Scouting Podcast/Radio Show

As per feedback from Twitter, it looks like we've got lots of demand for a Scouting Podcast/Radio show, so a few thoughts for comment / next steps, it's just brainstorming at this time.

1) Do you want a weekly/monthly/same order as Scouting Life
2) Mass call in show, or more of a focus on skills/techniques (A scouters 5)
3) Would you want to be a guest?

For those of us who weren't at the summit, could you give us an idea of what the show was all about? Would this be targeted at Scouters, or to the general public?

I wasn't at the summit either, so this is pretty much what I got off of a lot of BBM's....

Scouting Today was a q&a style radio "show" of sorts which covered a pretty wide range of topics, from techniques for running a meeting more effectively to group management
http://scouts.ca/scnls11/pres/Panel%20Presentation.pdf was the slide deck.

As for the ongoing show, I think mostly for the internal audience, at least to start. I don't see quite as much demand from the general public for a lot of the Scouting specific content we would cover.

To clarify the "Scouting Today" portion of the National Summit, it was eight members, each with different roles in the organization, getting a chance to talk about successes and answer questions. Steve Kent and Andrew Price were also present on the stage, playing the roles of interviewers.

We had a council executive director, council commissioner, council youth commissioner, and DCC in the first four, and a group commissioner, area commissioner, council field executive and troop scouter in the second batch. Each were given a question or two, then an opportunity from the crowd to ask questions. Video should be up soon enough.

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Now, back to the meat of this discussion. Looking at other hobbies and passions, I have been struck that there hasn't been some sort of grass roots podcast community already built. Almost every other aspect of life has one, and successful at that. Perhaps we are just too busy doing stuff.

Interviews, call in questions, what's upcoming, discussion of issues, tips and tricks, program ideas, or even covering major events could easily slip in and out of the regular scheduled podcasts as needed. Could scale up to a weekly podcast, at the 15-20 min mark with a small group of dedicated members doing features or bi-weekly / monthly longer form chat show style.

This is an idea that I have thrown around with a few people over the years; it has merit and should be pursued.

We've actually had Venturers at each of the HEROES programs that we've run build and produce their own videos with the hope of getting them on YouTube. Hours and hours go into producing <5minutes and we have never successfully got them online.

Now, if there was a small group of individuals with the skills and tech to make it "easy enough" to produce above-mediocre media and the vision to start infecting people with their vision then it would fly. A Rover crew would be a great place to start.

Good quality vidios do take a long time to make. Media studies was one of my favorite classes. We spent the entier semester making a 10 minute film in small groups. I would be happy to share my skills via email or video chat.

Arranging to edit and publish the videos/audio clips is the easy part. Comming up with good content at a regular interval is the challenge.

I think that you are right that it would be best done by a series of small local groups. If we get four groups each group can have a month to plan and edit their clip giving us a weekly show.

John what has prevented you from getting them online? Send me an email if you need help.

Another option would be to do it Skype style - a few of the bigger podcasts run in this manner, a weekly "panel" or so of hosts who go over the weeks news and some commentary. Interlaced with some info segments which can be edited in and I think we might have a winner.

Andrew could you please elaborate on what you mean by Skype style. I could guess at what you meant but I would prefer to know for sure. Perhaps include a few example links.

A show such as This Week in Tech - http://twit.tv/ in short everyone gets on skype, someone hits record and it's done talk show style via the giant conference call. It can sometimes have quality issues but on the whole seems to do fairly well.