Scout Patch Collectors

Tuesday Scouting Hot Finds Newsletter January 8, 2019

85 Scouting History Data Crunching With Mike Clinch

This morning I published episode #85 of my Scouting Hot Find Radio podcast. Some of you may not be familiar with my guest Mike Clinch but we will all come to appreciate his effort to document and publish Scouting history of councils, lodges and camps.

I became a fan of his work after a post on Facebook led me to purchase his two volume set of books titled Order of the Arrow: BSA Council, Lodge and Area/Section Merger Histories, 2nd Ed. As a geographer he brought a new way of looking at the complicated topic of mergers that made it visually readable. The good news he is expanding on this project that will benefit our hobby in several ways.

Imagine being able to pull up a graphic that in full color has a timeline of the merger history of any council that includes OA lodge, OA section and camps! A graphic that shows when (to the best that we know) when the camps started, stopped etc including segregated Scout camps. What if you could print out a PDF for your area that unlocks all this history and opens possibilities for new collecting paths.

The online piece is in the thinking out loud phase but the groundwork for that is being laid down. The amount of time it will take to put this together is unbelievable but Mike is one of those people in this hobby that is going this because he loves it and sees the value in preserving Scouting history and sharing it with the community.

I am going to go old school on the latest consignment collection I’m working on. In anticipation of the upcoming South Carolina TOR I’m working hard to sort and scan this collection so I can publish it in a catalog style document. At a TOR it’s so hard to get people to really sit down and go through your boxes so I’m going to throw a wider net just a day or two before the show. (if I can finish it!)

Thursday night starts the first round of promotions for the Charlotte TOR. I’m headed to my local round table meeting for the district that includes the host church. I’ve decided that giving away a Scout mug to every person there would be a great way to promote the show. Remember that collection that came in before Christmas that featured 700 Scout mugs? For the next 3 months I’ll attempt to visit the round tables in each district and “recycle” these mugs into Scouting while telling people about the event.

CLICK HERE TO OPEN THE JANUARY 8, 2018 ISSUE OF THE SCOUTING HOT FINDS NEWSLETTER