Scoutmaster Musings

Last September, Boys Life ran a MacGyver Challenge sweepstakes. Today, I received this photo of the patch from a participant in the contest.

Doing a bit of research on the net, it looks like 1,158 people entered so all of them should have gotten a patch, 10 should have received a swag bag of stuff, and 1 got a trip to the MacGyver set in Atlanta and a pizza party. A scout from Texas Troop 565 won the big prize - Read More (thanks for the heads up, thrifty).

Three things I think are interesting:

1. Many online contests like this are easy to enter and often have fewer participants than you would think. I won a nice pair of Keen boots online.
2. If only 1,158 of these were given out, I wonder if any scouting memorabilia collectors would be interested in them?
3. I could not find a picture of this patch searching online - so, this might be the first and only MacGyver Challenge Scout Edition patch on the entire internet! :-)

Scouts looking for another patch to collect? Read a book and send a short report to Boys Life to enter their reading contest. You will at least get a Pedro patch, and maybe a lot more.

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Following up on my post from yesterday about Boy Scout projects, here is a fun one for Cub Scouts.

There are around 20,000 species of bees worldwide and they are very important for the pollination of plants. Since WWII, bee populations have been declining due to pesticides, disease, parasites, and habitat lose. In 2015, around 40% of the bee colonies in the U.S.A. collapsed. Every year, some colonies collapse, but this was a lot.

To help these pollinators recover, scouts can:

• Learn about bees
• Reduce use of pesticides - video
• Cultivate native plants, of many varieties
• Provide nesting area or materials

Plant Wildflowers - Cheerios is giving away wildflower seeds for you to scatter and grow. They've already given away 80 million seeds and are nearing their 100 million seed goal. So, get yours now! Or, go to your local nursery and buy some that you know will grow locally.
Contact your city, county, or local Dept. of Natural Resources to identify a good spot for scouts to scatter the seeds. Plan to visit the location later in the summer to see what has grown, and maybe collect seeds in late summer to be sewn in other locations this fall.

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Looking for some service conservation projects for 2017?
There are TONS of opportunities for volunteers to help out, from computer data entry to banding woodcock chicks - whatever your ability or interest.
Here's a few from MN DNR:

• Eagle Project? Field desks for kids to use in outdoor classrooms.
• Pull wild parsnip.
• Count loon populations.
• Trail Monitor - remember hall monitors in grade school?
• Scientific and Natural Area volunteer - collect seeds, plan seedlings, remove invasives, and more.
• Eagle Project? Make Tree Cookies.
• Monitor lake levels.

See MN DNR Volunteer Ops for these and more ideas.

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