A Scoutmaster's Blog

I arrived at the Central Minnesota Council office early for Tuesday night’s roundtable so I spent some time checking out the Scout Shop. There was only a couple of us looking around when the clerk asked me if she could help me find anything, like books, awards, Christmas items…

The mention of Christmas items caught my attention immediately. Just last week I had checked the scoutstuff.com website to see if there were any new pieces for the Scouting Village that had began two years ago. I was anxious to see if this village would be continued and what this year’s pieces would be. Unfortunately, I found nothing on the website. So when the Scout Shop clerk mentioned Christmas items I had to ask about the Scouting Village.

She replied that they had received the new pieces that very afternoon and have not had a chance to get them on the shelves yet. Awesome, I thought. I asked if I could see them and followed her into the storage room where she opened the carton. I believe I was the first Scouting volunteer in my council to see the new pieces, and this year’s building grabbed my attention.

The newest building in the series is the Lighted Dining Hall. I thought is was well designed and quite colorful, but a little small in scale for a dining hall. Only one troop would fit in here, I thought. Oh well, it is a village building piece and they are not in the same scale as the people or even other buildings. It is still a pretty cool looking piece and I am anxious to add it to my set up this year. The website states (Yes, it can now be bought online), “A welcome addition to the holiday Scouting Village, this piece enhances any collection. Porcelain rendering of a BSA camp dining hall is beautifully detailed—complete with outdoor picnic tables!”

The next piece that I noticed was the “Tree Sales” Figurine. I like this piece because it reminds me of the years that Boy Scout Troop 68 sold Christmas Trees as a fundraiser. The website says, “Premium-quality accessory adds character and dimension to your Lighted Scouting Village scenes. Polyresin tree figurine features a Cub Scout, Boy Scout, and Leader hard at work on a Christmas tree sales lot.” I have to agree the the figures do add quite a bit to the Scouting Village scene.

The third and final piece of this year’s collection is the “Popcorn Tree” Figurine. This piece features a Boy Scout and Cub Scout decorating a Christmas Tree. The site says, “There’s nothing more iconic to BSA than popcorn! This polyresin figurine features a Cub Scout and Boy Scout decorating a tree with popcorn garland and ornaments.” I thought this could be a great gift for the unit’s “popcorn kernel”, the chairperson of the popcorn fundraiser.

I bought all three pieces right then. I was not going to wait and have the same thing happen to me that happened two years ago when I waited too long to buy them and missed out on getting the Trading Post. (I still do not have one.) I look forward to late November when I set up my new expanded village. I think this will be the last year I will be able to use that piece of plywood I use for the base.

I was not the only person who bought the set that evening. Within ten minutes of my purchase another set was bought and the Scout Shop was out of the Lighted Dining Halls. Since I am a roundtable commissioner I also took time during the meeting to give a quick shout out for this year’s Scouting Village.

Have you been collecting the buildings and figurines? What do you think of this year’s additions?
http://www.scoutstuff.org/house-lightd-dining-hall.html
http://www.scoutstuff.org/figure-villg-tree-sales.html
http://www.scoutstuff.org/figure-villg-popcorn-tree.html

Maybe I should not have done it. After all, it has been 13 years since that event was held. But I had a good time and a great group of Scouts along so I will always remember the 2001 National Jamboree fondly. So, last night I decided to try to expand my collection of patches from the Jamboree. I decided to try my luck on eBay.

When I buy patches for my collection I have a rule I kind of follow: unless it is a very special patch that I really want badly I will only pay up to $5.00 per patch. Of course, this means there are quite a few patches that I will probably never add to my collection because the people selling them price them too high for my budget, like the Marvel hero patches or the dinosaur patches. I also prefer to buy patches as sets or lots. I like sets because I can (maybe) get all the patches from that council in one lump grouping. I like lots because they usually are priced as less than $5.00 per patch, plus I add more patches to the collection quickly.

I bid on or bought patches from four actions last night, and added another four to my eBay watch list. The best of the batch was a ten patch set of Jamboree shoulder patches from Indian Nations Council. It is one of those council sets in which the same patch design was used for all ten troops, with a different border color for each troop, which is actually a popular way to provide different patches for each troop but also keep the cost to a minimum for the participating Boy Scouts. (The picture only shows six of them.)

The other auctions include council shoulder patches from the West Central Florida Council, the Blue Ridge Council, and the Crater Lake Council, and a two patch set of Order of the Arrow patches from the Sakuwit Lodge. The auction description stated this lodge does not exist anymore. This lodge was located in the Central New Jersey Council which was dissolved in February 2014. I look forward to adding this set to my collection since they have now become a part of Scouting history.

This will add 15 patches to my 2001 National Jamboree collection. These patches will force me to start a second three ring binder. I will probably put council shoulder patches in one book and OA patch sets in the other. I may need to order the few more pages in which to place the patches. I will worry about that after I receive the patches.

