It was great seeing how the event had grown. There were some great collections on display and the walk-in traffic was steady. I was impressed to see all the regional walk-in traffic that showed up through out the day. I didn’t see much local stuff (Four Lakes, Tichora, Glacier’s Edge) but there was a lot of regional items and some big collections on display and for sale.

I enjoyed explaining and showing all of the Glacier’s Edge CSPs that had been issued. Most were surprised that we have issued that many CSPs already (we are only up to 17). I was also able to help some friends fill a few of their Ed Bryant Scout Reservation needs.

We were able to attract a fair number of youth to the event. I had 9 Scouts earn Collections merit badge and more just showed up to browse the tables. Its always great seeing the youth get excited at these events.
Here are a few of the highlights that were posted on Patch-L by Kurt, the event’s main organizer:

* The Wisconsin state collection from the John Conley Williams collection sold and is being broken apart.

* There were also a number of experts in the room with book authors, ISCA Journal contributors, and Blue Book editors present. I was truly amazed by the crowd we attracted to our trade-o-ree.

* There were some great displays: Tony Lazewski – diamond hat patches, Dave Pede – Leekwinai 157, Bruce Richardson – design collections, and Jeff Gruenke – Wisconsin community strips.

* Twenty-seven collectors rented over 60 tables.

Kurt, his organizing committee, and Troop 144 did a great job! (The Troop did all the set up and tear down and were the main beneficiary- they also provided some great chicken and steak sandwiches for lunch) I’m hoping I’m stateside and can attend this great event next year. If I do attend next year hopefully I’ll remember to bring my camera!

Mark your calendars:

Midwest Tradefest
March 28, 2009
Madison, Wisconsin

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!