Preserve your Eagle Scout journey electronically

MyNESA

Ever since the Eagle Scout Award was first presented in 1912, families have been creating Eagle Scout scrapbooks to make these precious boyhood memories last.

Well, it’s time to take that nearly century-old process into the next 100 years of Scouting. That’s the idea behind myNESA.org, a new Web site that turns a static scrapbook into an interactive tribute to a boy’s journey toward Eagle. It’s the perfect chance to commemorate the journey taken by your soon-to-be Eagle Scout son. Or use it as an opportunity to immortalize the Boy Scout memories you created decades ago.

Like shadowboxes often seen at Eagle Scout ceremonies, these online showcases tell the Scouting story: the exciting process from the Scout rank to the Eagle Scout Award, including all of the merit badges, photos, and other memories picked up along the way.

But unlike those physical shadowboxes, the creations on myNESA.org can be shared with anyone around the world, thanks to technology from SplashFX. That means Aunt Kathie in South Dakota can view the same Scouting story seen by Uncle Ned in Miami.

Interested? Here’s how to get started:

  1. Create an account on myNESA.org. It’ll cost you $14.95 a year if you’re a NESA member and $19.95 a year if you aren’t.
  2. Edit your biography. Here’s where you tell people your name, rank, years in Scouting, council, and troop number. You can also upload a current photo so grandma will recognize you.
  3. Generate a timeline. Your time spent in Scouting had some important milestones along the way to Eagle. myNESA.org lets you add these stories, memories, and other events to a chronological look at your time in Scouting.
  4. Include some photos. A compelling narrative is great, but photos can take showcase visitors back in time to when you were a Boy Scout. Upload photos, add captions, and organize the images however you want.
  5. Show off your achievements. While becoming an Eagle Scout, you earned merit badges (at least 21) and other knots, patches, and medals. The online shadowbox will display the images of these awards, and visitors can click on each one to read a description of how you earned it. The site even allows you to arrange the awards in any order you choose.
  6. Publicize the site to friends and family. You’ve done all that work, but your loved ones won’t know about it until you tell them. Sure, they can search for you by name on the site, but why not share your memories with them by using the built-in invitation feature?
  7. Feel the love. Once your showcase is active, the ScoutGram feature lets viewers to your page add their own comments and congratulations. It’s an electronic pat on the back for a job well done.

That’s it. Pull that box marked “Boy Scout awards and photos” out of the attic and head to myNESA.org to preserve those memories for future generations.


About Bryan Wendell 3282 Articles
Bryan Wendell, an Eagle Scout, is the founder of Bryan on Scouting and a contributing writer.