What do you think of when you hear the words “bear skin”? Is your first thought a bear skin rug? Maybe a sporting game between the Bears and the Redskins? Maybe a sunburn after sitting with bare skin in the sun too long? One of the things I think of is summer camp. It was the name of the campsite my troop used for two years when I attended camp as a youth.

I attended Parker Scout Reservation of the Central Minnesota Council for three years during the mid-1970’s. It is a small camp by some summer camp standards, but it was the home of Troop 68 and other troops for a week of fun and excitement. In its earlier days it was called Camp Clyde. These days it is sometimes called Camp Parker. It closed as a summer camp in the late 1970’s but is still used as a weekend camp for council Boy Scout and Cub Scout activities. Troop 68 has used the camp on several occasions over the years for their own weekend activities.

The council has done several major renovations and additions to Camp Parker during the last few decades. The old dining hall was completely renovated and an addition was built onto it. A storage building was added next to it at the same time. A new shower house was constructed back in the nineties. Several older buildings have been remodeled with new heating systems installed. The biggest addition to Camp Parker took place when the castle was built. Yes, you read that correctly. A castle. (Pictures of the castle can be seen at http://www.bsacmc.org/photo_gallery_miller_castle.html .)

A few months ago I received a phone call at work asking if the lumber yard would like to donate some cedar lumber so new signs could be built for the campsites. The signs were getting pretty run down and looked rather shoddy. I did not even give my boss a chance to reply to the request. I used this as a chance for myself to give back a little to the place I have been going to for four decades. I donated the materials.

But I had one request. I wanted the old campsite sign of the camp I stayed in as a young Boy Scout. I wanted the old Bear Skin sign. I was told that should not be a problem and that they would set it aside for me.

That was a couple months ago. Yesterday, when I arrived back home from working at my parents renovation project, I found something placed between my front door and combination door. Later in the morning my district executive had stopped by my house on his way through town and dropped off the sign. Other than patches and pictures, this is the first item from Camp Parker I have been able to add to my Scouting collection.

The sign was actually in decent shape considering it has weathered several Minnesota winters and summers. I really have no idea how long this sign has marked the campsite. I would doubt it is the same sign that welcomed Boy Scouts in the 1970’s, but it is a piece of camp history and I am happy to have it in my collection.

Below you can see a map of Parker Scout Reservation from a camporee probably held in the early 1990’s. As you can see, Parker is not a big camp but it really does not matter. I have made a lot of great Scouting memories there.

It is that time of year. Hallmark is now selling the new Keepsake Ornaments for this year’s Christmas season. That means there should be a new Beagle Scout Snoopy ornament if the company is continuing the series they began several years ago. I was in St. Cloud last Saturday afternoon so I decided to stop in the store and see if there was a new one that I needed to buy. There was!

This year’s ornament is called “learning The Ropes”. According to the Hallmark web page, “Square knots, slip knots,…the Beagle Scouts have Snoopy tied up in knots. They’re not trying to be “knotty,” though, they’re just learning the ropes! This ornament would be great for a Peanuts® fan, or anyone who has experience with Scouting.” The size of the piece is only 2.58″ W x 2.09″ H x 1.83″ D, which I believe is a bit smaller than previous year’s ornaments. The price is $14.95. I believe they are for sale in the stores only, and not available online.

I picked up two them. One to use on the tree and one to keep as part of my collection. I have done the same with each year’s piece. I am thinking I may have to set up a tree this Christmas season, put all eight of my Beagle Scout Snoopy ornaments on it, take a picture of it, and post it to this blog again to see if you can find them all.

The store also had several 2013 Lego Yoda ornaments on sale for 80% off. I picked up a three of those since they were less then $4.00 each. I may place one in the tree with the Snoopy ornaments just to mess you up a bit in this year’s tree picture. The others may end up as presents for someone this holiday season.

Here is the Hallmark website page if you want to check out this year’s Beagle Scout Snoopy ornament: http://shop.hallmark.com/christmas/christmas-ornaments/learning-the-ropes-1495QXI2556.html#prefn1=characters&prefv1=Peanuts®&start=1

It is inevitable. If you are in the Scouting program for several years you will start collecting something. It could be activity patches. Maybe it will be council shoulder patches (csp’s) or Order of the Arrow lodge flaps. It might be coffee mugs or bolo ties. Would handbooks or fieldbooks be more to your liking? What do I collect? All of the above.

When I went to the Philmont Training Center in June I brought along some Central Minnesota Council shoulder patches to trade with Scouters from around the country. The first time I was introduced to patch trading was at the Philmont Training Center in 1984, and I was not prepared to do any trading. I have tried not to make that mistake anymore whenever I leave the council.

