A Scoutmaster's Blog

Wow! I never expected to see something like this posted to Youtube by the BSA. But I think it is very well done. Welcome to Patrol Z, an action comic strip to promote the next Jamboree at The Summit. This video kicks off a program by the BSA to recruit Scouts with tech savvy skills. According to the Patrol Z website:

“WANTED:MULTIMEDIA, WEB-SAVVY SCOUTS

The Summit needs campfire stories. Digital ones. And we need you to tell them online. Scouts with skills – making videos, producing quality photos, writing blog posts. Designers and web developers, too.

We’re putting together a team. That’s Patrol Z.”

Do you have what it takes to be a member of Patrol Z? For more information check out the site at https://summit.scouting.org/en/PatrolZ/Pages/default.aspx
But in the meantime watch the video below. (As I write this the video has received 338 views.)

What do you think about this idea?

100 Days Of Scouting: Day 24

This note is more for myself then anyone, but “A Scoutmaster’s Blog” reached a total of 150,000 visits yesterday (since the counter began in June 2007). It has only been a little over seven months since it reached 100,000 visits. The daily visits have been increasing nicely. The blog averages 200-300 hits per day. It will be interesting to see how long it takes to hit 175,000 views.

I would like to thank you all for coming to this site and reading the blog.

I discovered a new blog today written by a gentleman who would like to be an Eagle Scout. But like me, he is beyond his teen years. What he has decided to do is to try to fulfill all the requirements from the joining requirements, through Tenderfoot and all the ranks, all the way to the Eagle Rank. He realizes he can not actually “earn” the award but I have to give him credit for giving this a try. He is currently working on his Tenderfoot requirements.

This note is more for myself then anyone, but “A Scoutmaster’s Blog” reached a total of 100,000 visits this morning (since the counter began in June 2007). It has been a little under four months since it reached 75,000 visits. The daily visits have been increasing nicely. The blog now receives 200-300 hits per day on average. The 100,000th visit checked out articles about Eagle Scout scoutmaster conferences.

I would like to thank you all for coming to this site and reading the blog. It will be interesting to see how long it takes to hit 150,000 views.

Wow, I almost missed a couple of dates that I probably should not have forgotten. On May 18, 2006, I posted the first article to “A Scoutmaster’s Blog“. It is hard to believe that it has already been three years of sharing Scouting stories (430 posts) with you. There have been a lot of other Scouting related blogs that have come and gone during that time.

One April 4, 2007, I posted the first video to the “Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast“. That video introduced many Scouts, leaders, and families to a new character we know as Buttons, the radical Boy Scout. Sixty five videos have been posted to the podcast over the last two years.

I want to thank you all for reading this blog, watching the videos, and for listening to the new podcast, “Around The Scouting Campfire“. Your support, emails, and comments keep me fired up to continue these projects.

I would like to give special thanks to Cubmaster Chris of PTC Media for all the background help he has given me over the years, and to the Boy Scouts and family of Troop 68, both past and present, who have given me the material needed for these projects.

Once again, this note is more for myself then anyone, but this blog reached a total of 75,000 visits today (since the counter began in June 2007). It has only been a bit over four months since it reached 50,000 visits. The daily visits have been increasing nicely. It was not that long ago when this site would be lucky to receive 150 a day.

I would like to thank you all for coming to this site and reading the blog. It will be interesting to see when it hits 100,000 views.

The month of January really kicked off the new year to a busy start for our troop’s (and this blog’s) website. There was a total of 26,097 visits to the troop’s website, with a total of 134,705 page views. This includes 10,682 hits to this blog’s homepage. All told, there was over 147.8 GB of data transferred. I think that is a record for the site.

Of course, most of that bandwidth is used by the video podcast. The top videos of the month of January 2009 were:
The Leaders of Scouting (Mike H) – 407 hits
Little Bunny Foo Foo – 455 hits
The 2001 National Jamboree Video – 480 hits
The Buttons and Randall Show #3 – 577 hits

I have to thank David H., a former member of Troop 68, for providing the space and bandwidth for the website. If he wouldn’t provide the troop with the free domain, server, and bandwidth I would not be placing all these videos online for you to enjoy. Thanks David.

And thanks to all of you for reading this blog, watching the videos, and checking out our troop’s website.

Shortly after I started writing this blog I registered it with a site called Blog Patrol which had a nice little counter for the site and kept statistics for one week. It was fun watching the daily stats climb, but not so fun watching them drop. It was like watching a slow moving rollercoaster. Most days I would get around 150 visits or so. I smiled a little brighter each day I received over 200 visitors. It is nice when people find your blog something they enjoy reading.

This past week I have noticed more people coming to the blog. Today, something happened that has never happened before. This blog has received over 300 visitors! In one day! And the daily forecast shows that it could hit 340 visits. Wow.

Now I realize for many bloggers out there that this is no big deal. Some blogs receive thousands of hits per day, even tens of thousands. This is not one of those blogs. I realize that my blog topic fits a narrow range of people out there, and that is alright. I am not a writer for the Wallstreet Journal or anything like that. I just write about Scouting, something that has been a part of me for most of my life.

I just wanted to take a moment and thank you all for coming to this site and checking out the blog. I really do appreciate it.