A Scoutmaster's Blog

It is Friday night. More than likely, somewhere in this country there is a group of Boy Scout teens watching a horror movie of some sort. While in decades past these movies may have included Frankenstein, the werewolf, Dracula, or the mummy, today’s youth seem to love teen wolves, sparkling vampires, serial killers, or the worse of all – zombies! Between World War Z and the television series The Walking Dead, zombies are the rage today.

I like a good horror movie, but I am not big on the gore. I prefer suspense instead of seeing blood gushing 50 feet into the air. I prefer movies like Spielberg’s original Poltergeist. I have yet to see a Saw movie, and I really have no desire to see one. I laughed through the original Halloween movie when I saw it in the theater, except for that one part when the dead guy swung out of the kitchen closet.

Back to zombies. I hate zombies. Several months after seeing the original black and white Night Of The Living Dead on late night PBS twenty-some years ago I had one of the worse nightmares of my life. And that movie is basically PG-13 by today’s standards. I watched the first season of The Walking Dead when I received the dvd’s from Netflix. I have not watched any other seasons. I did like Shawn Of The Dead however. I thought it was hilarious.

So when I read an article online today about a new movie about to be made it sent mixed feelings through my system. Paramount Pictures hopes to start production on a new movie in the spring of next year. It is currently called Boy Scouts vs Zombies, which I read about on the Screen Crush website. According to the article “…this new film is exactly what it sounds like. ‘Boy Scouts vs. Zombies’ is based on a Black List script from Carrie Evans and Emi Mochizuki, and centers on a boy scout troop that must save girl scouts from the walking dead.”

Will this movie be strictly a horror film? Will it be a comedy? Something in between? Will it be a strong R, or receive a PG-13 rating? Will this be a movie I will want to add to my Scouting themed film collection? I just don’t know. What do you think? Does it sound like something you will want to watch?

http://screencrush.com/boy-scouts-vs-zombies-paranormal-activity-christopher-landon/

Cub Scout Parents

Sometimes I write decent posts to this blog that some people find helpful. Sometimes I like to steer you to other Scouting blogs that have already wrote posts that you may find helpful. This is one of them.

There is a blog called Cub Scout Ideas.com that gives Cub Scout leaders a lot of good ideas to help them run their dens and packs. They recently had a post that I found to be interesting, and I thought I would pass it on to you. The post is called “Cub Scouts: Getting Parents Involved”. It lists 14 ways you can use to try to get parents involved with your program.

http://cubscoutideas.com/1459/cub-scouts-getting-parents-involved-involved/

I thought it was relevant to this time of year when most packs are seeing new families join the Scouting program. Check it out and let me know what you think of their list.

You know me, I love a good comic strip that includes a Scouting theme to it. I recently came across one in Pinterest (yeah, what can I say?) that made me chuckle a bit. It was a panel from the The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee comic, probably from July. That Edison is one smart kid, but I think his friend gets a little annoyed with him occasionally, as this comic about tying a square knot demonstrates.

Click or tap on the strip to see a larger version of it.

Can anyone tell me if this was a one strip Scouting theme, or did it last for a week?

You see these “Keep Calm and …” signs all over the internet. Most of the time they are okay. Sometimes they are annoying. But this one I thought was just right for this blog, especially since many councils, packs, and troops are in the midst of their recruitment drives.

So yeah, “Keep Calm and Join Scouting!”

I was contacted tonight on Facebook by a fellow Scouter from Illinois. Kevin Miller was wondering what is going on with PTC Media these days. For those of you new to this blog, PTC Media was a website featuring a collection of Scouting related podcasts, featuring shows about Cub Scouting and Boy Scouting. At its peak the site featured six podcasts, with another one or two short lived shows. I created two podcasts, the Melrose Scout Productions Podcast (MSPP), which was a video show, and Around The Scouting Campfire, an audio program hosted by myself and Buttons, the radical Boy Scout. I also co-hosted the Leaders Campfire with Cubmaster Chris. The site can be found at http://www.ptcmedia.net/ .

