Scouts Praised for Response After Tornado Hits Iowa camp

Some of you may not have heard about the tornado which hit a Scout camp in Iowa.  This article, mentions that a week-long JLTC (TLD) being conducted in the camp with 93 Scouts and 25 staff.  There were 4 fatalities.

The camp, Little Sioux Scout Ranch is part of the Mid-America Council.

BLENCOE, Iowa - Boy Scouts who came to each others’ aid after a tornado that killed four of their comrades and injured 48 people were hailed as heroes Thursday for helping to administer first aid and search for victims buried in their flattened campsite.

The scouts were prepared and used their training to help there fellows.

“Last night, the agencies and the scouts were prepared,” he said. “They knew what to do, they knew where to go, and they prepared well.”

Iowa Gov. Chet Culver praised the boys for “taking care of each other.”

This was a quote from one of the 13 year-old Scouts

Ethan Hession, also 13, said he crawled under a table with his friend.

“I just remember looking over at my friend, and all of a sudden he just says to me, `Dear God, save us,’” he told “Today.” “Then I just closed my eyes and all of a sudden it’s (the tornado) gone.”

Ethan said the scouts’ first-aid training immediately compelled them to act.

“We knew that we need to place tourniquets on wounds that were bleeding too much. We knew we need to apply pressure and gauze. We had first-aid kits, we had everything,” he said.

Ethan said one staff member took off his shirt and put it on someone who was bleeding to apply pressure and gauze. Other scouts started digging people out of the rubble, he said.

Keep the Scouts and their families in your thoughts and prayers.

Ho-Nan-Ne-Ho-Ont Lodge #165 35th Anniversary F7

JW sends along information about a new flap issue from Ho-Nan-Ne-Ho-Ont Lodge #165 for their 35th Anniversary.

The Blue Book stats on this one should be:
F7 YEL R BLK RED YEL FDL; YEL WWW, WHT 35th Anniversary ‘73-’08 TRS

Western New York Traders Association 27th Anniversary Trade-O-Ree & Auction

When: September 19-20, 2008

Friday 5pm until ?

Saturday 9am til 5pm -

AUCTION Saturday 1:30pm

Where: NORTH Forest Presbyterian Church, 300 North Forest Road, Williamsville, NY 14221

All Proceeds to Benefit Greater Niagara Frontier Council B.S.A. Scout Camperships & B.SA. Council Museum Fund.

Food, Beverages & Snacks Will Be Available

You can find a flyer with more details here.

Thanks to Don Izard for providing the information.  this is a regular TOR for me, hope to see many of you there.

Want to learn more about Scouting around the world? A source I never considered was Wikipedia. Wikipedia describes itself as”

Wikipedia (pronunciation ) is a free,^[4] multilingual, open content encyclopedia project operated by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its name is a blend of the words wiki (a technology for creating collaborative websites) and encyclopedia. Launched in January 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger,^[5] it is the largest, fastest-growing and most popular general reference work currently available on the Internet.

One of the resources available on Wikipedia is the Scouting Portal . The Scouting Portal contains links to Scouting News, Scouting by Country, Scouting Lists, Biographies and much more.

Take some time and check it out.

In an earlier post about becoming a patch dealer I linked to a column by the owner of Mile High Comics.  Further along in his series about opening up a retail shop is some of the philosophical reasons to become a comics retailer, which I think, can also be applied to our hobby of Patch Collecting.

Another very positive task you will be taking on if you decide to become a comics retailer is safeguarding the future of comics as an institution. We are both blessed and cursed at this moment in the history of comics. Our blessing is that the comics being produced today are among the best ever created in the entire history of the medium. Never have we had so much wonderful talent producing comics of all kinds. This truly is a era which supersedes even the Golden Age in terms of brilliance.

Our curse today is that print runs have fallen so low that there is significant risk that the entire business and culture of comics may lose critical mass, and implode. At this very moment there are perhaps 1,000 dedicated comics retailers who are holding back the forces of the apocalypse.

What are you doing to hold back the forces of the Apocalypse?

In comics it is the demise of the independent comic retailer, the graying of the comic reading audience and the reduced print runs which could spell the end of the comic book.  A graying fan base and the failure to bring in new younger readers, sound familiar?   

If you have looked around the room at any number of recent trade-o-rees, you see too many gray beards and not enough youth.  While it seems that many of the youth who attend NOAC’s and National Jamborees get bitten by the patch bug, for too many,  it is a one-time occurrence.

What can you do to promote collecting amongst today’s Scouts?

• Provide patch displays at parents nights and other troop level, district and council level events.
• Become a counselor for Collecting Merit Badge - include displays at merit badge fairs
• Provide venues to encourage trading at summer camp.
• Visit local Scout Museums as part of the troop program.
• Use memorabilia to explain and illustrate the history of scouting in your troop and local camps.
• Provide a trading venue at OA Lodge and Section events.
• Host, sponsor or help staff a Trade-O-Ree.
• Educate the scouts you come in contact with about the patches they have or seek to acquire.

Perhaps most important, bring Scouts with you to events where trading will occur.

What else can you do to hold back the forces of the apocalypse?