Our End of the Summer Giveaway is over.  Thank you for all the entries!  We had 110 entries for three prizes.

The prizes were:

• One $15 Amazon.com Gift Card. This will be delivered as an electronic gift code.
• Boy Scouts of America’s Deck of Knots. (See product on Amazon)
• Coleman WideBeam 2AA Flashlight (See product on Amazon)

The winners are:

• Amazon Gift Card – Rosie (entry #54)
• BSA Deck of Knots – Doug (entry #16)
• Coleman Flashlight – Henry (entry #104)

All of the winners have been contacted via email. 

Scouting News Feedback:

A big thank you to everyone that entered.  We received some great feedback on what visitors wanted to see on Scouting News:

• More features on cub scouts!
• Arts & Crafts Resources
• Scouting tips and quick lessons. Something not everyone knows but should in order to be a better scouter.
• Annual updates and pictures on the Summit
• Information about Outstanding Pack/Troop Achievements
• More Girl Scout info. I have both Boy & Girl Scouts in my home!
• More info info on Patrol Z!   (All of the Patrol Z articles are featured on the Summit’s Blog)
• More information on recruiting from other Pack’s
• Less news release type articles 
• Any inside-the-organization efforts to purge our anti-gay bigotry
• I’d like to see what scout units aredoing aorund thecountry
• Randomly spotlighted troops doing good turns.
• Something to draw high school age kids to articles of interest to them
• Turn the question thing into an online forum that you can use for publication in the Scouting magazine.  (Scouting News is not associated with Scouting Magazine.)
• If I had one thought, it would be a place to collect cool scout links of the day – DIGG like.
• How to make scouting a great opportunity for kids with hearing or seeing disabilities and how to keep parents with similar disabilities in the loop.
• More contests and giveaways.  (We will try!)
• What you have is good
• Brief biographies of famous people that were Scouts
• Maybe info about what people have done that goes above and beyond for scouting. We have someone like that in MN that I am happy to know.

Thanks for the great feedback and entries!

On February 8th, Scouting News started the 100th Anniversary contest on Scouting News, and today we announce the winners! We had 44 entries to the contest during the one week period it was open. Thanks to everyone that entered!

How we selected the winner
In order to enter this contest, you had to:
1. Follow @ScoutingNews on Twitter.
2. Tweet a special message.

On Feb 16th at 0001 CST we took the twitter names of everyone that entered and placed them in a spreadsheet, which assigned a number to each entry.  At that point we used an online random number generator to select a number; the twitter name next to that number was our 1st winner.  We then removed that twitter name from the list, and repeated the process to determine the rest of our winners.

…and the winners are:
@tamerabennett – $25 Gift Certificate to the BoyScoutStore.com
@adeason123 - a copy of Boy Scouts of America: A Centennial History by Chuck Wills
@Troop141CC =a  copy of Boy Scouts of America’s Deck of Knots
@SM_Shawn - a copy of Boy Scouts of America’s Deck of Fishing
@sdunnin - a copy of A Scout Is… by Todd Shaw
@jamesmalachyrya - a copy of The Scoutmaster Minute: Your Handbook for Inspiring Moments by Ron Wend

All winners should be receiving a Direct Message from @ScoutingNews shortly.  Please reply with the required information in order to facilitate the sending of your prizes.

Once again, a big thank you to our site sponsors and everyone that entered. We’ll be having another contest shortly, so stay tuned!

Today the Boy Scouts of America celebrates its centennial anniversary!  The program that has positively affected millions of children and young adults is 100 years old!  As everyone is aware the celebration started in 2009 and will continue throughout 2010, however Feb 8th is the actual anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America’s founding.

I can’t begin to cover all of the news stories about the 100th anniversary of the BSA, there are just too many!  I’d encourage you to spend some time reading and viewing some of the stories out there, you can find a wide selection searching Boy Scouts 100 on Google News.  You’ll find stories from http://kaaltv.com, NPR, myCentralJersey.com, Good Morning America, and more!

The celebration has been strong and shows no sign that it will lighten up any time soon.  Communities have rallied around the anniversary from companies providing free ice cream, businesses providing display space, all the way to corn mazes.

To celebrate the 100th Anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America, Scouting News is holding numerous contests throughout the month of February.  The first contest starts today and there will be six winners!

About the Prizes:
There will be six winners in this 100th Anniversary contest.

1 winner will receive a $25 Gift Certificate to the BoyScoutStore.com
1 winner will receive a copy of Boy Scouts of America: A Centennial History by Chuck Wills
1 winner will receive a copy of Boy Scouts of America’s Deck of Knots
1 winner will receive a copy of Boy Scouts of America’s Deck of Fishing
1 winner will receive a copy of A Scout Is… by Todd Shaw
1 winner will receive a copy of The Scoutmaster Minute: Your Handbook for Inspiring Moments by Ron Wendel

How do I enter?

Sorry but the contest is now over. Winners announced here: http://www.scoutingnews.org/2010/02/16/100th-winners-announced/

Contest runs from February 8, 2010 to February 15, 2010.  Six (6) winners will be selected at random from all entries received by 11:59pm CST on Feb 15th, 2010.  Prizes will be awarded in the order the winners are selected.  Winners will be contacted via Twitter DM and will be announced on Scouting News.

Additional Fine Print:

- Odds of winning depend on the number of entries.
- The tweeted message must be copied and pasted exactly as shown above.  If it is not we may not be able to find your entry.  We are not responsible for entries that are not tweeted as shown.
- Not responsible for entries with missing information. If the winner can not be reached, another entry will be selected.

Special thanks to Todd Shaw for providing A Scout is… for this contest.  Look for a review of his motivational book shortly (I’m almost done reading it!).  Also thanks to BoyScoutStore.com for sponsering Scouting News.

Good Luck and Happy 100th BSA!