Archive for the ‘Memorabilia’ Category


Naguonabe NOAC 2015 CYou were given a preview of the trader’s two patch set in May. Yesterday I wrote a post about the participant’s set. But did you know there is one more option available for the Naguonabe Lodge members who will be participating in this year’s National Order of the Arrow Conference (NOAC)? Yes there is!

You may have noticed in the previous posts that the original pocket flap patch and the pocket patch did not “flow” together in their design. Do not get me wrong, I like both patches. But I thought it would have been nice for the two patches to “share” a continuous design like the patch sets of the last few years. Maybe it is just me being an old fuddy duddy. I think the reason for the design was to allow all lodge members to buy a pocket flap patch to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Order of the Arrow. I understand this. I think they did a great job designing the patch and I am glad to have it as a part of my collection.

The picture above shows the recent third option of this year’s patch set. Yes, there is a final option in which the patches “flow” together into one continuous design. The wolf’s ears and forehead can now be seen. I like it! I also like the bright color scheme chosen for this year’s set. I am willing to bet this will be a popular set traded at this year’s event. Yes, this set is a trading set. Note the dark gray border. No, I do not have any patches to trade since I am not attending the conference.

So, you have seen the three options of the 2015 NOAC patches for the members of the Naguonabe Lodge of the Central Minnesota Council. Which set do you like best?

Naguonabe NOAC 2015BIt was over a month ago when I wrote a post about the Naguonabe Lodge’s patch design for the 2015 National Order of the Arrow Conference, otherwise known as NOAC. The two patch set also commemorates the 100th anniversary of the Order of the Arrow. I like the patch set. Unfortunately, I will not be attending this special function so I was able only to show you what the trading set looks like.

Well, today I was able to see, and take a picture of, the participant’s set of patches. It is the same design except that the border is silver instead of dark gray. Each person attending NOAC this year had the opportunity to buy one of these sets for their uniform. I know of one participant that may put his silver bordered set into his collection and place the trader’s set on his uniform instead. He does not want anything to happened to this very limited set, and to tell the truth, I cannot blame him.

What do you think of this patch set? What does your lodge’s patch set look like?

Melrose Historical Museum Visit - 22The president of the Melrose Area History Museum and I met at the museum this morning to set up my shelf display and Scouting coffee mugs. We both thought this would be a quick process but the cabinet had other ideas. In order to place the shelves in the cabinet we needed to remove a partition. The partition decided it did not want to be removed. The above photo from 2012 shows the two dividers that were painted tight into the shelf grooves. We spent over 15 minutes trying to get the left one to come out. Once we finally removed it we decided to take out the second one also. It was also stubborn but it did not take as long to remove.

Then came the fun part of reorganizing the display with the new shelves and the coffee mugs. I discovered a batch of membership and award cards that I thought should be set up for everyone to see and was able to use the new shelf rack to do that. We also put a piece of rigid insulation into the Girl Scout uniform so more of the shirt could be seen. The newly arranged display may look a bit more cluttered than the old arrangement but a lot more items can now be seen. To tell the truth, I think i like the new arrangement better. What do you think?

The pictures below show the new arrangement. I am already starting to form some ideas for other changes to this cabinet and two other cabinets that Roger said we could use for Scouting displays.

Museum Display #2

Museum Display 2015 #1

Scouting mugs displayI have collected a lot of Scouting memoribilia during my 35 years as an adult leader in Scouting. I have hundreds of patches, dozens of handbooks, a large tote of 2001 National Jamboree souvenirs, and enough coffee mugs to go over two months without needing to wash one. One wall in the family room is covered with honors. Another features pictures of the troop’s Eagle Scouts. And there are the Beagle Scout Snoopy Hallmark ornaments, in addition to all kinds of other stuff. Yep, I have quite a collection. Maybe too much.

In December I became a member of the board for the Melrose Area History Museum. They have a small Scouting display featuring items from local Girl Scouts, Cub Scouts, and Boy Scouts. Most of the Boy Scouting display features items I donated over the years, but they do have some interesting items donated by other people including a Boy’s Life article featuring an Eagle Scout from Melrose. (See the post about that article HERE.)

