A Scoutmaster's Blog

The 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.

I 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?

It is that time of year. Units in the Central Minnesota Council are being visited by council representatives for the annual Friends Of Scouting (FOS) campaign. Families are being asked to contribute what they can to the council to assist in providing a quality program for the boys.

Like many councils, the Central Minnesota Council offers gifts for donors who meet certain levels of financial support. For many years they offered a framed Norman Rockwell Scouting print as an upper level gift. I am proud to say that a wall in my home office is covered with these prints collected over a decade.

During the last several years a special council should patch has been offered as a gift. Each year has been a different patch featuring a point of the Scout Law. I happen to be one of those Scout leaders who like to collect patches so yes, I have every one so far. This year’s patch feature the law point of Cheerful, especially cheerful service. By the way, when you think of cheerful service don’t you think of the Order of the Arrow? Did you know this year is the 100th anniversary of the OA? Can you guess what else is featured on the 2015 patch?

Once again, I like the design of the shoulder patch. I will not be wearing it on my shirt though. It will go straight into my three ring binder of council patches. This is number eight of the twelve patch series. I wonder what the next four will look like.

What do you think of this year’s patch design? Does your council do something similar?

It 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?

If you have been following this blog then you know my frustration in not being able to find the missing piece to my Scouting Village collection, the Trading Post. I was not quick enough that first year in buying the pieces and missed that building. I did find a few people selling it on eBay at vastly inflated prices, so I went without one.

This year the Scout Shop (and scoutstuff.org) came out with the new pieces which included the cool looking Dining Hall. It made me want the Trading Post even more, but not enough to where I would spend $100 to get one. Then, as if the national sales team wanted to pour salt into my open wound, they came out with a “starter kit” that included all the pieces from 2012 and 2013, including the Trading Post! I had no intention of spending $80.00 just to get that piece, even if it included all those other pieces.

A little over a month ago I received an email from a person who worked in a council Scout Shop in the southern United States. She stated that she was breaking apart a “starter kit” because other people also wanted to fill in gaps in their collections. She was willing to sell me a Trading Post! The price she gave me was very reasonable, but I would have to add shipping to the cost. By the time everything was added up I discovered I could add this missing piece to my collection for $31.00. Yes, that is double the price I would have paid if I would have bought it that first year, but I guess I learned a lesson.

When I set up my Scouting Village toward the end of November it will include all the pieces available from the three years of the collection. I am looking forward to seeing it all together. One big question in my mind is whether everything will fit on that piece of plywood I bought for this purpose. I guess I will find out in a few weeks. If the Scout Shop comes out with more pieces next year I know I will need a larger piece of plywood.

Stay tuned! I will be posting pictures of the village once I have set it up. I invite you to send you pictures of your Scouting Village, along with a brief description, to this blog so I can post them for the world to see.

The time has come. The selling begins today. This week I am beginning to sell the Order of the Arrow Tonkawampus Lodge Patches that I wrote about a week ago. As far as I can tell, these are had to come by, especially since this lodge does not exist any longer. (For more information see the previous blog post: http://www.melrosetroop68.org/blog/?p=4413 )

I am going to start selling the patches on this blog, which gives you, my readers, the first chance to purchase them for your collection. In the coming weeks I plan to expand the sale to eBay and other sites. The proceeds from these sales will go toward a campership fund to help Boy Scouts attend summer camp.

The patches will sell for $10.00 each, plus $1.00 for shipping. Buy two patches and it is still only $1.00 for shipping. There will be a limit of two patches per person. For payment and shipping information, or if you have any questions, you can contact me at stevejb68@yahoo.com .

My goal is to sell at least twenty patches by the weekend. I would appreciate it if you would help me to spread the word.

I remember when the Boy Scout stores began selling the Scouting Village pieces a couple years ago. I decided to start collecting them a little too late and missed out on getting the lighted Trading Post building. I still do not have one. When this year’s village pieces became available at our local Scout Shop I bought all three immediately. I did not want to make the same mistake a second time.

I recently noticed that in addition to this year’s collection pieces, scoutstuff.com has an eight piece starter set available to purchase. The set includes all the pieces from 2012 and 2013, including the lighted Trading Post. So, in other words, I can now get the piece I am missing, if I am willing to spend $80 on the whole set. Since I have all the other pieces already, I do not think I will be doing that.

I wish the scoutstuff.com website would make all the pieces available as single pieces. It is obvious they are manufacturing the pieces again, otherwise why wouldn’t they have offered the pieces online earlier to clear out inventory?  I am sure I am not the only one who missed out buying a building during the last two years, or maybe I am. I does frustrate me a bit, almost to the point of thinking that this will probably be the last year I will collect the Scouting Village pieces.

It is a great idea to offer the set to new collectors, but I feel it is a slap in the face to those of us who began collecting two years ago. What do you think about it?

http://www.scoutstuff.org/set-village-lighted-8pc.html

I 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.