A Scoutmaster's Blog

The logo to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America has been chosen, and it was designed by Philip Goolkasian, a seventeen year old Eagle Scout from California. Philip’s design was chosen from over 4000 entries.

The logo looks pretty sharp. I like it. The BSA will be using the logo for promotions during the next couple of years. Check it out on the BSA website HERE.

A newer video (2006?) by the Boy Scouts of American can be found on Youtube. It is a two song music video that features Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts participating in Good Turns across America. The First video asks, “What have you done today to made you feel proud?” It is a catchy song. The second song I think you will recognize from several years ago. Watch the video, then post a comment about your thoughts.

Well, the Youtube Scouting Video Day experiment did not accomplish the goal of getting a Scouting video or two to the top five “views” pages on Friday, February 8th. I do appreciate everyone who participated in the project. We gave it a good run, but we just did not have the numbers needed to do it. Here is a brief summary of the results.

The views received by each of the four suggested videos varied by the hundreds. The Cub Scout commercial featuring Steve Young only received 201 hits on Friday, as near as I can tell. The Boy Scout commercial about Jim Lovel did better, receiving 367 views.

The “What Parents Say About Scouting” did better then I expected when compared to the other videos. I thought it would come in with the lowest number of views since it was the longest of the videos. It received 271 hits, seventy more then the Cub Scout video.

The “Scout Zone” received the most hits, which was something I expected. It was watched 533 times, far more then the other videos. I would guess that was because it was the first video listed, and that it was a music video which was fun to watch.

The experiment failed to get any of these videos to the front pages, but I would not call it a complete failure. Dozens, or even hundreds, of people watched these videos for the first time and may have been introduced to other Scouting videos found on Youtube. I would call that successful, wouldn’t you?

Once again, I would like to thank everyone who participated in the project and spread the word to others. Maybe we can try it again next year, or maybe make this a yearly occurrence.

PS – After writing this article this morning, I took another look at the numbers around 10:00 am. Either Youtube is playing with me, or a lot of people watched the videos since 7:00 am. The numbers of views for each of the videos has gone up by the hundreds! Take a look at these numbers:
The Cub Scout Commercial (Young) – 223 more views.
The Boy Scout Commercial (Lovel) – 346 more views
What Parents Say About Scouting – 221 more views
The Scout Zone Video – 470 more views.
I think these videos have received more views in 36 hours then they normally receive in two months!

Happy Birthday Scouting (BSA)!

Wow, has it been 98 years already? It seems like just a few years ago when that unknown Boy Scout in England helped William Boyce find his way in the fog of London. And look what the BSA has accomplished since then. Ten of millions of boys have been involved with Scouting. Hundreds of millions of hours of community service has been done around the country. And look at all the boys who earned Scoutings highest award, the rank of Eagle Scout. I ask, has there been any other youth group in the history of this great country that has accomplished as much as the Boy Scouts of America?

And to think, it all begin in the USA because of the good turn of one Boy Scout in England! It just goes to show that you never know what that daily good turn could lead to, do you?

And do not forget to watch the videos on Youtube that were listed in a previous blog entry. Let’s see if we can get something shown on the front page today.

In one of the Scouting forums, someone accused me of just trying to get a video on the front page of Youtube when I suggested that we try this “Youtube Scouting Video Day” experiment on February 8th. Before I saw the comment someone had already replied to him that that was the point. I had to chuckle to myself. That was the purpose of the experiment, but I do not think he understood the reasoning behind my idea.

The way I see it, if we can get a video or two to the Youtube front page then the chances are pretty good that more boys and parents will see it then these commercials were ever seen when they aired on local television stations at 2:00 in the morning. Besides, many of the Youtube users are teenagers. Aren’t they the ones we want to know about Scouting?

So yes, I am trying to get these videos on the front page. I am trying to promote Scouting, and I need everyone’s help to accomplish this. And this way of doing it does not cost any council or district a dime to have people watch it.

By the way, if I was going to try just to get a video to the front page to boost my ego, don’t you think I would have suggested one of my own original videos? I am trying to promote Scouting, not myself, with this experiment.

