A Scoutmaster's Blog

Once again, this note is more for myself then anyone, but this blog reached a total of 75,000 visits today (since the counter began in June 2007). It has only been a bit over four months since it reached 50,000 visits. The daily visits have been increasing nicely. It was not that long ago when this site would be lucky to receive 150 a day.

I would like to thank you all for coming to this site and reading the blog. It will be interesting to see when it hits 100,000 views.

The Cub Scouts of the Central Minnesota Council will have quite a surprise when they attend Day Camp this year the Parker Scout Reservation. The medieval them will come to life like never before with the completion of the new Miller Castle. Yeah, you read that correctly. A castle! Complete with a courtyard surrounded by masonry walls and towers at the corners.

During last night’s district roundtable we were shown pictures of the nearly completed castle. I will not lie. I was impressed. From the masonry exterior to the medieval decor on the interior of the building it appears to have captured the feel of the “knights of old” very well.

Of course, the castle includes all of today’s modern conveniences. The building is well insulated and heated for year round use. It has a large modern kitchen and a large “commons” room for dining and activities. There are separate bathroom and shower facilities for the youth and adults. A “barracks”, complete with bunk beds, is available for troops and packs who wish to use the building for overnight stays. The basement adds one more storm shelter to the camp, in addition to a large storage area for program materials.

I am looking forward to going to Parker this spring and touring the castle. I believe it will be a great addition to the camp and will help to increase the number of Scouts, packs, and troops who use the facilities.

Pictures of the Miller Castle can be seen at our council’s website at http://www.bsacmc.org .

The month of January really kicked off the new year to a busy start for our troop’s (and this blog’s) website. There was a total of 26,097 visits to the troop’s website, with a total of 134,705 page views. This includes 10,682 hits to this blog’s homepage. All told, there was over 147.8 GB of data transferred. I think that is a record for the site.

Of course, most of that bandwidth is used by the video podcast. The top videos of the month of January 2009 were:
The Leaders of Scouting (Mike H) – 407 hits
Little Bunny Foo Foo – 455 hits
The 2001 National Jamboree Video – 480 hits
The Buttons and Randall Show #3 – 577 hits

I have to thank David H., a former member of Troop 68, for providing the space and bandwidth for the website. If he wouldn’t provide the troop with the free domain, server, and bandwidth I would not be placing all these videos online for you to enjoy. Thanks David.

And thanks to all of you for reading this blog, watching the videos, and checking out our troop’s website.

This episode of the Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast gives you two campfire favorites for the price of one. (Well, the price is free so I guess that does not really matter.) One song and one skit. From two different troop Laughs For Lunch Shows. Yep, we are spanning the decades with this episode.

The first skit we call The Sleepwalker. It involves some Boy Scouts sitting around the campfire late at night, talking about the events of the day, when a sleepwalker walks up to them and takes stuff from them. They do not want to awaken the sleeper though because, “It is dangerous to wake up a sleepwalker. She’ll bring it back in the morning.” Oh yeah, that IS a girl who happens to be sleepwalking.

The second part is a Scouting favorite known as the Baby Bumblebee song. The Scouts had the audience participate in this song during the show. Unfortunately, we do not have any footage of the audience singing along. The boys do a great job, and the last line always gets a smile from me when I watch it.

You are invited to leave a comment here using the link below, at the iTunes Music Store, or at the PTC Media forums. Or drop me an email at webmaster@melrosetroop68.org. It really is great to hear what you think about the podcast videos.

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.

I don’t know about you, but I take plenty of pictures when I am on an outing with the Boy Scouts. It was not too bad when I used a 35mm camera. If I filled one roll of 24 pictures on an outing I considered that a lot of pictures. Now that I have a digital camera I have been know to take a LOT more pictures per outing. Hundreds more. The boys dread seeing me coming with the camera these days. Yet, they always enjoy seeing the pictures.

I use an Apple Mac Pro computer at home so I use iPhoto to store, label, and sort my digital photographs. And there is a lot to sort. I have nearly 9000 photos of Scout and events. That does not include any family photographs. I will usually label the photos right away by event and date to make them a bit easier to find, but it can still take awhile to find that one picture I may be looking for to use in a project.

This week Apple came out with their new version of the iPhoto software. It has a couple of features that I am looking forward to using. The first is called Faces. It is a program that will recognize the faces of people in the photos. After applying names to those faces the program will label other pictures in which it finds that person and create an album for that person’s pictures. This feature could come in quite handy for preparing that Eagle court of honor presentation, or a family birthday or anniversary show.

The second new feature is called Locations. If you have a camera with a built in GPS feature (like some cel phones) information about the location of the place the photo was taken could be embedded in the photograph. The new Locations feature will group photographs taken at locations. Want to find all your pictures taken at Many Point Scout Camp or Philmont, just ask iPhoto to find them. I do not see myself using this feature as much as Faces, but it could come in handy.

