A Scoutmaster's Blog

When I was at the Philmont Training Center for a week last June, I gave my camera quite a workout. I think I came back with around 900 pictures from the trip. That is a lot, even for me. I remember my first trips to Philmont for 10 day backpacking treks in the 1980’s when I took 150 photographs and thought that was a lot of photos. Just goes to show the difference between film and digital technology I guess.

Almost every night during my stay at PTC I would wonder on over to the Philmont Base Camp and look around, take a look through the trading post, and maybe stop by the snack shop for a bag of popcorn or an ice cream cone. One evening I decided to play with the camera and see what kind of night shots I could take. Would this simple point and shoot Canon camera take good pictures when there was little light? I was going to find out.

I was pretty happy with the pictures. So was Bob, the district executive from our council who also went to PTC that week. I thought it might be fun to share the pictures with you so I posted 14 of them to a Flickr album for you all to view. Check them out and let me know what you think of them. The link can be found at
https://www.flickr.com/photos/stevejb68/sets/72157645252031607/  .

Boy Scout, photo, Cub Scout, Explorer, Varsity

Do you like taking photos of your Scouts? Are you a listener of the podcasts found at PTC Media? If so, this is a contest that you should enter! Beginning January 3rd and continuing through March 22nd, PTCMedia with TrailStop.com and ClassB.com are running a photo contest.

Grab a copy of one of the PTC Media flat Scouting buddies (found at ptcmedia.net), print & cut it out and take photos of them with your Scouts, family or other leaders doing cool Scout stuff (hiking, camping, mountain climbing, running a Roundtable, etc.). Photos will be judged on creativeness and Scout spirit. Kids and adults are eligible to win.
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Every couple of weeks, a different show will choose a winner and announce it on their show:
January 17th: An Hour A Week?
February 1: The MISS Show
February 16: The SMM Podcast
March 4: True North
March 10: Around The Scouting Campfire
March 22: The Leader’s Campfire

The winners will get a $20 coupon toward products at TrailStop.com.

Then, on April 1st, we’ll open a contest between the 6 winners and let the PTC Media listeners vote on their favorite. The overall winner will get a $50 coupon toward an order with ClassB.com.

How To Enter:

Choose one or more of our PTC Media Scouting buddies found at ptcmedia.net, print and cut them out.
Take a photo of them (and you or your Scouts/Leaders) doing cool Scout stuff.
E-Mail your photos to cubmasterchris@gmail.com with the subject line “Photo Contest”.
It’s that simple!

I have been a scoutmaster for quite awhile. Sometimes I think too long. Over the years I have taken thousands of pictures of Boy Scouts at hundreds of Scouting events. I am slowly getting them posted on my Flickr account.

Last year, I began posting slideshows on this blog featuring the yearly albums. I had all but forgotten that I was doing that. It is time to return to it. So here, for your viewing pleasure are the pictures of Boy Scout Troop 68 taken during the year of 1982. There are 76 photos in this set.

If you would like to further view any of the pictures, check out the set at http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevejb68/sets/72157621920667589/ .

When you have been a scoutmaster for as long as I have been, nearly 29 years, you see a lot of boys go and go through the Scouting program. Some do very well in Scouting, some not so well. Some boys stick with it until their eighteenth birthday, some only last for a few months. There have a wide variety of personalities and temperaments. As a scoutmaster, I hope they all grow into fine young young and are successful in their lives.

Once in a while, I like to go through the old photos of the troop. Not only do they bring back memories (mostly good ones) but they also bring to mind questions. Where are they now? How are they doing? Do they have families? Thanks to the internet, namely Facebook, I have been able to track several dozen of them. From their profiles and pictures it looks like many of them are doing well. Unfortunately, I have lost contact with nearly half of the alumni of Troop 68.

Look at the group photo shown above. (Click on the picture for a larger view.) It shows the eighteen Boy Scouts of Troop 68 who attended summer camp at Crow Wing Scout Reservation in 1984, over twenty five years ago. Pat celebrated his birthday while at camp so I saw a Kodak moment, of course. It turned out to be one of my favorite pictures.

When I look at this photo a lot of thoughts run through my mind. First was , as it probably was for you, wow, those are short shorts the boys are wearing. Then it dawns on me that these boys are now men in their mid to late thirties. I am getting old.

Out of these eighteen Boy Scouts, three have stopped by to visit this year. Seven of them are friends of mine on Facebook. I have not heard from another seven of them in over ten years. Only two of them still live in town. Sadly, two of them have died in the last twenty years.

You can see that this photo alone brings up many memories, plenty of questions, and some mixed emotions. And this is only one of the thousands of pictures I have taken during nearly three decades with the troop.

By the way, if you would like to view some of the early photos of Boy Scout Troop 68 through the 1980’s check out our troop’s website at http://www.melrosetroop68.org or check out my Flickr account at http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevejb68/sets/

I took the Boy Scouts of America’s Woodbadge training course for adult leaders in 1988. I was a member of the Bobwhite Patrol. I was the patrol’s historian so I took a lot of pictures over the three weekends.

I finally found time to scan my Woodbadge photographs this summer. I recently posted them to an album on my Flickr account at this LINK. I wanted to post some of them to a Flickr Woodbadge photo group but I could not find any except for a couple course specific groups. Well, I thought, I guess I will have to start a group for us Woodbadgers that want to share our photos.

If you have some photos that you would like to share then I invite you to join this new group on Flckr named Woodbadge Photos. You can find it at http://www.flickr.com/groups/woodbadge/

I am still having fun with my Flickr account. Travel back in time and watch this slide show of Boy Scout Troop 68 pictures from 1981. If you wish to see the pictures individually check out the photo gallery at http://www.flickr.com/photos/8515713@N06/sets/72157622054953898/

I recently scanned the pictures I have as a Boy Scout of Melrose Troop 68 in the 1970’s. Then I uploaded them to my Flickr account so that I could make a slideshow to share with you. The pictures are of Scout Sunday in 1975, my photo story for the photography merit badge that I never quite completed, and pictures from summer camp at Parker Scout Reservation in 1976 and 1977. Don’t laugh too hard when you notice the clothing worn back then.

You may have read about my 1980 experiences in Boy Scout Troop 68 in previous blog postings. Today I present the pictures taken during that year. So sit back, chuckle a bit, and enjoy the show.