A Scoutmaster's Blog

I have been thinking about applying with the council to be a scoutmaster for one of the troops that our council will be sending to the 2010 National Jamboree. In my last post I wrote about what the costs would be, and that I am now rethinking about being a Jamboree scoutmaster. Well, there is one more item to throw into that equation.

I have a copy of the “Council Jamboree Guide” that was sent to all councils by the National Office. I was looking over the unit leader qualifications for the Jamboree scoutmaster and noticed that it states, “Completion of Wood Badge for the 21st Century”. I zoned in on the words “21st Century” very quickly.

I completed the Wood Badge course and received my beads in the early-nineties, before the revision of the course made it “prepare us” for the 21st Century. I am right in feeling that the National Office is now telling me that my training is no longing adequate for today’s Scouting program? I did not think Scouting has changed that much.

I asked my council’s Jamboree chairman if all leaders going to the 2010 event would need to retake the course if we were part of the “20th century” course. He did not have an answer for me but said he would look into it.

Well, if the national office wants all adult leaders to have taken the “21st Century” Wood Badge training, then I think I can make my decision about being a Jamboree scoutmaster. And that decision will be “NO”. I do not intend to spend another $200 on a Wood Badge training fee, buy or prepare another uniform just for Wood Badge, and spend two weekends going through the course.

I am not going to spend a total of $3500 or more to attend the Jamboree. It is not worth it to me. I am sorry, but it is not. That $3500 can be spend on 2-3 Philmont trips, or dozens of big troop weekends. And to tell the truth, I think I would enjoy those more, and would be able to spend more quality time with my Boy Scouts.

I know the last two blog entries seem to be a downer, but hey, can I help it if things are going to cost so much. I am not Bill Gates after all.

Our council recently held it first 2010 National Jamboree committee meeting. (Yeah, I know, some councils have a lot of work done for the Jamboree already and ours is just getting started.) I attended the meeting because I have five Boy Scouts in my troop that would like to attend the event, so I was thinking about being a scoutmaster for one of the three council troops.

When I arrived home from that meeting, 35 miles later, I was beginning to have second thoughts about going on the trip. The 2010 Jamboree is going to cost a lot more then the 2001 Jamboree did.

First, there is the fee for the Jamboree itself which will be $795.oo. That is a $200 increase over the 2005 fee, and $300 more then the 2001 Jamboree fee of $495.00. That is quite an increase in eight years. And yes, I do realize the cost of things have increased, but I do not think they have increased sixty percent since 2000. Have they? My salary surely has not increased that much.

Second, there is the cost of touring. What sites will the troop see on the way to the Jamboree? We will probably spend a couple of days in Washington D.C. How about a tour of Mount Vernon, or some of the other nearby sites?

Third, there is that nasty thing called transportation. This one is the biggest unknown at the moment. Fuel prices are so unstable that bus companies and airlines are not able to predict what the cost will be in 2010. It is too early to make any sort of reservations, not that any company would be taking them anyway. With record fuel prices being made almost daily I am fearful of what the transportation costs will become.

Fourth are the miscellaneous costs that include uniforms, t-shirts, patches, pictures, and equipment.

Our council’s Jamboree chairman played around with estimating the cost of all these items and came up with a total of somewhere between $2000 and $2500 per participant. That is nearly double the cost of the 2001 Jamboree for the Boy Scouts and leaders of my council.

Ouch!

I drove by a few filling stations on my way home from that meeting and starting thinking about the price of gasoline. Then I began thinking about the 2, 3, or 4 meetings each month that I would have to attend if I was chosen to be one of the scoutmasters. I did a little quick math and realized it could easily cost me over $750 in gas (at today’s prices) to attend all those meetings!

I enjoyed attending the 2001 National Jamboree, but I am beginning to think I did not enjoy it enough to pay over $3250 to attend another one. I am going to have to give this some serious thought during the next two months.

By the way, if any of you who read this blog has one, two, or three thousand dollars burning a hole in your pocket, and you do not know what to do with it, drop me an email. I might be able to help you find a great way to spend it.

Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts seem to really enjoy a good campfire program. But so do adult Scout leaders. Sometimes, the adults even enjoy performing for the campfire audience. Really. I am not kidding.

This entry to the Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast demonstrates that adults can have fun during a campfire program too. This video clip was taken from Troop 68’s annual Laughs For Lunch Show of 2002. It features the troop’s scoutmaster bringing some of his adult Scouting friends on stage to perform the song Vista! One of the friends does very well. One cheats. And a couple have a hard time keeping up when things get going fast.

I challenge you to try this song at your next campfire program. It may take a little practice but the audience will love it. By the way, you can find the words (at least the way I learned it) on our troop’s website by clicking HERE. ” Yip bap biddildee bang!”

I like to read your comments about this podcast. You can leave one here, or at the PTC media forums. If you leave a comment at the iTunes Music Store you will help the Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast climb higher in the ratings.

Download Podcast
Subscribe to MSPP through iTunes.

Yep, that is right. After only two weeks we have canceled the Grumpy Old Leaders podcast. There are a few reasons for this but it basically comes down to that it turned into something we really did not want listed on the PTC Media network. It did not fit well with the other shows.

Here is what Chris, the creator of PTC Media wrote on the website’s forum:

“After recording another GOL last night, we did some looking around to see what others thought of the show. Turns out that a lot of Packs and Troops use the PTC Media feed on their unit websites and by doing that, GOL was ending up on their website.

This is bad.

Boys and parents who have no idea what they are in for MIGHT unknowingly click on the link and “BANG!”, the Guide to Safe Scouting and Youth Protection get busted. We love all our Scouts and would never intentionally do any harm toward them. Because of that, Grumpy Old Leaders is being pulled as a recorded show.”