Unfortunately, the answer to Kevin’s question was that not much is happening these days at the website. Many of the podcast hosts have moved on to other things, and some are not involved with the Scouting program any longer. Fortunately, Cubmaster Chris, the caretaker of the PTC Media, has decided to keep the site up and running so people can still listen to or watch the many podcast episodes created during the last eight years. Many of them hold information that is still relevant to today’s Scouting program. I still post a new video to the Melrose Scout Productions Podcast occasionally.

Kevin really liked the podcasts and PTC Media. He liked them so well that he made one of the points of his Wood Badge ticket to hold a Podcast Awareness Day featuring the shows found at PTC Media. And boy, did he go all out. In 2010 he created audio cd’s of the shows, over a 100 for each of the main shows, and had a banner created for his booth. (See in the picture above.) He also created business cards, srtickers, half sheets, and full sheets to promote the shows. I am sure his efforts gave a nice boost to our downloads, and it was great to see someone who really appreciated our time and effort into creating the shows.

After a short online chat with Kevin this evening it almost made me feel guilty about not creating more podcast episodes on a regular schedule. I do still have a few videos to finish editing and post to MSPP. I have even thought about doing another episode or two for Around The Scouting Campfire. My idea was to actually record a couple stories as I tell them to the Boy Scouts around a campfire some night. (I should have recorded last Saturday’s Purple Gorilla story.) I just don’t know if people would like to download them and listen to them, if it would be worth my time and effort.

Kevin has given me permission to use his photos for this blog post. What do you think about his podcast promotion? I think it is awesome.

Click on the pictures for a full size version.

I walked into my house shortly after nine o’clock tonight and I smelled it almost immediately. Smoke! No, it was not the house on fire or anything like that. It was me. More specifically, my clothes. You see, I stopped by the Birch Lake State Forest campground tonight to visit the nine Boy Scouts of Troop 68 who were camping this weekend. And as is so common when standing around a campfire, the smoke seemed to follow me no matter where I stood around the ring.

When the Scouts left for the campground last night (Friday) the weather was wonderful. The sun was shining. It was just cool enough to wear a jacket or not, depending on how warm blooded you were. It was going to be a cool but clear night, great for camping.

But this afternoon (Saturday) a low front moved into the area and the rain began. I kept thinking about the Scouts as I sat in my warm, dry living room at home. Four of the nine Scouts had just joined the troop. This was their first Scout overnight weekend camping experience. I wondered if they had brought raingear. Were they having a good time or were they miserable and wanting to go home?

I was invited to my parents for supper. It was still raining slightly when I left their home, but instead of turning to the left I turned to the right and headed out of town to Birch Lake State Forest to pay the Scout troop a quick visit. The park was less than ten miles from town. It was raining lightly when I arrived at their campsite. Only four of the nine Scouts were there to greet me. The other five had gone fishing. I soon discovered that all the boys were having a good time, even though they were damp. I did not hear any of them say a word about going home.

As darkness fell the Scouts wanted me to tell a story, but not a scary one. We decided on a story with suspense, not too scary, since there were first time campers among us. The story chosen was the Purple Gorilla. Yes, it was a long story that took place out in the middle of nowhere, during a terrible thunderstorm, that brought the main character of our story to a lonely old rundown looking farm place with no cell phone coverage. The new Scouts were listening to every word. Even the Boy Scouts who heard the story last spring paid attention to hear how I changed up the story a bit. This was the first time that cell phone became a major prop in the story.

After the story, and the end of the rain, we left the shelter of the tarp we were sitting under, and stood around the campfire. As the fire died and the coals glowed bright, it was time for me to teach the boys a couple campfire songs. The first was a song I learned as a Boy Scout at summer camp in the mid 1970’s, “The Hole in the Ground Song”. The second song I learned at Many Point Scout Camp in the 1980’s, “Vista!” Both are “repeat after me” type songs that get faster as the song goes on. I think the boys had fun signing them. I know my voice was just about shot when I was done. It was time for me to go home.

Sunday morning, after breakfast and one last time fishing, the Scouts will came back to town and end their camping trip. I have a feeling they all will be counting this trip as one for the good memories mental scrapbook. I was only there for two hours and I can tell you I added it to mine.