Apparently my wife met a neighbor out walking who noticed that she had a Philmont lanyard holding her house key. He explained that he went in the late 1960s. She threw me under the bus and explained that her husband had never been to Philmont and got a laugh out of the gentlemen. One day I'll make the journey out west!
Vintage Scouting Memorabilia On eBay
My Facebook feed has been blowing up with news about camps being closed. On one of the Girl Scout groups there is a thread that suggests that since 2005 the GSofUSA has had a corporate plan to divest camp properties. Then in the last day or so news broke that the Chief Logan Reservation in Ohio might be on the chopping block too.
In the Carolinas there are some really strong camps that are well supported by their councils. But still there aren't enough campers and dollars to go around. So every summer we try and recruit troops from every corner to keep our numbers up which inevitably means another camp is on the loosing side.
Folks in southern Ohio are organizing and getting alumni activated in order to push a delay to any decision to sell the camp. I wish them all the best. Many of you have seen your boyhood camps closed due to all the mergers through the history of the program and I know it must be painful. To me a Scout camp is the heart of the Council.
In lighter news over on my eBay account I'm finishing the auctions on a trail patch collection and starting a run of camp neckerchiefs. Meanwhile, on Patchsniper tonight is the first wave of auctions ending on an OA neckerchief collection. I've already paid for an anchor subscription for OApatch and the march to 10k listings goes on with 548 live OA flaps up for bids.
This weekend I'll take my first step towards that eventual Philmont trip. I'm going back packing with my daughter's troop for the first time in my life. My troop growing up was a car camping troop (unload the trailer and break out the gear). So this trip the Scouts will cover about 9 miles over three days. That shouldn't be too hard for this old rookie.
Keep Calm And Scout On,
Jason Spangler Hot Finds Newsletter
In Charlotte, North Carolina I have an antique mall booth that is filled with nothing but Scouting stuff. I call this location my clearance center because I've marked down everything to move. A lot of what you will find there are items that are too bulky to easily ship from an Internet store. The booth is located in The Sleepy Poet which is a well established antique mall on South Blvd in Charlotte. The mall is open 7-days/week year round. So the next time you are in the area come check it out.
