A Scoutmaster's Blog

I have been collecting the Hallmark Scoutmaster Snoopy ornaments for about 15 years now so I was looking forward to picking up this year’s ornament today at my local Hallmark store. I saw the ornament online a couple weeks ago and it looked like a great addition to the collection. According to the Hallmark website:

Scoutmaster Snoopy and his Beagle Scouts know that great days are ones spent fishing with friends. Celebrate the timeless tradition of scouting with this cute Peanuts Christmas tree ornament featuring Snoopy, Woodstock and their yellow feathered friends.

I thought it was a great idea for the design. I was really looking forward to buying two of them, like I usually do every year. I walked into the store, gazed at all the various ornaments on display, and then found Scoutmaster Snoopy. I guess you could say the feeling I felt when I first saw it was… disappointment.

The design was great, but the ornament was very small. And I do mean small. It looked to be about half the size of last year’s ornament which was already a bit smaller then the year before. All the other ornaments on the display wall looked to about about the normal size that we have come to expect from Hallmark. So why was this Snoopy ornament so much smaller than the others?

By the way, this year’s ornament was the same price as last year’s ornament, even though it was so much smaller.

When I got home I took out the last two previous years ornaments to see just how much smaller this year’s was. The feeling began to change from disappointment to a little bit of anger. The 2022 model seemed to be about 40% smaller than the 2021 model. Take a look at the pictures below and see for yourself.

If this is how Hallmark plans to treat this series in the future then I may be done collecting Scoutmaster Snoopy ornaments. Yes, I bought this year’s decoration but I only bought one, not the usual two. I could not bring myself to buy a second one because I felt like I was being ripped off by Hallmark.

What do you think of this year’s ornament? Do you plan to buy one? What do you think of the size of it? Leave a comment and let me know if you like this year’s “The Peanuts® Gang Fishing Friends Ornament”.

Thank you for stopping by A Scoutmaster’s Blog.

I have been collecting the Hallmark Keepsake ornaments featuring Scout Leader Snoopy for quite a few years. Hallmark has been creating one for each Christmas holiday season for nearly two decades. I think I missed the first one or two but I have collected each one since 2007. In fact, once I discover a new one is for sale I usually post the news in this blog. In this video of My Scouting Collection I show all the Beagle Scout Snoopy ornaments in my collection along with a special Walt Disney ornament I found featuring Donald Duck and his nephews.

Do you collect these ornaments? Have you seen them in the stores? Which ones do you own?

This is the fifth video in the series and can be watch at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXQwSVrU23k

If you enjoy watching these videos please hit the LIKE button on the YouTube page and subscribe to the channel. Thank you for watching.

Sometimes plush animal toys are so cute you just have to buy it. At least that is what a Cub Scout aged child may think when one catches his eye in a store. As an adult I have collected several for myself, but they have a Scouting theme to them. Sometimes when I walk into the trading post at summer camp one of these toys may catch my eye and suddenly become the newest member of my stuffed animal collection.

In this video I show the plush animals I have collected. Many of them are from Many Point Scout Camp or the Scout Stuff online store. A couple have some from high adventure bases. Would do you think of them?

This video can be watched on the My Scouting Collection channel on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESqPKTNeeQg

Do you have many plush animals in your collection? If you enjoy the videos you are invited to hit the SUBSCRIBE button below the videos. Thank you for watching.

It is that time of year. It is time to make the DVDs for the Scouts of Troop 68. Not that is a requirement by any means. But it is kind of a tradition that I began once I started taking digital photographs. It was easy to take the digital photos, convert them into slideshows, and burn to a DVD, so why not share them with the troop?

This year, for 2020, I decided to make an annual dvd for both the troop and for the Cub Scout Pack. The Cub Scout DVD will contain four slideshows featuring the January Pinewood Derby, and the February, July, and October Pack meetings. The Boy Scout DVD will contain 6 slideshows featuring activities, troop meetings, and a special advancement outing.

The Boy Scouts will receive a bonus DVD featuring this year’s Egg Drop Competition held at Camp Watchamagumee in June. I just recently got around to editing the footage so I thought it would make for a nice surprise.

Every year at this time I keep asking myself if I should continue to create these videos, and every year I seem to keep doing them. The first one was done in 2003, so that means this is the 18th year. I have often wondered if anyone ever takes the DVDs off their shelf to watch them years later but I have talked to a few people, especially parents, who like to go back and watch them once in awhile.

I usually hand these out to the Scouts at the troop’s Christmas party but, of course, due to the virus we will not be holding the annual event, so I may need to drop them off at each Scout’s home. Luckily we live in a small town.

