A Scoutmaster's Blog

The weekend had arrived for the mini-camporee. The Boy Scout troops from Albany, Avon, and Sauk Centre had arrived at the site Friday night. The Scouts from Melrose arrived early Saturday morning due to the high school homecoming football game held Friday night.

When the four Scouts from Troop 68 arrived at my house at 7:00 that morning, it did not take me long to notice that something was missing. No one had taken time to get the food for the outing. I was not happy, but to tell the truth, I was not surprised. During the troop meeting four nights earlier the boys had been arguing about who would get the food. “I don’t have time.” “I got it the last time.” No one wanted to do it. As I watched the boys load the truck I thought to myself, “This is a great way to begin the outing.” We ended up leaving town thirty minutes late, after the boys went to the store to do some shopping.

The rest of the weekend went very well. Once we had camp set up we went to work to prepare the blowgun target range. The four activity sessions began at 9:30, with each troop doing their own sponsored activity first to make sure the kinks were worked out before the other troops came through. The Troop 68 Scouts did all four stations before lunch, but I discovered later they had only completed half of the first aid activity.

Most of the afternoon was open time so each troop could plan its own activities. My Scouts did some exploration of the woodland in which we were camped. Then we played disc golf for nine holes, or maybe I should say tree trunks. A church service, hosted by our troop, finished off the afternoon.

Supper was quite interesting. It was a pot luck, and boy, was there a lot to eat. There were brats, baked beans, chili, and beef stew. My troop made fried potatoes and spaghetti with meat sauce, which quickly vanished from the table. Desert was pudding served in ice cream cones, topped with cool whip. It was a little messy, but no one complained. No one left the meal hungry.

The evening program began with a camp-wide Capture the Flag game, which was played in the dark. A few of us adults were a little concerned about playing in the dark, but the boys had a great time. In fact, many of the boys were so tired after the game that they turned in for the night instead of going to the planned campfire program. The Scouts from Troop 68 were the only boys to show up at the campfire so they did not stick around long.

The outing was a complete success and we are already talking about doing another camporee next fall, and maybe even doing some training sessions together.

Earlier this year, a few adult troop leaders from neighboring communities got together after a roundtable and began talking about having a mini-camporee. The goal was to get the local troops together for a weekend, line up a few activities, and let the Scouts get to know each other. I missed the first and only organizational meeting due to a family matter, so it was emails and phone calls from there on.

Each of the four troops was responsible for an activity. The activities would be conducted in a round robin fashion from Saturday morning to the early afternoon. The Sauk Centre troop prepared a blind soccer activity. The troop from Albany planned theirs around orienteering. Avon put together a first aid demonstration.

I wanted Troop 68 to do something unique, something that most of the Scouts had not done before. My troop owns two blowguns so I brought up the idea to the membership about setting up a blowgun target range. They liked the idea and thought it would be fun.

A little over a week before the camporee I visited the land where the camporee would be held with one of the adult leaders from the Albany troop which was hosting the event. It was privately owned land about 3 or 4 miles southeast of Albany. There was a great wooded area for camping, and a large grassland for activities. It would work very well for our outing. The owner of the land was very supportive and told us that two of his sons had earned the rank of Eagle Scout.

The date of the camporee was chosen by the Albany and Avon troops so it would not take place during their school’s homecoming weekend. Unfortunately, the weekend they chose happened to be the weekend of Melrose’s homecoming weekend. It did not present any problem though. The Scouts from Troop 68 went to the camporee early Saturday morning instead of Friday evening. There was not any program planned for the outing on Friday night so it worked out well.

As the weekend approached I bought some targets and a large blue tarp to act as a backdrop for the range. After all, I did not want to lose any of the small darts in the brush if I did not have to. I also began watching the weather forecast. It looked like it could be a cool and wet weekend. I do not like camping on cool and wet weekends anymore after twenty eight years of Scouting. Oh well, too late to back out now.

(To be continued…)
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Twenty years ago the volunteers at Mel-TV, our local cable access television station, filmed a program in which five men who were Scout leaders were interviewed about their Scouting experiences. I recently took that old vhs tape and transferred it to a dvd. I thought to myself as I was transferring the program that many of the things being said by those gentlemen still apply to Scouting today. I thought I would break this show down into parts for the Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast, each part being one of the interviews.

