Re: Blue and Gold Continued
Jim Peterson (jpeterson@TZNET.COM)
Tue, 7 Sep 1999 18:07:48 -0400
-----Original Message-----
James E. Zotta asked about the purpose of the Blue and Gold banquet.
He said that his unit,
>My pack uses the Blue and Gold dinner to graduate 2nd year Webelos
and the
>Tiger Cubs..
The real purpose of the B&G is to celebrate the anniversary of Cub
Scouting. That is why most units hold their B&G banquets in February,
to coincide with Scout Sunday and the anniversary of the founding of
the BSA (February 7 I think, but don't quote me).
Here is how we did it when I was Cubmaster. (I know that some of you
won't like this, but it worked for us.) We held the B&G in February,
instead of the usual Pack meeting. We had a "modified pot luck" dinner
... meats supplied by the Pack, each family brought a side dish or
desert to pass. My wife and I always contributed a cake, decorated
with "Happy Birthday Cub Scouts!" and appropriate decorations. Our
read on the B&G was that it should be a big birthday party. Before
dinner we had the local Boy Scout Troop run games for the Cubs and
siblings. After dinner we had a guest speaker who usually delivered a
two-pronged speech, aimed at both the boys, to keep them motivated and
the parents, to get more of them interested in volunteering. It always
stressed FUN! Following the speaker would be my turn to thank all of
the adult leaders who helped keep our Pack running. I thanked each one
with a small gift, hand-crafted by myself. These seemed to be better
recieved than plaques and such that the previous CM handed out.
Because the boys are what our Pack was really about, I had the boys
help me present these gifts to their leaders. At the end of the
evening there were more games for the boys.
Now here's the part some of you won't like ... we didn't present
any awards to the boys at our B&G, with the exception of the Arrow of
Light Award. Our reason for this was two-fold 1) To draw special
attention to the AOL and 2) To highlight the importance of the adult
volunteers, who get far too little thanks for all they do.
Before you start flaming, we did not hold back awards earned that
month, we just didn't present them at the B&G. Any awards earned
between the January Pack meeting and the B&G were presented at a den
meeting, then the Cub was recognized for their accomplishment at the
March Pack meeting. In my four years as CM this never caused a
problem.
We always did a seperate graduation ceremony for the Webelos
moving on to Scouts, usually in May, but we've moved that up to March
now. We also did a graduation ceremony for all the Cubs, including
Tigers, in May (at the end of the school year).
YiS,
____________________________________________________
Jim Peterson Assistant Scoutmaster, Troop 379, Blenker, WI
reply to jpeterson@tznet.com
I used to be a "Singing" Eagle - C-8l-97
***********Character***********Fitness***********Citizenship**********
