A Scoutmaster's Blog

The Boy Scouts of Melrose Area Troop 68 had a great week of summer camp at Many Point Scout Camp during July 13-19 this year. Ten of the eleven Scouts were able to attend. While the afternoon and evenings were used to have a lot of fun at camp, the mornings were used to work on advancement and earn merit badges. And boy oh boy, the Scouts did well with their advancement. The ten Scouts earned 48 merit badges while they were at camp.

Indian Lore, Archaeology, and Search And Rescue merit badges were the popular ones this summer. While two Scouts earned the Canoeing badge at camp, two more earned it on a canoe trip in August. It was also nice to see a few Scouts work on various Eagle required badges while they were at camp.

Not only did the Scouts work on the advancement at camp, many of them continued working after they got home. Another 5 merit badges were earned after camp, bringing the total for the next court of honor to 53 badges.

In addition to the merit badges, several Scouts finished work on their rank requirements. At the time of writing this the troop will recognize one new Scout Rank, one Star Scout Rank, two Life Ranks, and one Scout will receive his third Eagle Scout Pin, the Silver pin. It is going to be a fun court of honor on Monday, September 29.

Many of you may remember a few weeks ago when I wrote about finding a 1955 training flip chart in my Scouting collection. It was called Advancement and Your Patrol. I stated that it might be fun to do a video using this old training device and many of you seemed interested in the project.

Well, I did get one of the Scouts of our troop to record audio for the project. We spent a couple hours going through it page by page, getting the Scout to read it just right. Then we did one quick run through of him reading it the way he wanted to read it.

I have not finished my “serious” version of the project, but the Scout’s version is now complete and ready to be watched. You can see it at https://youtu.be/VhzBBrNO31k

It turned out pretty well, I think. In fact, I do not know if I even want to make the “serious” version any more. Let me know what you think of it. And I would appreciate it if you left a comment and a like on the YouTube site.

My family room has served as the troop’s Scout room for over two and a half decades. Patrol Leader Council meetings were held there, along with training sessions and some smaller troop activities. Committee meetings were held around the table once a month. One third of the room is a showcase for Scouting awards, memorabilia, and Eagle Scout photos.

I was cleaning up and sorting through some things last night and discovered a little gem I forgot was part of my Scouting collection. It is a training flip chart from 1955 regarding patrol advancement. It is for patrol leaders and discusses how to make their patrol become a First Class Patrol! It is 36 black and white pages, with the cover page, and is in excellent condition considering it is 65 years old.

As I was looking through it (yes, I had to stop and look at it) I began thinking it could be fun to scan the pages and turn it into a training video. Well, at least an interesting look at an old training resource. I was thinking about reading each page myself but then thought it would be much better if I could get one of our Scouts to read it.

I began working on it tonight. I have been in contact with one of the troop’s dads and he thinks his son may be interested in doing the reading. I have begun scanning the pages, which it going to take awhile. My old scanner is not the quickest by any means. In fact, each page is taking me over 3 minutes to set up and scan.

I will have to work with the Scout to be a good narrator. I do not think he has ever done anything like this but I think, after a couple read throughs and a few pointers, he will do an excellent job. I have even thought of trying to find an old uniform for him to wear during an opening introduction, but I am not sure if that will happen.

Would you be willing to take ten minutes or so to watch a video featuring an old training resource from 1955? Is this a project that is worth my time? Let me know in the comments!

Hooray! Scoutbook is now free for all troops and packs to use. The Scoutmaster of Troop 68 brought laptops to our last troop meeting to introduce this program to the Boy Scouts. I think things went well. The boys seemed to be having fun checking it out during the meeting. Time will time if they actually use the program.

As the advancement coordinator of our troop though, I am not finding the love. Maybe I misunderstood how this program was to be used. I thought I would be able to go online with Scoutbook and update the Scouts advancement or see what they have accomplished and update my records. So far I have not been able to do any of that.

It seems that only the troop’s “key three” have access to the Scout’s information. I understand the need to keep things private but it is not helping me in my position. As far as the “key three” accessibility, I understand the scoutmaster and the committee chairman, but the charter organization representative? Really? Like many charter organizations across the country, ours is not very involved with the troop. I highly doubt that our charter rep even knows about Scoutbook, much less wants to access it.

After playing around with Scoutbook for awhile I have found I have no use for it. In fact, I grew very frustrated with it. Like I stated earlier, maybe I am trying to accomplish something with it that it was not designed to do, and if that is the case I see no reason for me to go back to it.

Am I missing something? Do you find it useful for your troop? Leave a comment and let me know what you think about Scoutbook.

I subscribe to the Bryan On Scouting blog, found at https://blog.scoutingmagazine.org . I recently received an email about a post stating the online program Scoutbook would be free to use after January 1, 2019. I remember looking at the online program a few years ago but never went very far with it. I decided to take another look.

