Council Shoulder Patches for Chase

April 6, 2009 at 12:55 pm | In Uncategorized | 2 Comments
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This is NOT an urban legend. I personally (Dan Gross a.k.a. Vdub144) am organizing this for a friend and fellow Scout in need. I’m happy to vouch for the validity of this project personally. What’s more, I am back here begging because we really NEED YOUR HELP!

Here’s the story:

In late March 2009, 13 year old Tenderfoot Scout, Chase, from Georgia was hiking with his troop. He came home with a sore lump on his leg that everyone thought was some type of bite. It was hot to the touch and painful. A blood test revealed that Chase had Leukemia, a complete surprise diagnosis. He was immediately admitted to the hospital where doctors cleaned his blood to lower his white cell count and then began chemotherapy.

What bummed Chase out most was that he would miss Scouts with his troop over the summer. We’ve all been sick before, and one of the best ways to get better that I know of is to help keep spirits up and keep a positive attitude.

Thanks to social networking sites like Twitter and Plurk, I thought a great way to show support for Chase was to help start a Council Shoulder Patch collection from all around the country. CSP’s are inexpensive, colorful, and represent how far and wide support for Chase’s recovery comes from.

Chase has a twin brother, William, so we are asking for everyone who wishes to participate to send two CSPs from a council near them. To avoid duplication, we set up a spreadsheet on Google Docs so you can see what has been promised, and what Chase has received already. Please send all donations to Chase’s mom at her school (work) address:

Caroline O’Bannon, c/o Barrow Schools, 179 West Athens St., Winder, GA 30680.

You don’t have to be a Boy Scout to participate. This is something that a 13 year old boy is interested in, and therefore a great place to start. Just about any little small personal care item or a positive note can be sent to Chase to show him that you are thinking about him and wish him well. Scouts love patches – maybe a museum patch, a patch from the college or university you work for or attend, or some geocaching swag might be more your style? He has been extremely impressed so far in how well connected his mom is “in all the right ways.”

Here’s what I’m asking for…

I want to get TWO BSA Council Shoulder Patches from every council across the US sent to Chase. (The second for his twin brother William.) There are several hundred councils across the US, and many councils have more than one design for a CSP, so there is a LOT of chance to participate. Patches are pretty inexpensive – about $3-$5 each, and are available are nearby Scout shops, sporting goods stores, neighborhood hardware stores, and online from BSA Supply. Total investment might be in the $6-10 range, plus a little bit of your time. If a couple of people work in the same office and are willing to send a package, it might only cost each person a buck or two to send from the group. Again, any other personal little pick-me-up for Chase would be a great addition to the envelope as well if you are willing.

Please take a look at the following Google Docs spreadsheet. It will let you know who has already committed to send a patch, and from where. We don’t need to duplicate efforts, so if your local patch is already taken, maybe you can send a patch from another nearby council?

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=p69S8eaBr9-aUavWSz5jieQ&hl=en

If you’re not sure what council you live in, a quick trip to http://www.Wikipedia.com and type in “scouting  <your state>”  will bring up an article letting you know what councils are near you.

Then you can visit a Scout shop, or talk to a nearby Boy Scout or Cub Scout unit near you to find out where you can get patches to send to Chase. If you want to buy them online and send them, you can do that at the BSA supply site:

http://www.scoutstuff.org/BSASupply/default.aspx?cat=01RTL&ctgy=PRODUCTS&C2=UNIFORMS&C3=CSHPATCH&C4=&LV=3

(I have noticed that the prices on the BSA supply site are pretty in line or even a bit less than what some of the local councils are charging these days!)

Don’t forget to go back to the spreadsheet again and mark off that you have sent the patches.

Please forward this message on and let everyone know. I don’t want to keep bugging everyone, but this project is really important to me as I do my own “good turn.” I hope you can help out and brighten the day of this young man as he makes this very serious fight.

Yours in Scouting,

Daniel Gross

Maturation – blogging about Twitter?

May 1, 2008 at 10:45 am | In Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
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Yesterday my friend Stuart posted a fine note about Twitter: http://manintheblackcoat.blogspot.com/2008/04/5-essential-twitter-truths.html

I started using Twitter a few weeks after Stu did. So, you could say that he’s a bit more experienced than I ~ but I think when the sum of our experience still totals less than a year, maybe we’re both still attracted by the pretty packaging. But I think his post shows a certain maturation of social networking and our understanding of how to use it to make our lives better.

What do I mean? Watch the common mistakes of folks new to the media – they follow hundreds, perhaps thousands of people. There are people talking about “Twitter Etiquette” which includes following those who follow you. A recent “experiment” called Osen recently found that 17% of people who know nothing about you will follow-you-back.

There already is a public timeline, and I’m not sure if somehow there is some sense of self worth that people are finding by following thousands of others while replicating that timeline. Of course the advantage is that you can then spam a short message out to those foolish enough to follow you. It’s a PR wet dream of sorts.

I read a piece the other day calling it “permission based stalking.” Too funny!

But maturation of the users of the technology includes redefining a new social etiquette around its use. One popular education web2.0 star recently got in some trouble for this:
http://dossthoughts.blogspot.com/2008/04/special-twitter-message.html

I don’t want to get to the gravel of casting stones with any of the people involved, but it does certainly raise an interesting point: yesterday @WillRich45 raised this point in a uStream session by asking if your network exists solely to agree with you, or to provide thoughtful discourse to your thoughts and ideas.

There are people who will never follow me. Never read a thing I blog or write. And I’m not sure if I should care. Yeah, maybe it bothers me a little bit when I know there is someone who “has the answer” but won’t talk to me, but it doesn’t bother me that much ~ because the shoe has been on the other foot before. Today, I follow a nice mix of people that I feel I can trust, that interest me, and are usually pretty willing to respond back to me. I make liberal use of the BLOCK button to keep spam bots from following me, although I let some of the more innocuous mega-followers join in the fun.

Ego takes a back seat so that I can take the time I need to during each waking day to get a good sense of 70% or so of what has been said through my personal learning network. Eventually, that may result in a tenfold number of followers to those I follow. (But its certainly not that way now.) By adding just a few new and creative people every few days, my network is growing with my skill level, helping me to be more effective, have more fun, and stimulating my mind.

Would I want to throw that all away for flash in the pan status by having lots of followers I’m not personal with?

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