If you are a camper like I am you have some Coleman equipment that you use regularly. If your Boy Scout troop is like mine, they also have some Coleman equipment in their trailer or shed. Coleman has been making camping gear used by Scouts for decades, and I do not see that changing anytime soon.

Earlier this year I heard about a new documentary about a Boy Scout troop from Harlem. The film followed four Boy Scouts from Troop 759 as they went to summer camp. The film centers on Keith, the newest Scout as he attends his first long week of camp out in the woods.

Bob, our Scenic District Executive, told me that he would be in town on Thursday for the school’s Health and Wellness Fair. He had reserved a table during the three hour event to promote Scouting, which was a good idea. Membership in the local program had been declining over the last few years so we could use a little extra promotion. Maybe this could stir up a little interest and bring some boys and their parents to school night to join Scouting on Monday.

The fair began at 5:00 pm and would run until 8:00. I went there straight from work and arrived about 5:20. It did not take long to find Bob’s table. There were only about a dozen groups set up in the school cafeteria. The Boy Scout table was right next to the Girl Scout’s table. I said hello to Bob and the representative from the Girl Scouts.Jason, one of the committee members from the Cub Scout Pack was also present.

As we were standing there talking about Scouting it did not take long to notice that most people walked right by the table without stopping to check out the display or talk to us. I was almost like they were avoiding us, like we had the flu or something. It was making it difficult to get the word out about the Scouting program and school night.

Something needed to be done. We needed something to draw the boys (and their parents) to our table. We talked about how it would have been nice to have a movie or slideshow playing, but none of us had brought anything like that to the event. I ran to my car to get my iPod which had photos of various Scout activities, but the screen was too small to be of any value. Behind the table I noticed a toy air rocket that Bob had brought to the fair. He did not have anything in mind to do with it, but I thought it might be just the thing to bring the kids (and their parents) to our table.

It worked like a charm. After I shot the rocket a couple of times, and discovered how far the thing could shot (which was pretty far), the kids started coming over to try it themselves. It gave Bob the chance to talk to the parents and I talked to the boys and girls. I usually asked the boys what grade they were in, and then told them which part of the Scouting program they could be join during the meeting on Monday. We were passing out a lot more flyers.

I think that Bob and I both learned that having an activity to engage the boys and girls will make a huge difference in the amount of people drawn to a table. Hopefully, this will pay off on Monday when we have school night and kick off the year for the Cub Scout Pack.

On a final note, a few boys were having so much fun playing with the rocket that I promised to bring it along to the meeting on Monday. Maybe I will use it as a door prize for the boys who sign up for Scouting.

I recently saw this video posted at the Scouting News blog and felt I had to share it with all of you. According to the Youtube site: Doug “Satchmo” Stone performs his unique Boy Scouts themed take on Louis Armstrong’s classic “What a Wonderful World.”

The national office of the Boy Scouts of America has encouraged its troops and packs to participate in an annual Scouting For Food drive for nearly twenty years. These drives have helped tens of thousands of people over the years, and have became a necessity to many of the food banks around the country. Boy Scout Trop 68 is proud to say we have been active in conducting a food drive in our community every year since Scouting For Food began.

The committee of the Boy Scout troop has recently been discussing ideas about how to get Scouting more visible in our community. The pack has had a few rough years and membership numbers are down. This in turn has hurt the troop since 80 percent or more of our membership traditionally comes from the pack.

One idea that is gaining momentum is to have the Boy Scouts walk along this June’s parade route shortly before the parade begins and hand out small USA flags to children and folks sitting along the street. It would be great to see hundreds of flags waving as the veterans ride and march by during the parade. Of course, the Scouts would be in uniform as they pass out the flags.

The Melrose Chamber of Commerce, who is in charge of the weekend festival to be held the last weekend of June, has shown interest in this project. We will be sending letters to the local VFW Post (our charter sponsor) and the American Legion to ask for some financial support to purchase the flags.