I hope these new features work as well as Apple says they will. This could save me a lot of time when working on future projects. After all, it can be quite challenging finding that perfect picture when you have hundreds or thousands of pictures to scan through. My program arrived this week and I am looking forward to playing with it this weekend.

Those of you who follow this blog know that I produce a video podcast known as Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast (MSPP). I have recently been asked to produce an audio podcast based on the material found in those video podcasts. I really do not think transferring the four to seven minute video podcasts would make for a good audio podcast so I have been giving the matter some thought on how to expand it to a 15 to 30 minute audio podcast.

I do not want the new podcast to be about how to be a better Scout leader or how to improve your pack or troop program. There are already podcasts out there that do just that, including An Hour A Week, the Scoutmaster Minute, the Leader’s Campfire. The MSPP video podcast was designed to be entertainment for Scouts and their families from the start. I think the new audio podcast should be the same.

Before I begin creating a new audio podcast, I wanted to have a format to follow from episode to episode. After a couple weeks of thinking about it I think I have come up with a plan:
a) Opening music and intro
b) Monologue
c) Buttons’ Corner
d) Commercial (if anyone decides to sponsor the program.)
e) Around the Campfire
f) Buttons’ Shout Out
g) Scout Leader Minute
h) Closing theme/music

The Opening Monologue would be a short discussion between Buttons and myself about what is featured in that episode. I have already played around with the monologue for the first episode and discovered Buttons can be a hard person to talk to. (I am beginning to feel like I have multiple personalities.)

Buttons’ Corner would feature the audio from one of his videos, or his thoughts about Scouting in general. He could even answer a question or two sent in by a listener, which means I would have to set up an email address for him.

Around the Campfire would feature a song found in one of the videos, or maybe a campfire story. This part of the podcast could be as short as a couple minutes (if it is a song) or quite a bit longer (if it is a story). I have a few Scouting based novels from the 1910’s through the 1920’s that might make for a continuing storyline.

Buttons’ Shout Out will be moment for Buttons to recognize Scouts, packs, or troops that write to him or send him something special. I have received a couple requests for something like this. I think it could keep the show a little more interactive with the listening audience.

The Scout Leader’s Minute would end the episode with a short story or thought, similar to the Scoutmaster’s Minute at the end of a troop meeting.

I would like to know what you think about this format for a new podcast. I also need ideas for a name for it. Right now I am thinking about simply calling it the Melrose Scouting Audio Podcast, but I am open to suggestions. You can email me at stevejb68@yahoo.com

Twenty years ago the volunteers at Mel-TV, our local cable access television station, filmed a program in which five men who were Scout leaders were interviewed about their Scouting experiences. I took that old vhs tape and transferred it to a dvd. I thought to myself as I was transferring the program that many of the things being said by those gentlemen still apply to Scouting today. I thought I would break this show down into parts for the Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast, each part featuring one of the interviews.

This podcast video features the third interview from The Leaders of Scouting. Mike H. began his adult Scouting career as a Webelos den leader when his son joined the den. He moved to the Boy Scout committee when his son graduated into the troop. When the current committee chairman stepped down, Mike agreed to take the position for one year. That one year stretched into more then five years. During this interview Mike talked about being on the troop committee, going along on various troop outings, the values found in the Scouting program, and his pride in seeing his son earn the rank of Eagle Scout.

You are invited to leave a comment here using the link below, at the iTunes Music Store, or at the PTC Media forums. Or drop me an email at webmaster@melrosetroop68.org. It really is great to hear what you think about the podcast videos.

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.

We have all heard of Murphy’s Law which states, “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.” Mark W. at ScoutingManiac has recently blogged about a list of Murphy’s Laws of Camping which he found at the Boy Scout Trail website. You have got to read these. A few of them really are too true. Here are a few of the forty laws listed on the site:

1. When reading the instructions of a pump-activated water filter, ‘hour’ should be substituted for ‘minute’ when reading the average quarts filtered per minute.
2. A backpack’s weight load migrates up and back the longer it is in motion.
3. All tree branches in a forest grow outward from their respective trunks at exactly the height of your nose. If you are male, tree branches will also grow at groin height.
4. Swiss Army Knife toothpicks and tweezers evaporate open contact with air.
5. Rain happens.
6. Waterproof clothing isn’t. (However, it is 100% effective at containing sweat).
7. Non-stick pans aren’t.
8. Waterproof matches aren’t.
9. One size fits all don’t.
10. Anything bug-proof isn’t.
11. A backpack’s weight is not affected by the amount of food eaten out of it.
12. The minimum temperature rating for any sleeping bag raises as the external temperature lowers.
13. Ropes holding bear bags stretch.
14. The loudness of an animal at night grows as the size of the animal shrinks.

Links:
http://www.boyscouttrail.com/content/joke/murphys_laws_of_camping-1031.asp
http://scoutingmaniac.blogspot.com/2009/01/humor-dose-1.html