A Scoutmaster's Blog

A parent of one of the Boy Scouts of Melrose Area Troop 68 approached me after a troop meeting last month. She is a member of the Cub Scout Pack committee and asked if I could put together a Scouting display for the Blue and Gold Banquet which would be held on Tuesday, February 26. Well, of course, I said yes.

I have been an adult leader in Scouting for over 38 years so I have accumulated a lot of Scouting related items including handbooks, training materials, mugs, patches, and even stuff animals. Putting together a tabletop display would not be too difficult.

The weekend before the banquet I began to think about the display. I wanted it to be Cub Scout themed, of course, with something to catch the attention of both the Scouts and their families.Maybe something with various colors to attract the eye.

I began with the backdrop. One of my patch blankets would serve that purpose. The dozens of patches would attract attention with all the colors and designs. I chose my second blanket since the patches were closer to the date. I own a clothing rack so hanging it would not be a problem.

I made a decision to showcase the history of Cub Scouting with the other items. I chose that theme partially because the older handbooks have better cover designs than the current books. Since I was limited to a table top I could only choose a book or two from each grade level. I also used a couple of adult leader handbooks.

I added a large Norman Rockwell print of a Boy Scout teaching a couple Cub Scouts a new skill for one corner of the table. I finished the display with some Cub Scout awards, an old Cub Scout cap, and a few Scouting themed stuff animals. The table was nicely filled but not so much that it would look cluttered.

The display went over pretty well at the Blue and Gold Banquet. I saw both Scouts and parents checking it out. I guess you could say my mission was accomplished.

Did you have a display at your Blue and Gold? What was your theme? What did it include? Let us know by leaving a comment.

As I was gathering patches for my new Scout uniform shirt I went to the eBay auction site to find an adult leader 2001 National Jamboree patch since I did not want to remove it from my old shirt. I found one at a very reasonable price, for only $5.20 with shipping. As I was searching for it I came across a few other auctions that caught my attention.

Normally I just glance at the auctions since the prices usually end up going higher than I like. One auction did catch my attention. It was a patch set from the 2001 Jamboree that I had never seen before. The set included three patches from the Jewish Shomer Shabbat Contingent. I could be mistaken but I think it may include an adult leader, a participant, and a staff patch. It was a very good looking set.

I decided I would like to add it to my Jamboree collection. I checked the price and I thought it was very reasonable. The seller was only asking $9.95 for the set, and that included postage. I hit the Buy It Now button before I could change my mind.

The patches arrived last week and look sharp. I am glad I purchased them. But I do not know anything about this contingent. My mission to you is to leave a comment with some information of this group. I appreciate the help.

Nearly two weeks ago I posted an article about giving away a few Order of the Arrow patches to three lucky people who commented on the post. The time has come to give award the patches.

Only three people commented so all three of you will receive a Tonkawampus Lodge flap, if you want one. Drop me an email with your address and I will get them in the mail sometime in the next few days.

Congratulations to Dustin, Todd, and Brian!

The city of Melrose once had a cable access television station. It started up in 1986 and lasted for nearly twenty five years. It closed when the city decided to keep the cable franchise fees for the general fund instead of giving them to the station for operating funds.

I saw the potential of promoting our Boy Scout Troop on this television channel almost immediately, and decided to make good use of it. I would videotape our courts of honor to air on the station. I would take a VHS video camera with me on outings to create programs to inform people what the Boy Scouts have been doing. We even created some original programming using the Scouts as actors. I joined the station’s board of directors and created Scouting related programming for over twenty years.

One of the earliest Scouting related programs was an interview with five of the adult leaders of the Melrose Scouting program. It was titled The Leaders of Scouting. It was filmed in 1988. The guests included cubmasters, assistant scoutmasters, and committee members. I was a producer for the show and thought it turned out pretty good.

After Mel TV closed its doors the city donated all the programming to the Melrose Area Historical Museum. I am now a board member of that organization. The board’s chairman and I were talking one day and thought it would be a good idea to create a Youtube channel and post some of these old programs online for the community to watch once again. With the help of Shalon we have been digitizing some of the old VHS tapes and DVDs to post online.

Six programs have been posted online so far. I am happy to report that The Leaders Of Scouting was one of the videos uploaded to the channel. If you have 90 minutes some evening and are looking for something to watch I would like to suggest you watch this video. It is an interesting look at the Scouting program of Cub Scout Pack 68 and Boy Scout Troop 68 in the 1980’s.

The YouTube channel is called Mel TV3 Revived. The video can be found at https://youtu.be/cG7bjhYGqp4

Let us know what you think of the show. Do you think we should create a new show since we are now in the 2010s?

I began collecting Scouting themed books soon after becoming a Scoutmaster in the early 1980s. I collect handbooks, leadership books, history books, and the fictional novels that were written in the 1910s and 1920s. After 35 years of collecting I would say I have a very nice collection.

The old Scouting themed fictional novels written a hundred years ago have a special place in the collection. I love finding those old books if they are in decent condition. It can be a challenge to find these old books that are still in one piece. I don’t think anyone really thought they were meant to last more then a generation or two so when I find one, at a reasonable price, I like to buy it.

