An Hour A Week? Podcast

Scouts In Action-Tsunami Tragedy
A picture of a man in Sri Lanka cradling his dead nephew made an impression on Gus Winner. The 11-year-old Omahan was so moved that, like many people in the Midlands, he decided to do what he could to help victims of the earthquake and tsunami that ravaged south Asia on Sunday.

A great story. I love to see Scouts jump into action quickly.

Finally! I’ve been working on this for a couple of days now. I finished the design a week ago, but didn’t know a thing about working with Radio.

I finally went through the trouble to learn just enough to change the RSS feed to include enclosures (I swear I’m going to do a podcast), change the back-end a little, and get my design working.

By the way, the picture at the top of the page is me and my oldest, Curtis, taken in early December at our Pack’s Winter Campout.

Maybe I’ll quit messing with the design and actually focus more on content.

Scouts busy recruiting (The Herald Tribune)
There’s magic in the number 100. That’s the number of new scouting recruits that the local Boy Scouts of America wants to sign up during a special recruitment drive this week.

This story got me to thinking: Has anyone ever done a joint Cub Scout/Girl Scout/Boy Scout recruitment drive? If so, drop me a comment, I’d love to know if it was worth doing and how to do it.

I really forgot how nice the holidays can be. Sure, the gifts, family, food and fun are all great, but I mean the break from Scouts!

While I was cleaning off my desk and getting ready to regroup for the week, I realised I hadn’t done anything Scout related in the last week. I hate to say it, but I was glad.

I give a lot of time and effort to Scouting September through Mid-December and January through May; I forget that I’m not really burned-out, just need a small break.

I’m sure you other Scout Leaders can relate.

So, I’m off to spend a few minutes getting the kids up. Hopefully, Curtis and I will work on his Pinewood Derby car some more today. We’ll see if I can get a podcast recorded before Tuesday morning also.

Here’s a list of my favorite Pinewood Derby awards. Our Pack is running our PWD at the end of January. We do give out participation awards to everyone, but I really think the Scouts who put in the extra effort should be recognized above and beyond.

Cubmaster’s Award-Most representative of Scouting
Most Realistic Car
Best Old-Time Car
Most Valuable Car-The car that ended up with the most money glued to it to make weight
Best Crash
Strangest Shape
Most Futuristic

We usually make the awards ourselves. They mostly consist of a stained wood block with some sort of gold painted item glued to it (a 6″ ruler for Most Realistic, a giant penny for Most Valuable). They’re fairly cheap and quick to make and the Scouts really like seeing a big pile of awards on the table.

Former Boy Scout donates $2M for new center (BizJournals)
The Capitol Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America plans to build a new service center in Austin, thanks to a $2 million gift from council board member Frank Fickett.

All I can say about this is: THANK GOD! The current Capitol Area office/shop is a former church and it is cramped. They’ve been talking about a new Scout shop somewhere in north Austin for a year or two, but nothing has ever come of it. Maybe they’ll find a site a little closer to my neck of the woods.

So here’s the story on our Pack’s campout-only a week too late.

Beautiful weather both nights (12/10 and 12/11). It got to 32 degrees on Friday night, so everyone earned their “Polar Bear” badges. It was not nearly as cold as the 17 degrees it was last year.

When Curtis and I showed up to the campsite (Canyon of The Eagles-Burnet, Texas) we were all ready to set up our tent, which has been really messed up since the “lantern incident” a couple of years ago (more on that another time). One of our Den Leaders comes up and tells me that the beautiful tent set up next to the spot we were going to set up on is our NEW TENT! Kick-ass! It was all uphill from there.

Saturday, the Scouts all had a great time, lots of Capture the Flag and playing down by the lake. Saturday evening, we did our flag retirement ceremony.

I’ve been part of retiring American flags for 3 years now; this one was the best so far. We had 4 Scouts as our color guard and they were spot-on perfect. Not bad for Scouts who only got to practice once 2 hours beforehand. All of the other 24 Scouts who participated were very respectful; I wish they were that way all of the time. It’s the only time during the Scout year that I get emotional.

Came back on Sunday, exhausted, but happy. We had a good time and we’re going to book the same place again next year.