A Scoutmaster's Blog

Thanksgiving and the holiday season is upon us. The end of the year is on the horizon. What do I as a Scout Leader have to be thankful for? Hmmm. Let’s see.

I am thankful for a community that has supported the Scout program for the last 27 years.

I am thankful for living in Minnesota with its 10,000 lakes, rolling hills, forests, and campgrounds. Minnesota truly is a Scouting paradise.

I am thankful for the opportunity to take part in five treks at Philmont Scout Ranch, a canoe trip to the BWCA, the 2001 National Jamboree as the scoutmaster of Troop 1417, nineteen week-long summer camps, and hundreds of weekend activities.

I am thankful for my employers who have recognized the importance of Scouting in the community, and providing the flexibility that allowed me to attend troop activities and high adventure bases.

I am thankful for the good and caring committee members and parents that have helped through the years, and for an assistant scoutmaster who has been a member of the team for nearly twenty years.

I am thankful for a supportive and helpful council and district staff, and a committed district executive. I am also thankful for the good friends and mentors I have met through Scouting.

I am thankful for the hundreds of enthusiastic boys that have been a part of my Scouting experience through the years. They are the ones that create the atmosphere that keeps me involved with Scouting.

I am thankful for the opportunity to assist sixteen boys on attaining the rank of Eagle Scout, the BSA’s highest award.

I am thankful for the good health that has allowed me to be a part of Scouting for 29 years. (Three years as a Boy Scout and 26 years as an adult leader.)

I am thankful for Lord Baden-Powell and William Boyce for providing and developing a program that has helped millions of boys and young men develop leadership skills and values that they have used throughout their adult lives.

I am thankful to the Almighty Lord God for giving me the skills and patience needed to work with teenage boys over the past three decades.

Now, what do you have to be thankful for? Add a comment and let us know about it.

I bet that I could safely say that we have all done fundraisers that were, shall we say, less then successful. Been there, done that, don’t want to do it again.

One fundraiser that has been very successful for our Boy Scout troop has been the pancake and sausage breakfast. We have done these for nearly twenty five years. The troop usually makes a profit of $1000-$1500 each time. Two approached the $2000 mark.

Troop 68 conducts two breakfast each year. The first is held in the spring on Palm Sunday. The second is held in the fall, usually on the first Sunday in October. We serve breakfast from 8:00 am to noon in the church basement of the largest church in town.

A few parents begin working the morning of the breakfast around 6:00 am to start preparing the food. The Scout and other parents arrive after 7:00. We require at least one parent from each Scout family to work during the breakfast. The adults work in the kitchen and prepare the food. The Boy Scouts set the tables, clear off the tables, and clean the dishes. Everyone is on clean-up detail after noon.

We serve pancakes, smoked and unsmoked sausage, scrambled eggs, frosted bread, milk, and the fixings. This is an “all you can eat” event so no one goes home with an empty stomach.

The Boy Scouts begin preselling tickets three or four weeks before the date of the breakfast. We charge fifty cents more per ticket when bought at the door.

The troop takes one meeting night to conduct it’s “ticket kick-off”. A local bank assists us by allowing us to use their facility as a base of operations as we send the Scouts through our community to sell as many tickets as they can during the two hour kick-off. Parents provide the transportation to get the boys around town. We will usually sell enough tickets on this first night to pay most of the expenses of the breakfast.

The Scouts earn credit toward camp for each ticket they or their parent sells. If the Scout meet three goals set by the troop during the fundraiser he will receive a bonus that is added to his account. Tickets sold at the door the morning of the breakfast goes into the general troop account.

So, that is a quick look at our troop’s best fundraiser for the last 25 years. It is quick, nearly painless, and works very well for us.

We all have to do it, although we would rather avoid it. Fundraising is a crucial item on every Boy Scout troop and Cub Scout Pack’s agenda. The big question seems to be, “How can we raise the most money with the least amount of work?” Sound about right? After twenty-six years of Scouting I can tell you what has worked well, and not worked well, for Boy Scout Troop 68.

We have tried several fundraisers throughout those years. We tried selling candies. They were not as sweet as we were hoping they would be. It can be tough to convince people to buy a candy bar for twice the amount for which they could buy one in the store. We tried selling seafood a couple times. The first seafood sale went fairly well so we tried a second one. Sales dropped significantly and left us feeling like we were left high and dry. We tried delivering phonebooks door to door in our community, but the boys lost interest in that very quickly.

For several years the troop sold Christmas trees. A local grocery store allowed us to use a portion of their parking lot to display the trees. The Scouts were assigned shifts after school to work at the tree lot. The profit made was divided by the total number of hours worked by the boys. Each boy received an “hourly wage” based on the profit made that was then placed into their individual accounts.

The trees sales went very well the first couple of years. Then things began to work against us. Sales began dropping as more people bought artificial trees. Troop membership dropped so we did not have enough Scouts to fill the shifts needed at the tree lot. One year several trees “disappeared” from the lot and cause a disaster in the profit made. We barely broke even that year. We finally dropped the tree sales as a fundraiser. A community of 3200 people just did not make it profitable enough during the last few years.

Our Boy Scout council does conduct an annual popcorn sales fundraiser as I know many councils do. We use this as an “optional” fundraiser for the boys in our troop. If they chose to participate they receive all the profit into their individual account. We do this as an optional fundraiser because our brother Cub Scout Pack uses this as their major fundraiser.

The troop best way we have of raising funds have been the pancake and sausage breakfasts we hold twice a year, once in the spring and once in the fall. I will make this the subject of my next blog entry.

Telling stories around the campfire has been part of Scouting since the first Boy Scouts went camping. Boys and adults love hearing a good story while sitting around a crackling campfire surrounded by the darkness of the wilderness.

As my troop gathered around the campfire during the first night of a week long summer camp one year, I opened a book of short stories that I had brought along, and told the boys that I would read them a story each night before heading off to bed.

The younger boys were enthusiastic about hearing the stories. The older boys complained that they did not want to sit and listen to stories being read to them. I told them to sit back, relax, and listen. And I read them a different story each night.

Our last night in camp finally arrived, Friday night. We had just arrived back at our campsite after attending the closing campfire. It was late, everyone was tired. I thought the Scouts would want to go straight to bed. I was wrong.

I was surprised when the older Scouts asked me if I would be reading a story yet. These were the same boys that did not want to listen to stories earlier in the week. I smiled to myself and grabbed my book as the troop gathered around the campfire ring one last time.

Campfire storytelling is what I call the “mind’s television” for the Scouts when they are camping. It does not matter if the story is comical, serious, scary, or has a moral to it. If the story is told well it will hold the boy’s attention and have them using their imaginations.

I would suggest that every troop have at least one storyteller, be it an adult or an older Scout. The storyteller should have fun telling the stories, putting a little emotion into the tales, changing his voice a little for each character. The more the teller does with the story the more fun it will be to listen to it.

So next time your troop heads out to its campground do not be afraid to grab a good short story book and bring the magic of the mind’s television to your campfire.