CSP Corner Blog

I know things have been slow around here, unfortunately my time has become super limited with my new job. I’m planning on setting a side a small chunk of time each day to work on the to do list. Hopefully it will start to show.

Anyways, I wanted to wish everyone who celebrates it a Happy Easter. I went searching for an “Easter” themed CSP, and at first I thought I was going to have to settle for the Killer Rabbit Patrol Patch. Yes, this was the first patch I thought of when I thought “Easter.” The second patch I thought of was actually the 2006 NOAC Set issued by Ku-Ni-Eh Lodge #145, if you haven’t seen it just picture pedro stomping on the energizer bunny. I know these aren’t CSPs, so I kept looking…

I was just about to give up when I ran across this CSP while browsing ebay:

According to the auction it’s the SA21 from Buckeye Council. Right now its at $15.51. I’m declaring it the most Easter themed CSP. Do you know of any CSP that screams Easter more than the above nice fluffy bunny?

We are getting into the final stretch leading up to the Midwest Tradefest. I’m getting pretty excited!

For those that don’t know about it, the Midwest Tradefest is a Boy Scout Patch Trade O Ree held in Madison, Wisconsin. This year it is on Saturday, March 29, 2008 at Immaculate Heart of Mary School. The hours are 9am - 3pm. Admission is free, we do ask that you wear your Boy Scout Uniform. Snacks and lunch will be available for purchase.

This year we are also offering Collections Merit Badge from 10am - 12pm. It was being published as being taught by a former dynamic camp staffer, but its really just me. It should be a good time, I actually committed to teaching the badge without looking at the requirements in detail. It could be interesting depending on the variety of collections that show up but I should be able to pull it off. I’m pretty good at researching this kind of stuff, plus I’ll have my laptop and internet card ready to go just in case. So far I’ve heard of 4 Scouts that will be there, and that is without requesting that they register.

I still have a lot of work to do before Saturday:

- Finish the Collections Merit Badge Presentation

- Find a way to display my Glacier’s Edge CSP collection. Right now its in two boxware cases but I want something I can put on an easel and get eye level. Since this is a fairly new Council I want to make sure folks are educated on all the issues, and I have the most complete collection. I’m missing one CSP from the Council, hopefully I will be able to find it at this event! It slipped through my hands once, but not again!

- Lookup prices for all the OA flaps I want to liquidate. I have a large number of flaps that I want to convert to CSPs or cash, since I’m not collecting random Flaps anymore. I plan on trading them here, then I’ll put whats left on eBay.

- Label the patches in my Four Lakecs CSP collection. This is also one of the more complete collections of Four Lakes Council issues. I want to try and make sure that I am displaying them in the correct chronological order. In order to facilitate this, I need to make it easy for people to fill in missing dates on some of the issues. I can’t just use the CSP Guide since they don’t list all issues, and some are listed in the wrong order for sure.

- Make up some business cards. Have to be able to exchange contact information easily.

- Go through my Ed Bryant Scout Reservation, Camp Castle Rock, and Camp Tichora collections and determine the needs I should be looking for.

I know I won’t get it all done, but hopefully I get most of them done.

I really enjoy this TOR along with the Milwaukee TOR since my collection has become very localized.

If you are in the area, you should check it out!

I just saw what I believe is the first JSP issued for the 2010 National Jamboree.

The disturbing thing is its been around since 2007! I’ve heard two different stories about this Connecticut Rivers Council JSP, the first being it was to promote the National Jamboree, the second being it was used to raise funds for the National Jamboree. I’m leaning towards the promotion story, anyone know for sure?

Either way I have now set up automatic searches to keep tabs on any 2010 National Jamboree Shoulder Patches that hit eBay or appear in Google searches. Our goal is to compile a list of all 2010 National Jamboree Shoulder Patches (JSPs) as a reference for the hobby. If you know of a 2010 JSP that has been issued that is not on our list please let us know and if possible include a original full size scan.

I was able to make some progress with the database and code today. The main page now features the latest blog posts and displays a random patch from the database. I have to get better scans up for Glacier’s Edge Council. There are still some problems in displaying the Council name and other weird quirks that I have to work out. My programming skills are coming coming back slowly but surely as I work on this stuff.

Classification System
I still need to come up with a solution for what I am going to use for the issue numbers. The majority of folks that I have talked to want me to use the “industry standard.” I have two concerns about using the classification scheme that is used in “An Aid to Collecting Selected Council Shoulder Patches, with Valuation Guide.” The first being, possible copyright issues. While I am not going to use the guide to populate my database, I’m sure by using the same classification system I am opening the doors to potential legal issues. The second being, I have never liked the fact that they don’t include all shoulder patches (ie. JSP, RWS, etc.)

At the same time I understand having two classification systems will cause confusion. I also can’t get a group to agree on a potential scheme. Everytime I think I have something that would work, I find a show stopping problem or someone else finds a problem. Its a lot harder than I would have imagined.

Backend (Database Technical Stuff)
Once I get the front end somewhat functionable I have to target the back end to make adding issues to the database easier. Right now I enter every piece of data by hand to the database, which isn’t very friendly. I also have to finalize the structure of the membership system to allow for the “council experts” to be able to edit and approve submissions. I think this is the real key to making this project feasible and scalable.

Price Guide
I’ve started to look at possible solutions to collecting price information. I’ve looked at the program that I believe OAImages.com uses, but I didn’t find it very user friendly. I want to discuss this with John, if he is willing, but with his technical issues I decided I would wait a little bit. I also need to decide how I wish to handle user submitted price data, I want to include private sales but at the same time I don’t want them artificially inflating the “values”.

Marketplace
I’ve done nothing with the market place. This is a feature that I will probably remove until I build up a user base and have the database populated.

I think I would have got more accomplished today, but my power went out. Not too fun when its 6 degrees outside…

John over at http://www.oaimages.com is having some technical issues with his server that has taken his site, The Internet Guide to Order of the Arrow Insignia, off line for the time being.

There is a status page available at http://www.oaimages.com for those who wish to stay up to date on the progress of the site. The last update was posted on 2/19/2008 at 7pm: “File uploads are in progress. This will continue well into tomorrow, or longer. Right now there’s not much to see, but you can track my progress at http://12.47.45.91.”

When we heard of John’s difficulties on Patch-L, we offered him use of some server space to host his update page, but he was able to place it on his home server. We wish him the best of luck, as technical issues are never fun.

UPDATE:  The OAImages Blog is back up and John is uploading all the site files.  The normal domain is now featuring a status page.