Training course books and materials

[BEAVALO]

Is there any purpose in keeping old cub and boy scout training materials - books and handouts etc.

 

 There is everything from Wood Badge on down.  Including old cubsout and boyscout basic leader training. I see various books for commissions, committee members, Webelos and even original Tiger Cub leader.

  You the idea there is close 100 years of combined collections.  If no need for them - off they go to recycling as we need the space.

 

Can anyone help?  I will give lists on request and will send for the cost of shipping.

 

 

[Eagle94-A1]

Some materials are irreplaceable in that the materials today do not hold a candle to the old stuff. When I did ITOLS a few years back, I handed out additional info from older materials.  PM me if you want to get rid of it. I may have a home.

[TAHAWK]

There are a number of Boy Scout museums that would love to go through your papers to see if they would add to their collections. Training materials are especially useful in tracing BSA policy on various topics.  I am in NE Ohio and there are four Scout museums within an hour of where I am sitting, each operated by volunteers who elect to work, at least in part, on the district or council level to preserve the history of Scouting.

[BEAVALO]

Any materials museum worthy have already been donated.

  These are course syllabuses from the 80's and 90's.

   There is a Boy Scout round table program guide that has a lot of hand outs.

[TAHAWK]

So they are decades old.  Might still be of interest.

[Ankylus]

Sam Houston Area Council actually has the seed of a scouting history museum. You might reach out to them to see if they are interested. Their website is shac.org.

 

Alternatively, national might be interested in them for an archive of some sort.

[TAHAWK]

National historically (!) has little interest in the history of Scouting.  Remember the huge celebration of the centennial of Bill Hillcourt's birth in 200?  0___0    (I don't either.)

 

Much of what BSA does publish is not accurate.

 

The patrol system is not one method in which Scouting for boys can be carried on. It is the only method."

—Lord Baden-Powell, Scouting's founder

 

 

Nope. R.H. Philipps, The Patrol System, 1917

 

 

It's the story of the Unknown Scout who guided Chicago publisher William D. Boyce through a pea-soup fog in 1909 in London—and that led him to the office of Robert S.S. Baden-Powell, the founder of Scouting. There Boyce picked up a trunkload of literature about the young movement for British boys, leading him to incorporate the Boy Scouts of America on Feb. 8, 1910, soon after returning to the United States.

 

Boyce never recounted that tale, and it was clear in London that day.

 

And the Wood Badge beads story - oh my!

 

The volunteers at Sam Houston would probably love old Scouting papers.

 

Our council had records going back to before BSA arrived in the area (Scouting predated BSA's arrival here by four years.), but council's staff threw them away a few years ago to make space in the file cabinets before the museum committee even know there was a risk.   We would have happily purchased more file cabinets or paid for off-site storage.  Irreplaceable loss.   

[fred johnson]

I've purged and purged recently.  I still have a shelf of most of the versions of the boy scout handbook and most of the scoutmaster handbook.  

 

I tried to donate 1950s and 1960s Boy's Life magazines to the local Boy Scout museum.  I was told there are so many out there that I should not feel guilty in the slightest.  I was told the best thing is toss in paper recycling garbage.  

 

Beyond that though, I've tossed most of the materials I have.  They get dated.  A few I keep as I found them extremely useful or use templates from them.  But if I teach a course, I'm going to download the syllabus if I can.  Purchase if I can't find online.  

 

Beyond that, the only reason to keep the old stuff is nostalgia.  

[beavalo2]

Thanks for all the comments.

Looks like we were not the only ones that let Scouting over run their house and now needs the space back.  Will never lose my love of the program but am not so involved anymore and no "young ones" in the area wanting to learn the old ways.