On Wednesday I stopped by the museum and took a look at the display. It could use a few more items, I thought to myself. I had an idea. Maybe it is time to thin out my collection of coffee mugs. I took a few measurements of the display case and designed a little three level shelf that could display 15 coffee mugs, and still allow some other items to be placed in front of it.

Today I decided to put my idea into action. I bought a couple 1×4 pine boards to make the two foot wide shelf. This evening I took the time to nail it together. Then I choose fifteen mugs from the collection to donate to the museum to be part of this addition to the Scouting display. The picture shows the shelf and the mugs chosen. Now I need to paint the boards white to brighten the display and highlight the mugs.

Yes, I will loose fifteen coffee mugs from my collection, but that still leaves over sixty of them on display in my family room. The 15 I chose to give are doubles I have and Central Minnesota Council mugs used as incentives during various promotions over the decades. I think these mugs will make a nice addition to the museum display. What do you think?

2014 Boy Scout DVDIt is that time of year. Time to add Christmas parties to the schedule. Time to get the gift shopping done. And for me, time to create the yearly Boy Scout Troop 68 dvd’s for each member of the troop.

I began this tradition in 2004, the year I switched to digital photography. I bought a digital still camera early that year to take along on the troop’s trip to Philmont Scout Ranch that summer. I never looked back at film. The new camera allowed me take take hundreds of pictures during the year, several times more than I would have taken with film.

By the end of the year I had quite a collection of digital photos taken during troop meetings, courts of honor, and troop activities. Instead of keeping them to myself, I decided to copy them to compact discs and give a set to each Scouting family. The parents would be able to see what their boys had been up to during the year, and they could print any pictures they would like to add to their photo albums.

I also took the photos and used them to create slideshows of each troop activity, along with music. Using iDVD, I create discs of these slideshows and gave each Boy Scout one for Christmas. They became quite popular with the families. They were also fun to watch with the Scouts during the annual Christmas party.

I have completed creating the dvd+r’s of this year’s photographs. I have also created this year’s slideshows. (Is slideshow even the correct term in this day and age?) This weekend’s project is to create the slideshow dvd’s and cases. If I have enough time I may make a second disc featuring this year’s courts of honor and/or other events.

The year’s slideshow dvd will include nine videos totally about 50 minutes of memories. The picture dvd+r’s will contain about 3 GB of photos. The boys sometimes get annoyed with me during the year when I am taking the pictures but everyone like viewing them at the end of the year. The parents really like seeing them.

I only have about a week to finish this project. The troop’s Christmas party in Saturday evening, December 13th. It will be fun to watch the Scout’s reactions to this year’s videos and see if they approve of the music I used.

Does your troop do anything like this? What do think of this idea?

Tonkawampus S19 Lodge PatchI recently had a great visit with a couple of old Scouting friends of mine. We had not seen each other for a few years so it was great to get together for a few hours to reminisce about the “old” times and catch up on how we have all been doing. Of course, we also exchanged some Scouting memorabilia. I gave him two 2010 Boy Scout Fleece blanket patterns which he can use to make a couple patch blankets, and he gave me various patches for my collection and a special surprise.

A fair number of the patches given to me were Tonkawampus Lodge #16 Order of the Arrow patches, #S19. This lodge was chartered in 1924 in the Viking Council, located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In 2006, during the merger of the Viking Council and the Indianhead Council of St. Paul, Tonkawampus Lodge #16 and Agaming Lodge #257 merged to form Totanhan Nakaha Lodge #16.

The patches given to me are shown above. I have done an online search for this patch and had a hard time founding it anywhere. eBay did not have this patch offered by anyone. I finally found some information on the Internet Guide to Order of the Arrow Insignia, but even that page did not have a lot of information, other than stating that this was the 80th anniversary patch for the lodge.

My friend told me this could be one of the last patches made for the lodge before the merger. Hidden in the design of the patch is the year 2003. The first two feathers, following by pictures in the two zeros, followed by three feathers, gives us the year 2003. That is a pretty cool design in my opinion. I plan to add a couple of these to my collection of OA patches, which will be even more special since this lodge does not exist any longer.

