A Scoutmaster's Blog

It is that time of year. It is time to make the DVDs for the Scouts of Troop 68. Not that is a requirement by any means. But it is kind of a tradition that I began once I started taking digital photographs. It was easy to take the digital photos, convert them into slideshows, and burn to a DVD, so why not share them with the troop?

This year, for 2020, I decided to make an annual dvd for both the troop and for the Cub Scout Pack. The Cub Scout DVD will contain four slideshows featuring the January Pinewood Derby, and the February, July, and October Pack meetings. The Boy Scout DVD will contain 6 slideshows featuring activities, troop meetings, and a special advancement outing.

The Boy Scouts will receive a bonus DVD featuring this year’s Egg Drop Competition held at Camp Watchamagumee in June. I just recently got around to editing the footage so I thought it would make for a nice surprise.

Every year at this time I keep asking myself if I should continue to create these videos, and every year I seem to keep doing them. The first one was done in 2003, so that means this is the 18th year. I have often wondered if anyone ever takes the DVDs off their shelf to watch them years later but I have talked to a few people, especially parents, who like to go back and watch them once in awhile.

I usually hand these out to the Scouts at the troop’s Christmas party but, of course, due to the virus we will not be holding the annual event, so I may need to drop them off at each Scout’s home. Luckily we live in a small town.

Does your troop do something like this each year? Do your troop families enjoy watching them?

Melrose Scout Troop 68 held their annual fall meal fundraiser on Friday, October 25. The troop had a good turnout and served up a lot of spaghetti. The Scouts set tables, cleared tables, washed dishes and helped serve some of the food and beverages. Parents were in charge of the kitchen and serving the food.

One of my jobs was to set up a Scouting display. I tried to make it a little different then previous fundraiser but a few things stay the same. Of course, I included several photo albums featuring pictures of troop meetings and Scouting events. There were also some framed group pictures and both of my patch blankets. I stayed away from the small bookcases along with all the various handbooks and nicknacks this time. In their place I included a copy of framed posters and two binders of newspaper clippings of Scouting events through out the last several years. The merit badge poster was somewhat popular with the Scouts.

What do you think of the display? Leave a comment to let us know what was your favorite item.

Melrose Scout Troop 68 has held two meal fundraisers per year for over three decades. During the last few years the troop has held a breakfast in the spring and a supper in the fall. This fall’s meal will be held tonight, October 25, at the Melrose American Legion. The spaghetti supper will be served from 5:00 to 8:00.

One of my jobs during the fundraiser is to plan and set up a Scouting display for people to view before and after their meal. The display features items I have collected over the decades and photo albums of the troop activities. Last night I gathered the materials for tonight’s display.

The background of the display will feature the two patch blankets I made with the patches I collected during my thirty years serving as the troop’s scoutmaster. I plan to cover two tables with items. The photo albums will use a large portion of the tables but I also plan to show a merit badge poster and a shadow box of Scouting ranks. Scouting themed popcorn tins will serve as centerpieces on some of the tables. Handbooks, framed photos, and a few miscellaneous items will finish the display.

I did not set up the display at home before packing it into the car, but I have a good idea what I want it to look like when it is set up at the Legion. Stay tuned for an upcoming article which will show you what it looked like when it was finished.

Do you set up a Scouting display at your fundraiser? What do you include with them. Leave a comment and let us know.

I bought my first digital camera in 2004. I was going to Philmont Scout Ranch with the troop and thought this would be a good trip to start using digital photography. I have been using a digital camera ever since that trip.

I soon began using the digital photos to make slideshows of the troop events and activities. It was fairly easy to create a slideshow using the programs of the Mac Pro computer I owned. The next step was to burn the slideshows to a DVD so I could watch them on the television.

As Christmas approached I decided to copy the pictures to a compact disc and print one for each of the Boy Scouts in the troop. The slideshow DVDs soon followed. The Boy Scouts and their families seem to enjoy watching the shows so I kept doing it each Christmas.

It is now the year 2018. I have finished this year’s annual DVDs. Once again there will be a DVD of the slideshows, but the yearly photo collection has grown too large to put on CDs anymore. I take thousands of photos each year so the collection is now burned as a data DVD. This year’s photo collection was over 3 GB, and that does not include the photos of the trip to the Summit high adventure base. The data DVD does include some short videos taken during some of the monthly events.

I hope the Boy Scouts and their families enjoy watching the slideshows and looking at the pictures. It does take several evenings to create the DVD package each year. But I think it is well worth it.

PS: after posting this article and viewing the picture I noticed a mistake on the DVDs. Do you see it?

In October 2016 I wrote a post in which I stated that I was going to quit making photo albums about Boy Scout Troop activities. I currently have 38 albums covering over 35 years of Troop 68 history. It is quite the collection of books. Since I am not the scoutmaster any longer and do not attend most of the events any more I thought it might be time to stop creating albums. In the digital age, are photo albums even relevant?

Well, I guess they still are. During one of last year’s meal fundraisers some of the Boy Scouts of Troop 68 noticed that there were not any current photos. The younger Scouts noticed they were not even included in the last album. You see, I usually bring some of the albums to the meal for people to look through as they wait in line or to look up pictures of activities of years gone by. Troop alumni seem to have fun looking through them.

