. It took a few evenings to get things the way Eymard wanted it, but we finally got it ready for its first printing, which would be one book, just to see what it would look like.

When the book arrived, Eymard reread it and discovered that a few more corrections would be needed. He also wanted to add several more photographs. I made the corrections, scanned and added the photographs, and ordered a revised version of the book.

I received another phone call from Eymard last week after he received the revised version. He had found one more correction that needed to be made. One of the chapter titles needed to be renamed. After making the change, we placed the order for two hundred copies of the 183 page publication.

Eymard, his wife Lucille, and their family are very excited about this project. And I have to admit, so am I. Though it was a bit of a challenge, I am honored to have had the chance to assist my assistant scoutmaster in becoming a published author. I know there is one chapter about his Scouting experiences, and I look forward to reading it and the rest of the book when it arrives.

Remember sitting in a class room during high school and thinking to yourself, “When am I ever going to need to know this?” I was in a high school film class in the mid-seventies. I really did not take the class to learn anything useful. I took it to have fun. In addition to learning film history and how films were made, we had to break into groups and make our own short film. Each group had to write a script, decide who would star in what roles, who would be the cameraman, director, and editor, and so forth. I enjoyed the class.

There was no such thing as a camcorder in those years. We used a super 8mm film camera. Film, not tape. We has to send the film out to be developed. When it came time to edit we literally had to cut and paste (tape) the film. It was fun to make the film, and even more fun to watch the class reaction when we all watched it.

Let us jump ahead ten years. Melrose has a new community access television station, Mel-TV3. Camcorders (vhs) are becoming popular in households. In fact, one of the Scouting families owns a camcorder. I decide it is time to start filming troop functions to play “on the air”. It will be a great way to show the community what we do in Boy Scouting, so I join the station’s board of directors. We begin with taping court of honors and soon are creating “original” productions.

Let us jump ahead twenty years more, to today’s digital world. I am still making videos with the Scouts. I now own a digital camcorder and a Macintosh computer so I can do all my editing at my home instead of at the television studio. I still produce Scouting shows for Mel-TV, and now am being asked to provide shows for a second local television station. I can hit a wider audience through placing videos on the internet. Some of my videos are found on our troop’s website, my podcast, Youtube, and some other video sites. People from around the world can see these videos.

Sometimes I think back to those days in that high school film class, and then think about how much the technology of film making has come. I am doing things now I never would have dreamed of doing then. I just wish I would have taken a typing class.

It is amazing what you can find on the internet where you are bored and have nothing to do. This morning I found an article that brings together two things I really like – Scouting and Star Wars. Anthony Daniels, the actor who brought the droid C-3PO to life in the Star Wars movies, was a Cub Scout for a brief time. Unfortunately, he did not stay a Cub Scout for very long. It looks like he really did not quite understand what Scouting was all about.

You can read about it at the Official Star Wars Blog.
http://starwarsblog.wordpress.com/2007/08/08/c-3po-was-a-cub-scout/

I always like it when I find out well known people were in Scouting.