I recently saw a post on a Facebook group called Scout Patch Collectors. It is a great group for trading and buying Scout patches. Once in awhile other Scouting memorabilia is posted. Last week I saw a post featuring three of the old Scout novels for sale. While they looked a little frayed around the edges I noticed they were three books I did not have in my collection.

The Boy Scouts at the Panama Canal, written by Lieut. Howard Payson, was published in 1913. The other two books were written by Herbert Carter. The Boy Scouts Afoot In France was published in 1917. The Boy Scouts On War Trails In Belgium was published in 1916.

After a few messages back and forth between the seller and myself I agreed to purchase the books for a price we both agreed upon. Since I was buying the books based on the one photograph posted I hoped they would not be in terrible shape.

The books arrived last Saturday. The covers are in decent shape, showing a bit of wear which is to be expected. The covers are coming loose but a little glue will take care of that. Two of the books have a loose page in the front of the book, but at least the page is still with the book. Otherwise, the books are in decent shape for being one hundred years old.

Two of the books have handwriting inside the front cover. I think one was a gift to a young man. The other book I believe has the owner’s name written on the first page. This does not bother me in the least. I think I adds a little character and history to the book.

I am going to have to rearrange my book cabinet to make room for these three new additions. While they may not be in great shape they do fill in three holes in my collection and I am glad to be able to add them.

Do you collect old Scout themed novels? Which ones do you own? Leave a comment below.

I bought my first digital camera in 2004. I was going to Philmont Scout Ranch with the troop and thought this would be a good trip to start using digital photography. I have been using a digital camera ever since that trip.

I soon began using the digital photos to make slideshows of the troop events and activities. It was fairly easy to create a slideshow using the programs of the Mac Pro computer I owned. The next step was to burn the slideshows to a DVD so I could watch them on the television.

As Christmas approached I decided to copy the pictures to a compact disc and print one for each of the Boy Scouts in the troop. The slideshow DVDs soon followed. The Boy Scouts and their families seem to enjoy watching the shows so I kept doing it each Christmas.

It is now the year 2018. I have finished this year’s annual DVDs. Once again there will be a DVD of the slideshows, but the yearly photo collection has grown too large to put on CDs anymore. I take thousands of photos each year so the collection is now burned as a data DVD. This year’s photo collection was over 3 GB, and that does not include the photos of the trip to the Summit high adventure base. The data DVD does include some short videos taken during some of the monthly events.

I hope the Boy Scouts and their families enjoy watching the slideshows and looking at the pictures. It does take several evenings to create the DVD package each year. But I think it is well worth it.

PS: after posting this article and viewing the picture I noticed a mistake on the DVDs. Do you see it?

I became an assistant scoutmaster at the young age of 19 in June 1980. Shortly thereafter, I began receiving Boy’s Life and Scouting magazines, the two official publications of the Boy Scouts of America. I enjoyed reading them, and they were a part of my training during those early years of being a scoutmaster of Melrose Troop 68.

Instead of recycling those early magazines I held onto them. I thought they could come in handy as a reference. As the years went by and the pile grew larger I bought some magazine file boxes to store and organize them, still thinking I may look back at them some day. As the decades went by I continued to save the issues. The collection grew!

It has now been over 37 years since those first issues arrived. For over 37 years I have been collecting and filing both magazines. I probably have about 450 issues of Boy’s Life (12 per year) and over 185 issues of Scouting magazine (5 per year). The collection, seen in the picture, covers more than ten feet of shelving.

I have now reached the point at which I am wondering why I have kept all these magazines. I have only looked at a few back issues a couple of times. What should I do with them all? There are over 600 of them, with more coming every month. I doubt there are many people with as large of a collection as I have. I would hate to just throw them away. I know of no one who would want them. I doubt the local museum has a need for them. I am sure the local Scout office would want them for any reason.

What do you think? Do you have a suggestion on what to do with this collection? Leave your comments and suggestions below. Thanks.

In October 2016 I wrote a post in which I stated that I was going to quit making photo albums about Boy Scout Troop activities. I currently have 38 albums covering over 35 years of Troop 68 history. It is quite the collection of books. Since I am not the scoutmaster any longer and do not attend most of the events any more I thought it might be time to stop creating albums. In the digital age, are photo albums even relevant?

Well, I guess they still are. During one of last year’s meal fundraisers some of the Boy Scouts of Troop 68 noticed that there were not any current photos. The younger Scouts noticed they were not even included in the last album. You see, I usually bring some of the albums to the meal for people to look through as they wait in line or to look up pictures of activities of years gone by. Troop alumni seem to have fun looking through them.

Last weekend I decided to finish out the last album which was only half way filled, and do one more new album. I looked through the thousands of photos I have taken in the last two years (yes, thousands) and picked out 468 pictures of 2016 and 2017 to have printed since Shutterfly had unlimited free prints this past week. It still cost over $40.00 in postage, but what the heck, it is for the kids.

(Maybe I should ask the troop committee if they could help pay for some of that postage, huh?)

I guess I have my work cut out for me this weekend. The photos arrived today. Now to sort them, insert them, and label them in the photo albums. The goal is to have them ready to view at the spring breakfast next month. Wish me luck!