Oh well, it was a good experiment. This will now give Chris and me more time to concentrate on the regular PTC podcasts and hopefully get the PTC Media store up and running soon.

The Boy Scouts of Melrose Troop 68 have had a lot of fun performing at campfires over the years. They have been doing it since attending summer camp at Crow Wing Scout Camp in 1981. Then in 1996, they began doing a yearly campfire-style show for the community that they call Laughs For Lunch.

The performances have really improved over the years. During that first summer camp in 1981 the troop sang a country music song called Running Bear. The only change the troop made to the song was to substitute camp staff names for Running Bear and Little White Dove. We did nothing very fancy, just stood in front of the campfire and sang the song for the campers, but the Scouts loved it. I think we embarrassed the male staffer we picked on though, although the female staffer thought it was funny.

The next year the Boy Scouts of Troop 68 wanted to do better. We rewrote the lyrics to The Battle of New Orleans, and created a song we called The Battle of Plenty Coup, named after our campsite at Crow Wing. Instead of a song about battling the British, our song was about battling the mosquitoes. The troop was invited to perform the song at the Friday night closing campfire. Imagine our surprise when we received a standing ovation! We were all grinning from ear to ear as we returned to our seats.

The performing bug had bit us! We were determined to sing again at the closing campfire the next year. We wrote the Battle of Plenty Coup, Part 2. This time we battled the staff instead of the bugs. Once again, it was a hit with that week’s campers.

During the following years we created more songs, and even developed a few skits. Our repotour began to grow. The troop began performing at camporees and other Scout gatherings. By the late 1980’s Troop 68 had become well know throughout the district and council.

Scouts and other leaders began asking us for the words to the songs we created, and the scripts to the skits. When I began forming the idea for a troop website I thought this would present a great way to share these songs and skits with other units. I posted them into two categories. The first was our troop’s original songs and skits. The second included our favorites that we had picked up over the years.

You can check out these songs and skits by going to our troop website at http://melrosetroop68.org/campfirestuff.html
We also have a lot of songs and skits videotaped that can be seen at our troop’s video site:
http://melrosetroop68.org/videos.html

So tell me, does your troop (or pack) like to perform songs or skits at meetings or campfire programs? What are their favorites?

Wow, I did not even realize this until today, but a few posts ago I hit a milestone with the blog. I had posted my 250th article to A Scoutmaster’s Blog! This post is actually the 255th article. I guess it goes to show how well I have been paying attention to things, huh?

I just want to thank you all for reading my ramblings. I hope you have enjoyed them as much as I have enjoyed writing them.

Let’s face it, as an adult leader in Scouting there are times when you can get pretty feed up with things and become rather grumpy. We have all been there. We have all done that. Some more then others.

PTC Media, the net-site of Scouting related podcasts, features such shows as The Leader’s Campfire (audio), An Hour A Week (audio), and Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast (video). This past week they have added one more show to their line up – Grumpy Old Leaders (audio).

Grumpy Old Leaders is an audio podcast that has been talked about for a few months. The first show was finally posted on Wednesday, April 9. The podcast will feature adult Scouters, both from Cub Scouting and Boy Scouting, who are cubmasters, scoutmasters, committee members, and unit commissioners. The show will be an outlet for adults to discuss the things they are finding difficult within their Scouting programs, things they find frustrating. It is not a show meant for Scout-age ears.

During the last few months I have found myself become a co-host for The Leader’s Campfire, since Bob, the regular co-host, needed to take a leave of absence. I have had a great time doing the podcast with Cubmaster Chris. During the last two months we have been discussing creating the Grumpy Old Leader podcast as a way to cover things that did not fit well into The Leader’s Campfire format.

Well, that first Gumpy hour-long episode has now been posted, and to tell you the truth, it has done pretty well. Within the first four days it has received over 100 downloads from the website, plus who knows how many from iTunes Music Store. It seems to have hit a spot with a lot of people who were waiting for this type of show. In fact, when we recorded our second show last Friday, Chris and I were shocked, and pleasantly surprised, to discover other leaders who wanted to be a part of the show. By the time we ended the recording session we had five other leaders from around the country joining us, and three more hour-long shows almost ready to go. (Watch for them in the next few weeks.)

It will be interesting to watch as this show develops. Chris and I really did not have a clue what to do with a format for the show, or even if the show should have one. We did not even know if anyone would listen to it. Well, it looks like it might become a popular PTC Media podcast, and we already have several more topics to discus in future episodes. Be sure to check it out and let us know what you think about it. Feedback will be important to this podcast’s development.

Check out all the PTC Media podcasts HERE.

There are not very many Scouting podcasts found on the internet yet, and most of the ones you find seem to be Cub Scouting related, not that there is anything wrong with that. My own Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast (MSPP) covers both Boy Scouting and Cub Scouting, but it is heavy on the Boy Scouting. MSPP is geared toward the entertainment and fun of Scouting. It does not hit the leadership and training side of things very much.

A new entry has recently joined this small group of Boy Scout related podcasts. Jerry and friends at The Scoutmaster Minute (http://www.thescoutmasterminute.com) have developed and produced a podcast that talks about Boy Scouting. I have listened to this podcast and I think they are doing a great job.

As I write this, Jerry has posted five audio podcasts so far. The average podcast is about 30-40 minutes long, probably as long as your commute to work. Topics have covered such areas as cold weather camping, bullying, the Scout Oath, and the Order of the Arrow Representative. It sounds like Jerry and company have quite a few more shows planned, which I think is great.

You can download his podcast from his website (see above) or from iTunes at
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=278092418