A Scoutmaster's Blog

The Boy Scouts of Melrose Area Troop 68 have held a Christmas party every year since the early 1980’s. It is an activity which is well attended because we have a lot of fun. Thirteen of the fifteen troop members attended this year’s party which was held on Saturday, December 15th. Four second year Webelos Scouts also attended the event.

The evening began at 5:30 pm with a supper of tacos. Most of the Scouts were quite hungry since they had spend the day downhill skiing at Andes Ski Resort near Alexandria.

The first activity was the gift exchange. Each Scout who wished to participate bought a gift valued from $12 to $15. All the Scouts participated. Each wrapped gift was placed in the center of the room. The Scouts took turns rolling dice. When they rolled doubles they chose a gift. Once all the gifts were chosen they were unwrapped. Then the real fun began. For the next fifteen minutes we continued to roll dice. When a Scout rolled doubles he could swap his gift with someone else. At the end of the fifteen minutes everyone “received” the gift they had in front of them.

Like every year, there were a few gifts that were very popular and moved around the room quite often. They were also a couple not so popular gifts that also were traded when the chance presented itself. I also participated in the exchange. Once there were only a few minutes of game time left, I became serious about which gift I wanted to take home. I was lucky enough to shake doubles with a little over a minute left, and even luckier to have no one shake doubles to take my chosen prize away from me.

The next activity was unwrapping a gift wrapped with duct tape, while wearing garden gloves. Once again, the Scouts rolled dice to have a chance to unwrap the box. Until the next Scout rolled doubles, that is. The game when the final box was unwrapped. Oh yeah, I did not tell you there were smaller wrapped boxes within the larger boxes.

The final game was a Twister tournament. This was followed by a movie which was a really good high school sports film based on a true story. The Scouts really caught caught up in the movie, even cheering for the team during the final event. The Scouts went home after the movie finished.

Does your troop hold a Christmas outing? What do you do? Leave a note about it in the comments section below.

The Scenic District of the Central Minnesota Council held its final roundtable meeting of the year on Tuesday, December 11. I have not attended a roundtable for quite awhile but I attended this one because I was asked to speak about the B. S. A.’s high adventure bases. I am glad I did attend this meeting.

Scoutmaster Dave Norling of Melrose Area Troop 68 was recognized with two awards during the meeting. He received his certificate for completing “Basic Leader Training.” He also received the special council neckerchief for being 100% trained. I believe he may be second adult leader of Troop 68 who has received the neckerchief. District executive Sam Ross made the presentations.

Congratulations to Scoutmaster Dave Norling!

I enjoy being a member of the Order of the Arrow but I do not attend all the functions during the year. I have always had the opinion that the Order of the Arrow is a youth organization, so I only attend an outing when the Boy Scouts of Troop 68 attend. There has been one exception to myself applied rule, the winter banquet.

I went to my first Naguonabe Lodge winter banquet a few years ago, without any Boy Scouts from Troop 68. I wanted to see what this event was all about. I had a good time so I attended last year’s banquet. They went with a Hawaiian luau theme so I dug out my old Hawaiian shirt.

The lodge’s 2019 winter banquet will be held at the council office on Saturday, January 5. This time it will be a pirate themed event, which sounds like fun. I have sent a message to the troop’s two youth members to see if they plan to attend. If they do not, I may go on my own. It will be an interesting to see a lot of Order of the Arrow members acting like pirates.

I wonder if Captain Jack will appear.

I began collecting Scouting themed books soon after becoming a Scoutmaster in the early 1980s. I collect handbooks, leadership books, history books, and the fictional novels that were written in the 1910s and 1920s. After 35 years of collecting I would say I have a very nice collection.

The old Scouting themed fictional novels written a hundred years ago have a special place in the collection. I love finding those old books if they are in decent condition. It can be a challenge to find these old books that are still in one piece. I don’t think anyone really thought they were meant to last more then a generation or two so when I find one, at a reasonable price, I like to buy it.

I recently saw a post on a Facebook group called Scout Patch Collectors. It is a great group for trading and buying Scout patches. Once in awhile other Scouting memorabilia is posted. Last week I saw a post featuring three of the old Scout novels for sale. While they looked a little frayed around the edges I noticed they were three books I did not have in my collection.

The Boy Scouts at the Panama Canal, written by Lieut. Howard Payson, was published in 1913. The other two books were written by Herbert Carter. The Boy Scouts Afoot In France was published in 1917. The Boy Scouts On War Trails In Belgium was published in 1916.

After a few messages back and forth between the seller and myself I agreed to purchase the books for a price we both agreed upon. Since I was buying the books based on the one photograph posted I hoped they would not be in terrible shape.

The books arrived last Saturday. The covers are in decent shape, showing a bit of wear which is to be expected. The covers are coming loose but a little glue will take care of that. Two of the books have a loose page in the front of the book, but at least the page is still with the book. Otherwise, the books are in decent shape for being one hundred years old.

Two of the books have handwriting inside the front cover. I think one was a gift to a young man. The other book I believe has the owner’s name written on the first page. This does not bother me in the least. I think I adds a little character and history to the book.

I am going to have to rearrange my book cabinet to make room for these three new additions. While they may not be in great shape they do fill in three holes in my collection and I am glad to be able to add them.

Do you collect old Scout themed novels? Which ones do you own? Leave a comment below.

The Boy Scouts of Melrose Troop 68 began wearing a Troop T-shirt in the 1980s. The Scouts would wear the T-shirts for the summer outdoor troop meetings and some of the monthly activities. The full uniform was worn for winter indoor meetings, courts of honor, and other special events.

I do not remember Melrose Area Cub Scout Pack 68 ever having a T-shirt. Until now that is. About a year ago the pack committee decided the Cub Scouts should have a T-shirt to wear for certain meetings and activities. The parents agreed. The picture above shows the design on the pack’s shirt. The Cub Scouts like them. Even some of the parents wear one.

While the uniform is an important part of the Scouting program, it is not really needed for every event. I am glad the Pack finally has its own T-shirt.

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?