The big question is, how many flags do we need? The parade route is a little over a mile long, approximately sixteen blocks. No one really seems to know how many people watch the parade so I started playing around with some numbers. If the Scouts hand out 20 flags per block, ten on each side of the street, we would need about 320 flags. That does not sound like many, does it?

Let’s bump that number up to 60 flags per block, or 30 flags per each side of the street. That would be nearly 1000 flags waving along the parade route. That sounds much better.

The cost of 6 inch plastic flags would be $5.99 for 72 flags, through an internet site. The total cost of a thousand flags with shipping would only be about $100.00, a very affordable project that would also give the Boy Scout troop a great way to be seen by thousands of people.

Has you pack or troop ever done anything like this project? Do you have any helpful hints? Please leave a comment if you have any ideas.

The Sauk Centre Herald is a weekly newspaper published in the city of Sauk Centre, which is the first town to the west of Melrose, the city I call home. The Herald is one of three local newspapers that does a good job of supporting the local Scout troops and packs.

A few years ago I recieved a phone call from one of the Herald staff asking for a picture of the troop. They were planning on doing a full page spread in the issue coming out during Scout week to recognize the area Scout units, and wanted to include pictures of the Scouts and leaders. I was quite impressed when I saw the issue a few weeks later.

Last December I was contacted by Robin who works for the Herald. The paper was planning on doing their yearly Scout tribute again for the first week of February and needed a new group photo. Luckily, she contacted me just before the troop’s December court of honor so I was able to get a current group photo.

When the issue arrived on the newsstand I was quick to pick up a copy. Once again, I was very impressed with the job done by the Sauk Centre Herald staff. It was two full pages featuring photographs of troops and packs from four local communities. And it was in full color. And it had other Scouting information included, like the Scout Law and the vision of Scouting.

I told Robin about this blog and asked if it would be alright to share the two page spread with my readers. She was happy to ablige and emailed the full size pdf files to me. After taking the names of the Scouts off the pages (online youth protection, you know) and resizing the pages a bit, I have up loaded them to the troop’s website. Click a link and take a look. See if you do not agree that the Sauk Centre Herald did a great job.

Page 1 (Boy Scouts)
Page 2 (Cub Scouts)

Wouldn’t it be great if all local communities did something like this for Scout Week?

Way back in 1988, I began video taping Boy Scout courts of honor and troop activities to create programs to air on our local community access television station, Mel-TV, and thus promote Scouting in the community. These shows were recorded with a large hand-held camcorder that used VHS tapes, which should have a 10-20 lifespan. A few years ago I switched to using a digital camcorder with mini-dv tapes. I now edit on a computer and print the programs to dvd-r’s, which should have a 40 year or more lifespan.

Back to those vhs tapes. I have a goal to transfer many of those old tapes sitting at the studio to dvd’s. I have already “saved” a couple dozen programs. Alas, I am too late to save some of them. A couple of the early slideshows were so bad in video quality I could only save the sound, and had to re-edit nearly the whole video which gave me the opportunity to add more pictures to the program. A few tapes have deteriorated so badly that the sound and video are beyond using. Unfortunately, this includes an Eagle court of honor and at least one troop Laughs For Lunch Show.

Are dvd-r’s the answer to archiving the programs? It depends on who you talk to. I have been using dvd’s rated to have a lifespan of at least 40 years. But a lot depends on the manufacturing process. Some of the cheap dvd’s may only last for several years before they begin to deteriorate.

Then comes the next problem. I can place the shows on a dvd, but will dvd technology still be reverent in another ten or twenty years? The world of electronics is constantly changing. For example, look at the world of music that has gone from LP albums, to 8-tracks, to cassette tapes, to compact disc, to the current digital formats.

I currently save a video program as a Quicktime file on my computer and back it up to an external hard drive. This is in addition to making several copies of the playable dvd-r to hand out to family or troop members. As the formats change in the future I hope to update these files. Well, at least for the next 30 years or so. After that, it will be someone else’s responsibility if they want these programs’ lives to be extended.