I like that it would be a good tool for keeping track of advancement but I question if the program as a whole would be a good fit for our troop of fourteen Scouts. So here is my question. How many of you who read this blog use Scoutbook? What do you think of the program? Has it worked well for your troop or pack? What do you like the best? Is it easy to use?

I would really appreciate your comments before making a decision to use it for our troop.

I am a member of a few Scouting related groups on Facebook. These groups include Boy Scout Collectables and Scout Patch Collectors. Both are fun to belong to, and once in awhile you can find some nice items for sale or trade.

Recently, a post was made from someone who had a batch of rank patches and advancement cards for sale. The old rank patches from the 1980-1990’s caught my eye. After a few messages being sent back and forth I decided to buy the set of patches and cards for $60 shipped. True, that is not a rock bottom price, but it was comparable to the price I would pay the the Scout shop. The current patches we could use in the troop as the boys attained their ranks. The older patches, and one set of the older cards, I would keep for my Scouting collection. Unfortunately, I did not receive the Eagle Palm Pins.

The older rank cards are going to be fun to use. I asked the troop’s patrol leader council if they would like to use the cards for their current advancement until they run out. They thought that would be a fun idea. They liked the idea of the “retro” rank cards. I wonder if we should set a time limit though. A time period may add an incentive to the Scouts to finish their ranks. The goal could be the end of the year. Of course, they will be used on a first come, first awarded basis. I will have to ask the troop leaders what they think of the idea. I also plan to use the merit badge cards for the Scouts who earned badges at summer camp.

Would your Scouts enjoy getting retro cards with their ranks? Leave a comment and let me know.

October 29th was a busy Scouting day for me. It began with the troop’s roadside cleanup service project, followed by a trip to the council Scout Shop, and ending with the troop’s spaghetti supper fundraiser in the evening. The trip to the Scout Shop was with the new scoutmaster who needed a new uniform. While we were there I decided to pick up a few needs for the troop also.

One of the items on my list was a Troop Record Book. If you have been a reader of this blog you know that I am not a happy camper that the Boy Scouts of America did not come out with a new record book when the new rank advancement requirements began in January of 2015. A few weeks ago I finally broke down and made some charts on the computer. I still wanted another record book though because they are a good place to keep basic Scout information and attendance records. Even though we can not use them for rank requirements we could still use them to keep track of  merit badges.

I saw three record books on the shelf at the store and at first planned to grab all three since I thought the BSA supply division might plan to drop this item from their inventory. After opening one book and looking through its pages I quickly changed my mind.

I was shocked! I was surprised! I was actually excited! It was an updated Troop Record Book featuring the current rank requirements! I could not believe it at first. It took our Scout Shop nearly a year and a half to get them, but I was finally holding one in my hands.

A question came to mind. When did these new books become available? Has my council Scout Shop been holding out on me for the last 18 months? Why couldn’t I find it when I did a search on the scoutstuff.com website? I looked for a printing date on the inside cover and discovered they were printed in 2016. Okay, so they only started printing them this year. After inquiring about it, I discovered they became available this summer.

I bought two of the Troop Record Books, one for myself as the troop’s advancement coordinator, and one for the scoutmaster. It will be nice to once again know where the Scouts are in their advancement progress. (Our troop does not yet do online advancement. I have not been successful getting into the online program.)

My goal is to now get the information from the old record book, along with the informations in the Scouts’ handbooks, to have an updated record book. It is going to be a challenge but it will be worth it when it is completed.

Remember my last post? I went shopping at the local Scout Shop and bought several closeout items, some for actual use, and some for the collection. I left one item out of that article, the one that was rolled up in the tube. It was something I thought the troop could find useful. In fact, it was something the troop has not used for several years, but as the advancement coordinator I thought it night be time to use one again. What is it? It is a troop advancement chart with the current requirements listed.

When I was in the Scout Shop I stopped at the advancement chart rack to see if the B.S.A. had come out with a new chart yet. I found a few of the old advancement charts, a lot of Cub Scouting charts, and a few posters, but not a current advancement requirement chart. So I asked Jenny, who was working the at the store, if one was available. She told me there was and we walked back to the rack. I felt like a fool when she showed me the new chart hanging on the wall above the rack. I never even noticed it when I was looking. My eyes were on the advancement rack’s contents, not the wall.

She looked through the rack for the new advancement chart. She did not find one. Well, now I felt a little better. She checked the computer and it said they had three of them. She went to the back room and found them. The chart is not small. It measures 36″ wide by 23″ high. It will not fit on the old chart’s piece of hardboard. I was quite happy with the price which was only $2.49.

I wish I had a larger picture to show you. I guess you will just have to go to the nearest Scout Shop and see it for yourself.