My friend gave me this collection of Order of the Arrow patches with one stipulation. I could keep some for myself, but I should try selling the rest and use the proceeds to provide camperships for Scouts who may need some assistance paying for summer camp. I thought that was an excellent idea. I know of a couple online sites, like eBay, that would probably be good places to post sales for these collector patches. We discussed what price should be listed but neither one of us had a good idea what that price should be. I finally sat down today to see if I could find something online on an average price for this patch but found nothing. Not a thing. Do I have a rare patch here?

I decided to write a post about it here before I started auctioning them off on various sites. If you have any information about this patch I would love to hear from you. I was thinking about asking a starting price of $10.00 each. Too high? Not high enough? What is your opinion?

 

jambopatches2014I know many of you collect patches, be they council strips, Order of the Arrow lodge flaps, or activity patches. One of the several patch collection I have is of the 2001 National Jamboree. I collect from that event because I attended it with nine Boy Scouts from my troop. I still add patches to this collection when I can pick them up at a reasonable price. Here is a photo of the patches I collected from eBay auctions in the last three weeks.

dining hallI arrived at the Central Minnesota Council office early for Tuesday night’s roundtable so I spent some time checking out the Scout Shop. There was only a couple of us looking around when the clerk asked me if she could help me find anything, like books, awards, Christmas items…

The mention of Christmas items caught my attention immediately. Just last week I had checked the scoutstuff.com website to see if there were any new pieces for the Scouting Village that had began two years ago. I was anxious to see if this village would be continued and what this year’s pieces would be. Unfortunately, I found nothing on the website. So when the Scout Shop clerk mentioned Christmas items I had to ask about the Scouting Village.

She replied that they had received the new pieces that very afternoon and have not had a chance to get them on the shelves yet. Awesome, I thought. I asked if I could see them and followed her into the storage room where she opened the carton. I believe I was the first Scouting volunteer in my council to see the new pieces, and this year’s building grabbed my attention.

The newest building in the series is the Lighted Dining Hall. I thought is was well designed and quite colorful, but a little small in scale for a dining hall. Only one troop would fit in here, I thought. Oh well, it is a village building piece and they are not in the same scale as the people or even other buildings. It is still a pretty cool looking piece and I am anxious to add it to my set up this year. The website states (Yes, it can now be bought online), “A welcome addition to the holiday Scouting Village, this piece enhances any collection. Porcelain rendering of a BSA camp dining hall is beautifully detailed—complete with outdoor picnic tables!”

The next piece that I noticed was the “Tree Sales” Figurine. I like this piece because it reminds me of the years that Boy Scout Troop 68 sold Christmas Trees as a fundraiser. The website says, “Premium-quality accessory adds character and dimension to your Lighted Scouting Village scenes. Polyresin tree figurine features a Cub Scout, Boy Scout, and Leader hard at work on a Christmas tree sales lot.” I have to agree the the figures do add quite a bit to the Scouting Village scene.

The third and final piece of this year’s collection is the “Popcorn Tree” Figurine. This piece features a Boy Scout and Cub Scout decorating a Christmas Tree. The site says, “There’s nothing more iconic to BSA than popcorn! This polyresin figurine features a Cub Scout and Boy Scout decorating a tree with popcorn garland and ornaments.” I thought this could be a great gift for the unit’s “popcorn kernel”, the chairperson of the popcorn fundraiser.

I bought all three pieces right then. I was not going to wait and have the same thing happen to me that happened two years ago when I waited too long to buy them and missed out on getting the Trading Post. (I still do not have one.) I look forward to late November when I set up my new expanded village. I think this will be the last year I will be able to use that piece of plywood I use for the base.

I was not the only person who bought the set that evening. Within ten minutes of my purchase another set was bought and the Scout Shop was out of the Lighted Dining Halls. Since I am a roundtable commissioner I also took time during the meeting to give a quick shout out for this year’s Scouting Village.

Have you been collecting the buildings and figurines? What do you think of this year’s additions?
http://www.scoutstuff.org/house-lightd-dining-hall.html
http://www.scoutstuff.org/figure-villg-tree-sales.html
http://www.scoutstuff.org/figure-villg-popcorn-tree.html

trees for sale
popcorn tree