Last weekend I decided to finish out the last album which was only half way filled, and do one more new album. I looked through the thousands of photos I have taken in the last two years (yes, thousands) and picked out 468 pictures of 2016 and 2017 to have printed since Shutterfly had unlimited free prints this past week. It still cost over $40.00 in postage, but what the heck, it is for the kids.

(Maybe I should ask the troop committee if they could help pay for some of that postage, huh?)

I guess I have my work cut out for me this weekend. The photos arrived today. Now to sort them, insert them, and label them in the photo albums. The goal is to have them ready to view at the spring breakfast next month. Wish me luck!

I bought my first digital camera in 2004 for a trip to Philmont Scout Ranch. It was great! I was able to take many more pictures than I would have with a film camera. It was very easy to share the windows once we returned home. Every participant of the trek received a disc with the photos allowing them to print whichever photos they wanted to for their own photo albums.

A tradition began with that trip. At the end of the year I would burn compact discs with all the photos I had taken during the year at troop meetings, courts of honor, and troop activities. Each Boy Scout received a disc of photos for Christmas. I also made slideshows of each troop event. I burned those videos to DVD’s and gave one of those to each Scout. I would do the same thing of pictures taken at family events and give one to each of my family members at our Christmas gathering.

Even after I retired as the scoutmaster I continued the tradition of giving each Boy Scout a photo disc of troop events. When I became the cubmaster of Pack 68 I decided to do the same with the Cub Scout pack. Each Cub Scout received a photo disc, but I did not burn DVD’s of sldieshows of pack events.

When I awoke last Saturday morning I realized I only had a few days before the Pack’s Christmas party. It was time to make the photo discs. I would need to create a lot of discs. The Pack had grown from 17 Cub Scouts to 49 Scouts, including the Lion Cubs. I needed to make 50 discs. The pressure was on! The Pack’s Christmas party is on Tuesday, December 7th.

I began working on the discs Saturday morning at 7:30. The first step was to go through all the year’s photos, toss out the blurry ones, and sort them by date and event. Once I had a master file it was time to start burning the discs. Since the file was nearly 2.5 gigabytes I ended up use blank DVDs. I soon realized that one computer would not be enough. I set up a second older computer to also burn discs. I soon ran out of sleeves for the discs so I had to make a trip to the store. The discs I use are have a printable surface on them so I was able to print a nice picture on the discs along with a label. I finished the project close to 7:00 that evening, just before company arrived.

The Cub Scouts and parents seem to appreciate receiving the discs. I enjoy giving them. After all, it is a special gift that shares the memories of the year in Scouting. The Scouts and parents can look back on these photos for the rest of their lives.

Now it is time to start working on the discs for the Boy Scouts of Melrose Troop 68. I was able to burn the slideshows to DVDs on Sunday but I have not started on the photo discs yet. When those are done it will be time to start the family photo discs.

My computers are really going to get a workout this month.

I have a lot of photo albums. Scouting photo albums, that is. Most of them include pictures of troop meetings, weekend outings, summer camps, and courts of honor. There are also albums of the trips to Philmont Scout Ranch, the High Knoll Trail, and the 2001 National Jamboree. In total, there are 39 albums of Boy Scout Troop 68, covering activities from the mid 1970’s through this year.

The reason I am posting about this is because I just finished putting the last photograph in the 39th album this week. This brings me up to May 2016, the troop’s Camp Watchamagumee outing. It is time to start another album. Or is it?

As I was placing photos into the page sleeves I began thinking to myself, maybe this should be the last photo album I create of troop functions. After all, the only time they get viewed in when I use them for in displays for Scout Week in February or at one of the troop’s meal fundraisers.

I also began thinking about the cost of each album, not just the book but also the cost of printing the pictures. Each finished album runs about $40-$50 by the time it is done. When you stop to think about it, I have a lot invested in these albums.

Then I thought of a third point. Most people, including myself, are more into looking at photos on their phones and tablets than they are to picking up an physical album. That was the main reason I bought an iPad. Not to play games but to carry my photos with me. Add to this that we all share digital photos so easily these days it begins to make little sense to create physical photo albums.

Finally, what is going to happen to all these albums when I am done with Scouting? No one is going to want them. Our troop does not have its own hut or building. (We meet in a school gym for meetings.) The only place that may want the books is our local historical museum. Yeah, they would probably love to have over 36 years of local Scouting history to add to their collection.

So there it is. In this digital age I really do not see a reason to create any more Scouting photo albums for Troop 68. What do you think? Am I wrong for thinking this way?

Melrose Boy Scout Troop 68 does not have a building or a room to call its home, so my basement family room is the place I have created a “Scout Room”. It contains collections of Scouting coffee mugs, awards, and other stuff. The troop holds its patrol leader council meetings, committee meetings, and some training meetings there.

Photos of Troop 68 Eagle Scouts hang on the west wall. There was always a couple Scouts missing because I did not have a good picture to post on the wall. This morning I decided I needed to have photos of everyone, whether they were an actual Eagle picture or not. I searched through my photo collection and picked the best pictures of those missing Scouts, printed them, and placed them into frames.

The wall is now complete. All 21 of the Boy Scouts of Melrose Troop 68 who have earned the rank of Eagle Scout now have a place on the wall. There is even room for one more. Could that spot be filled by the Boy Scout who has an Eagle board of review on Tuesday?

By the way, do you have any idea how hard it is to take a picture of a wall of framed glass photos and not get a reflection?