This podcast post features the second interview from The Leaders of Scouting. Joe was the Pack 68 Cubmaster for many years in the 1980’s. All four of his boys were members of the Pack, and graduated to Troop 68 when they became old enough. Joe also helped out with several troop functions, although he never actually registered as a troop leader. During the interview he talks about how he became the cubmaster, some of his memorable experiences as a cubmaster, his experiences of helping the Boy Scout troop, and his feeling about Scouting in general.

I invite you to leave a comment here using the link below, at the iTunes Music Store, or at the PTC Media forums. Or drop me an email at webmaster@melrosetroop68.org. It really is great to hear what you think about the podcast videos.

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The Boy Scouts of Melrose Troop 68 recently have a pretty busy weekend. It began on Saturday morning when the Scouts and parents met for the annual Scouting For Food Drive and the bi-monthly paper drive. Both began at 9:oo am. Part of the troop worked at the paper drive which was held at a local grocery store parking lot. The rest rode around town looking for the bags of food left outside by the front doors of homes. Both were a great success for our small community of 3100 people. This was the third time holding the paper drive and we have seen an increase in paper products collected each time. The troop also collected over 530 pounds of food during the food drive, for which the food shelf was very thankful.

The work was not done though. The third project that morning was our semi-annual road clean-up project. The troop cleans the road ditches of a three mile section of County Road 13 south of Melrose. This is not the boys favorite project, but they do it well. It can be quite interesting with what is sometimes found. There was nothing very special this time. In fact, there was a smaller amount of trash collected this fall. Maybe drivers are becoming more responsible and not throwing so much trash out their windows.

The troop held it’s annual fall pancake and sausage breakfast fundraiser Sunday morning. The boys and families pre-sell adult tickets for $6.00 each. The tickets cost fifty cents more if bought the morning of the breakfast. A few of the boys did an excellent job of selling advance tickets. The boys and parents worked hard that morning and served 349 people, up from last spring. It looks like the troop will make a nice profit (over $1500.00) that will be applied to program costs and individual accounts. Good job Scouts!

I received an email a couple days ago about a blog post written by a mother who has recently enrolled her young boy in Cub Scouting. I checked it out and it brought a smile to my face as I read it. I wish all parents would read it. It is a great example of how Scouting can influence a young mind, and a mother’s mind. Here is a short excerpt from the post:

This past weekend we went out and bought the uniform for my little guy. It took a couple of days to get all of the patches on in the right place and when I was done I hung up the shirt in his room. Two nights ago I came home later in the evening because of a business function I was attending and found a small American flag taped up on my closet door. I asked him about it and he smiled proudly and told me he put on his uniform and put the flag up there so he could say the pledge of allegiance.

I invite you to check out this blog post by clicking HERE.

It is hard to believe, but this video is the 50th posting to the Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast! When I started doing this I never even considered making it this far, and I would not have if people would not watch the videos. I also would like to thank Bob, Chris, Jerry, and Dave for their help and support.

I wanted to do something special for this one. I knew it would have to include Buttons, the radical Boy Scout and mascot of the podcast. I also wanted it to be about Scouting, not just some jokes or skits. I have to thank the my troop for giving me the idea I used for this video. A couple weeks ago one of the Scouts read Lord Baden-Powell’s farewell message. I wondered if Buttons could read that for the internet audience. I tried it, and I think it worked pretty well, but you will have to be the judge.

Lord Baden-Powell’s message can also be read at my friend Jerry’s blog, The Scoutmaster Minute.

I also wanted to do something extra for this 50th posting, so I made a second part to the video. Follow the directions found in the podcast to possibly win a DVD of Buttons’ videos. (Yes, you will have to watch the video to find out what the directions are.) If a lot of people enter the contest I may even give out two DVD’s. Good luck!

If you enjoy the videos, I would love hearing from you. Go to iTunes and leave a review for Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast. Or, go to PTC Media and leave a comment on the forums. Or drop me an email at webmaster @ melrosetroop68.org
Thanks for watching.

Click here to DOWNLOAD this Podcast
Subscribe to Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast through iTunes.
Check out the other Scouting podcasts at PTC Media.