A Scoutmaster's Blog

For thirteen years the Boy Scouts of Troop 68 held an annual show they called Laughs For Lunch. It was a campfire-style show featuring various songs, skits, and stories. The shows made the new Scouts nervous because, for most of them, it was their first time on stage in front of an audience. The older more experienced Scouts loved performing in front of the crowd and getting the laughs. We usually tried to keep the younger Scouts in groups when they were onstage but the older boys would get the chance to perform a skit or song on their own. This video post to the Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast features one of those skits.

Andy may have been shy were he joined the Boy Scout troop but he soon became one of the guys who loved to ham it up on stage. In this video from the 2001 Laughs For Lunch Show, he plays the artist Vincent Van Go-Go who plans to create a living sculpture on stage using people from the studio audience. He soon has both young and old people on stage portraying trees, rabbits, birds, and other things from nature. I am sure you will enjoy watching it.

Does your troop have fun performing in front of an audience? Have they ever done this skit? Tell us about it by leaving a comment.

Click here to DOWNLOAD and watch this Podcast
Subscribe to Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast through iTunes.
or at http://feeds2.feedburner.com/melrosescoutingproductions
Check out other Scouting podcasts at PTC Media.

It is time to join Scoutmaster Steve and Buttons, the radical Boy Scout, Around The Scouting Campfire. In this episode they discuss city proclamations about the Boy Scouts of America’s 100th anniversary and Scouting For Food, some iTunes reviews, reasons you might be a Boy Scout, and gopher guts (the song).

Steve and Buttons thank PTC Media (http://www.ptcmedia.net) for allowing this program to be a part of the family of Scouting related podcasts. We would like to thank the Boy Scout Store (http://boyscoutstore.com) for sponsoring this show. Be sure to take a moment to check out their website. Finally, we would like to thank you, our listeners, for downloading Around The Scouting campfire.

Melrose Boy Scout Troop 68 holds four courts of honor per year. We begin with an opening ceremony, followed by the presentation of year pins and merit badges, a short entertainment spot by the Scouts, recognition of Scouts who have earned a rank, and finish with a closing ceremony. Refreshments and announcements wrap up the evening.

Our court of honor ceremonies usually consist of three parts: something patriotic, something Scouting, and an invocation. It is a nice solemn beginning to the meeting. Once in awhile though, the boys get into one of those moods. You know, the giggles begin, or something goes wrong. Unpredictability reigns.

The opening at our March court of honor started well, but the little things soon started. The snickering began. The Scouts had decided to do a Scout Law candle lighting ceremony. Boy Scouts. Matches. Candles. The Scout Law. And that the movie playing in the next room was loud enough for us to hear easily in our room. You can probably guess what happened. If not, you can watch this post to the Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast to see it for yourself.

Has your troop ever had an opening or closing ceremony go slightly astray? Share it with us by leaving a comment below.

Click here to DOWNLOAD and watch this Podcast
Subscribe to Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast through iTunes.
or at http://feeds2.feedburner.com/melrosescoutingproductions
Check out other Scouting podcasts at PTC Media.

April 3rd happened to be a Tuesday during the year of 2007. After months of thought, planning, and preparing it was time to begin my new project. It was time to begin the Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast by posting the first video. That first video featured Buttons, the radical Boy Scout, reciting the Scout Oath. Since then, he has starred in nearly two dozen videos and taken on a life of his own. He is also a co-host of the Around The Scouting Campfire podcast.

There are currently 83 videos posted to the Melrose Scouting Production Podcast. In addition to the shorts with Buttons there are video of Boy Scout skits, songs, stories, and interviews with people involved in the Scout program. That is an average of over two videos per month. I was amazed to discover that it would take nearly nine hours to watch them all.

To tell the truth, I did not think I would be posting Scouting videos three years later. I did not think I would have enough material to keep going that long. I just wanted to share the video I already had on my computer. But new things kept coming up that provided me with new footage to keep producing new videos.

I hope you have enjoyed watching the videos over the last three years. It has been fun making them. Spread the word about them to you friends and people you know within the Scouting program. When I see the download numbers growing it kinda gets me excited about posting more videos. I also want to thank Chris (and Bob) and the other folks at PTC Media for accepting MSPP as one of the family of Scouting podcast found on the site, and for the encouragement to keep posting new videos.

What have been your favorite videos over the years?

The Boy Scouts of Melrose Troop 68 were a little nervous when they arrived at the Melrose City Council meeting. They really did not know what to expect, and neither did I as their scoutmaster. The troop was at the meeting because the city council was going to pass a proclamation recognizing the 100th anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America and the 30th anniversary of Boy Scout Troop 68.

When the time came for the city council to pass the proclamation, the city’s mayor, Eric Seanger, spoke a few words about how the city appreciates the hard work of the Boy Scout troop. He then invited a member of the troop to come forward to accept the proclamation. Our senior patrol leader received that honor. I took a couple of pictures, one which ended up in the local paper.

Unfortunately, because the council had to attend another meeting with the local township boards, they did not have time to read the proclamation. Since we had an outing the following weekend I recruited a few Boy Scouts to read it in front of the video camera. I received a copy of the city council meeting from Mel-TV, our community access television station, and went to work editing everything together to make this video for the Melrose Scouting Production Podcast.

The proclamation can be read at http://www.melrosetroop68.org/blog/?p=667

Click here to DOWNLOAD this Podcast
Subscribe to Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast through iTunes.
or at http://feeds2.feedburner.com/melrosescoutingproductions
Check out other Scouting podcasts at PTC Media.

Scoutmaster Steve and Buttons, the radical Boy Scout, return in episode twelve of the Around The Scouting Campfire podcast. Listen in as the guys talk about how the Scouting program was discovered by William D. Boyce during a trip to London in the early 1900’s. There are quotes from Lord Baden-Powell. The Boy Scouts of Troop 68 perform the radio skit. Buttons reads the last letter to Scouts from Lord Baden-Powell. There is even a short story from an early National Jamboree.

The story of how Scouting came to America is from the 1943 edition of the Boy Scout handbook.
The Radio Skit can be seen at Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast #70 – http://feeds2.feedburner.com/melrosescoutingproductions
Buttons’ reading of the last letter to Scouts from Lord Baden-Powell can be seen at Melrose Scouting Productions #50.

Boots Hanson was the first caretaker of Many Point Scout Camp. In fact, he and the other council leaders created a new style summer camp in which Boy Scouts would camp together with members of their own troop. His hard work and great love of the outdoors and Scouting brought this new idea to reality. According to the Many Point Alumni website (http://mpalumni.nsbsa.org/lanternslight/SU1991.pdf):

Click here to DOWNLOAD this podcast.Subscribe to Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast through iTunes.
or at the RSS feed: http://feeds2.feedburner.com/melrosescoutingproductions
Check out other great Scouting podcasts at PTC Media, including The Leader’s Campfire and Around The Scouting Campfire.