I brought 19 csp’s with me to trade at Philmont this year. Trading was to take place Monday evening that week. I was going to be ready.

I was a bit disappointed to see that only a half dozen people show up to trade patches at the South Tent City activity building, but I was able to do some trading. I was also able to trade a couple patches during the rest of the week. I went back to Minnesota with ten new council strips and one Order of the Arrow patch. I did well. I was happy.

There was one patch for trade that night that I really wanted for my collection. It was a Far East Council should patch that featured James E. West, the first Chief Scout Executive of the Boy Scouts of America. The young Scouter (a possible staff member?) that had the patch did not want to trade one for one. He wanted more. I did not want to give up any of my new patches so I prepared to leave without it. But than another young Scouter arrived and he had the same patch to trade. He was willing to trade one for one. I was able to add James E. West to my collection.

There was one patch that eluded my trading. National Commissioner Tico Perez was in attendance during the week I was at the training center. I tried to trade csp’s with him a couple of times but each time he did not have any patches with him to trade. He did however have his special red “National Commissioner Tico Perez” patch which he gave me. To tell the truth, I was more excited to add this rare patch to my collection than his council patch.

What do you collect? How many items do you have in your collection?

Saturday, May 3rd, was free comic book day so I went to St. Cloud to pick up a few at Granite City Comics. I arrived downtown early to get a good parking spot so I decided to walk around to get some exercise and to see what kind of stores were in downtown St. Cloud these days. After all, I had not been shopping downtown for years. There has been no need for me to go downtown since this was on the east side of town and most of the big stores and shopping malls were on the west side of town, closer to where I live.

While I was walking the streets I noticed that there was a used bookstore a block away from the comic book store. I did not realize there was such a store in the downtown area so I decided I needed to check this place out when I was done at Granite City Comics. And I did.

There were two main types of books I looked for once I arrived at the used book store, science fiction and old Scouting books. I was lucky enough to find two old Boy Scout themed novels written in the early 1900’s. Both were in pretty good shape considering that they were over 100 years old. One was The Boy Scouts Of The Eagle Patrol written by Howard Payson, published in 1911. The other was Boy Scouts In An Airship by G. Harvey Ralphson, published in 1912. I was able to pick up the two of them for under twenty dollars.

As I laid them on the counter I thought to myself, I hope I do not already have these books. I could not remember if they were already part of my collection or not. Oh well, if they were I would now have two of them. I could always use one as a prize at a Scout Roundtable or something. I was happy to discover when I arrived at home that I did not own either one yet. I also discovered that I have the ebook version of The Boy Scouts Of The Eagle Patrol on my computer.

Do you collect old Boy Scout novels? How many do you have? Where do you find them?

As I was looking online for a name of that Norman Rockwell painting mentioned in my last post, I came across a picture of a set of figurines based on six of his more popular Scouting themed paintings. I wish I had seen this sooner. I might have placed a bid on them. But the auction had already closed. They would have made a great addition to my Scouting memorabilia collection.

Do any of you have these figurines as a part of your collection? Where did you find them? When did you buy them?

It is amazing the amount of stuff you can collect when you are a scoutmaster for thirty years, especially the paperwork. What should you throw away? What should you keep? What do you file away and than forget about? I played it safe and kept a lot of it.

It has been two years since I stepped down as Boy Scout Troop 68’s scoutmaster so it is probably time to sit down and begin going through the hundreds of files I have accumulated. It is time to get rid of some of this stuff. I am sure the current scoutmaster is not interested in most of it since it does not apply to the current Scouts and program.

I have files dating back to the 1980’s. They include advancement reports, board of review notes, troop rosters, Eagle Scout court of honor programs and agendas, and committee meeting minutes. There are files of information from the yearly trips to summer camps along with info from high adventure trips to Philmont Scout Ranch, the 2001 National Jamboree, and Charles Sommers Canoe Base.

I wrote the troop’s monthly newsletter for over 25 years. There is a file of these for each year. These newsletters contain quite a bit of history of the Scouting program in Melrose. And there lies part of the problem. I don’t really want to “throw away the history” of Melrose Boy Scout Troop 68, but I really do not need to keep all this paperwork.

Then I got an idea! I emailed a note to the president of the Melrose Area Historical Society to see if they would be interested in receiving some of these old records for the museum. She responded quickly, writing, “We would definitely like to give them a home.”  I think the MAHS museum would be a great home for some of these records. It would be available to the public instead of just collecting dust in my office.

Now I need to find an evening or three to to go through the files. I may scan some of the records before passing them, like the old newsletters that were created using a typewriter and real “copy and pasting” techniques.

What does your troop do with older files and paperwork? Do you simply throw them away? Do you have a special place to keep them? Do you give them to your local museum? Let us know by leaving a comment.