Arrow of Light and Crossover
Alan Houser (troop24@EMF.NET)
Sat, 23 Jan 1999 13:08:55 -0800
Most of the Webelos I have met cannot wait to become Boy Scouts, if they
have been exposed to good quality troop programs during their second year.
In fact, the last Webelos Den I led, I had to promise that they would bridge
early (February) into troops or they wouldn't even do the second "year."
A few were already 11 years old, so they didn't need the Arrow of Light to
join Boy Scouts, but most needed that AoL to join before finishing the fifth
grade. Unlike previous years, when maybe a third of the Webelos Scouts would
join troops, we had all twelve Webelos from two dens join troops.
At the risk of going out on a limb, I would suggest that those packs that
keep their second-year Webelos dens until late in the school year don't
have a well-defined plan for bridging into troops. If a Webelos Scout
has been visiting troops since September and going on hikes and campouts
with Boy Scouts all year, he will want to get into a troop as soon as he
possibly can, and that means earning his Arrow of Light as his ticket to
the big leagues.
One year, we had recruited a den from a pack that we hadn't approached in
the past. It was clear that 7 of the nine Webelos Scouts wanted to join
Troop 24, but the parents held back, saying they (the boys) wanted to
finish off a few more activity pins and enjoy the last couple of months
of being top dogs in the pack. In fact, the boys met with the troop every
week, learned the same skills as the other New Scouts, competed at
Camporee as a Webelos Den instead of as a Boy Scout patrol, but couldn't
work on Boy Scout advancement until they formally bridged in May. And
no, they never earned another Webelos pin. But they made great Scouts.
All seven earned First Class within 18 months. We still have four of the
seven 6 years later: one Eagle, two finishing their projects, and the
fourth is looking for a project.
On the other hand, I have seen Webelos dens that do nothing but work on
activity pins until April or May, discover they need to do an outing with
a troop, manage to find that Scoutmaster's phone number they got in September
to find an outing they can join, then graduate in May or June, with only 1
or 2 Webelos Scouts actually bridging to a troop. Unlike the other den,
which bridged 8 Scouts into troops at the Blue & Gold banquet back in
February.
The problem is that the Webelos and Pack leadership didn't know any better,
because the training programs (if they even took the training) don't address
the need to spend the second "year" of Webelos getting ready to join troops.
YiS,
Alan R. Houser ** troop24@emf.net
** Scoutmaster, Troop 24, Berkeley, California **
** WWW page ** http://www.emf.net/~troop24/t24.html **