Does your troop do something like this each year? Do your troop families enjoy watching them?

Many of you may remember a few weeks ago when I wrote about finding a 1955 training flip chart in my Scouting collection. It was called Advancement and Your Patrol. I stated that it might be fun to do a video using this old training device and many of you seemed interested in the project.

Well, I did get one of the Scouts of our troop to record audio for the project. We spent a couple hours going through it page by page, getting the Scout to read it just right. Then we did one quick run through of him reading it the way he wanted to read it.

I have not finished my “serious” version of the project, but the Scout’s version is now complete and ready to be watched. You can see it at https://youtu.be/VhzBBrNO31k

It turned out pretty well, I think. In fact, I do not know if I even want to make the “serious” version any more. Let me know what you think of it. And I would appreciate it if you left a comment and a like on the YouTube site.

Over a year ago I downloaded an app for my iPhone that was created by the Boy Scouts of America called PatchScan. It looked like an interesting program. It was from the B.S.A. It was free! I just had to have it since it was from the National office.

I downloaded it to my iPhone and took a quick look at it. It looked like a very simple program. I scanned the code sticker on the back of an Order of the Arrow patch I recently bought. Luckily, the patch I scanned was an officially licensed patch since the app only works with officially licensed patches. That means any patches I have that are made in China probably will not work with the app, especially since they do not have a bar code.

Once the code was scanned the app displayed information about the patch that, to tell the truth, I found quite interesting. It told me who issued the patch, how many were made, the date it was issued, and the manufacturer of the patch. There was also a picture of the patch and patch detail information. This looked like it would be a handy app for a serious patch collector.

I closed the app, and then forgot about it for nearly a year. This week I opened the app to check it out once again, and scanned another patch. I really need to start scanning my patches when I get time.

Unfortunately, it does not appear to get updated very often. The last update was done over a year ago. There have only been two updates since the app came out six years ago. The app description talks about the 2013 National Jamboree but there is not a word about the 2017 Jamboree. I hate to say it, but it looks like the B.S.A. is letting the ball drop on an app that could be fun for Scouts and Scouters to use.

Have you downloaded the PatchScan app to your phone or tablet? Have you used it? What do you think about it? Let us know in the comments section.

I am sure I am not the only long time Scouter that has accumulated a fair amount of Scouting memorabilia over the years. I think it is inevitable. But when you actively collect anything you come across the collection grows a lot faster, and you develop a lot of subcategories within the collection. Handbooks, novels, coffee mugs and patches are probably the most common Scouting related collections.

Last year I discovered that there was a short comic book series that featured a comical look at Boy Scouting. This series, printed in 1951, was named The Little Scouts. According to the Comic Vine website, there were five issues printed in this series, but a few more stories were printed in Dell Four Color comic series that featured the same characters. Each comic book featured a few short stories of a group of Boy Scouts.

I was able to pick up one of these comic books. It is shown above. According to the information on Comic Vine this is #5 in the series. I have looked through it and found it to be entertaining and fun to read. It may not be quite “socially correct” by today’s standards but it was published over 60 years ago. It like reading the humor found in the books back then. I think I need to begin the hunt to see if I can find the rest of them.

Do you know of any other Scouting related comic book series? Leave a comment and let us know about it.

Boy Scout Troop 68 of Melrose holds two meal fundraisers each year. The spring meal is usually a pancake and sausage breakfast that includes scrambled eggs. The fall meal has been a spaghetti supper for the last few years. The troop does well with both fundraisers and is able to keep up with the yearly expenses.

The 2019 spring breakfast fundraiser takes place this weekend at the Melrose American Legion. The parents will be working in the kitchen while the Scouts take care of the tables and the dishes. I will probably do the same thing I have done for the last thirty years, pour coffee, visit with the people who come by for breakfast, and keep an eye on the Scouts to make sure they get their work done.

Another of the jobs I have, and one that I really have made my own, is to create a table top display for the meal. I began to take items out last night to prepare for Sunday’s meal. As you can see from the picture I will have both Cub Scouting and Boy Scouting items in this year’s display. The Cub Scout Pack has been doing well and I wanted to include something for the elementary aged children.

One item not shown in the picture is the patch blanket I plan to hang. I may even bring both of them. I do have clothing racks that work very well to display them. Add in a few photo albums and I think there will be enough Scouting memorabilia for families to view.

How often do you set up a Scouting display in your community? What do you include in it? When do you set it up? Leave a comment and let us know about it.