I would like to conduct an experiment, and I am going to need your help to do it. As most of you know, February 8th is the 98th anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America. I would like your help to celebrate it in a unique way.

Currently, there are a few thousand videos on Youtube that feature Scouts or are about Scouting. Most of these videos never receive more then a couple hundred views, if they even get that many. Only a few have ever hit the 10.000 views mark. I do not think a Scouting video has ever made it to the daily top five pages.

There are millions of Boy Scouts in the USA, and tens of thousands of adult leaders and professionals. Add the Scouts and leaders from around the world and we have a staggering membership. Even if we get a small percentage of the Scouts and leaders with internet access to participate in this I think we could make this work.

So here is my idea. Let’s make a “Youtube Scouting Video Day” on February 8th. Let’s try to get as many Scouts, adult leaders, friends, and family members to watch Boy Scout videos as we are able. Let’s see if we can get a video or two to appear on the Youtube front pages and really help to promote Scouting to the internet masses, or at least the Youtube viewers.

To make this the most effective I think we need to concentrate our efforts on just a few videos, but I encourage you to watch as many as your time table allows. Here are the videos I would suggest we watch:

In The Scout Zone Video (2:24)
at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKFnGDRaMQU
The BSA Commercial featuring Jim Lovell (0:30)
at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNq6WsYIAFI
A Cub Scout Commercial featuring Steve Young (0:30)
at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqnkjBArjUo
and finally, the “What Parents Say About Scouting” (5:52)
at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1axj3lNc0Q

This would amount to approximately ten minutes of your time if you watched all four videos, ten minutes to help promote Boy Scouting and Cub Scouting on a popular internet site. Would you be willing to spend ten minutes trying to bring Scouting videos to the light of day for one day?

So, I ask that you spread the word about “Youtube Scouting Video Day”. Copy this message and send it to other Scouts and leaders. Let’s see if we can’t get these videos highlighted to the internet masses and promote Scouting on February 8th.

I was a pretty good student in high school. Mathematics was my best class. I did well in English classes, but not so well in phy ed class. (I was the 98 pound weakling of my class, literally.) I did like to read, but I never considered myself a writer. If someone had told me back then that I would someday be writing articles for the local newspaper, or penning scripts for the local cable access television station, or posting entries to internet blogs, why, I probably would have laughed in their face. And then go back to reading whatever book I was into at the moment.

I may have had no desire to be a writer when I was in high school, but when I was nineteen years old my first article about the local Scouting troop and pack was published in the local weekly paper. I was the new assistant scoutmaster of Troop 68 in June, 1980, totally unaware of what I was about to get myself into.

Those first few articles were only a few paragraphs long, co-written by one of the committee members. They covered what happened during troop and den meetings. Short articles, and straight to the point. As the years passed, my writing style began to change and develop. I focused more on the monthly activities, and less on the humdrum meetings. The articles became less frequent, but they became longer. Pictures accompanied the articles so the reader could see what the Scouts were doing in addition to reading about them.

In 1986, five Troop 68 Boy Scouts and myself spend two weeks at Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico. I kept a journal while hiking through the mountains. Using those notes from my journal, and the pictures taken during the trip, I wrote a long article for the local newspaper. I think I got a little long winded. The article ended up being a two parter, with each part taking up nearly half a page of the paper with the photos.

I have written many articles about Scouting during my twenty seven years with Boy Scout Troop 68. I have saved these articles and keep them in four scrapbooks. I now have three local newspapers that agree to print my articles when I write them. You might think I am making a little money with all that writing. Not a cent. I write the articles to promote Scouting, not to make money.

I still get a warm feeling when someone mentions that they enjoyed reading one of my articles. I will not lie, I am rather proud of myself for being able to write something that some people enjoy reading. But I am also humbled that people enjoy reading things that I write. After all, I am not a professional writer. Stephen King has nothing to worry from me.

Hmmm… That gets me thinking. Maybe I should write a book about my Scouting experiences. Maybe title it, “The Scoutmaster Thinks, and Unfortunately Wrote It Down.“

Here are a couple Scouting commercials you may, or may not, have seen.