eagle-pete

ChuckSt8er First of all, you said you are looking to turn over CM position in 2 years. If that is the case, I would make certain to do a couple of things... 1) Hand pick your ACM. By "hand pick" I mean make a careful choice of someone with some Cub Scout leadership experience who fits the personality of a Cub Master and who loves to work with the boys. This will likely be an individual who is already one of your pack leaders. Make a recommendation to the Committee when you have made your choice. 2) Be upfront with the individual about your intentions to have them take over f

Well, nothing's going on over in the Wood Badge forum, so I thought I'd come over here and see what's happening... WOW! 63 posts on this topic alone! Man, do we know how to beat a dead horse! Well after reading the 60 other posts after Jeffrey H's original recommendations, I still agree with the way he would handle it. Jeffrey H wrote: "The wonderful world of boys! This kid appears to have a pattern of pulling a knife and here are my suggestions: 1) His Whittlin Chip card is taken away for at least six months. He has clearly violated the whittlin chip promise.

CORRECTION: In my posts regarding the Totin' Chip and Whittling Chip awards, I used incorrect terminology. The actual terms are, in fact, Totin' Chip and Whittling Chip. The Totin' Chip award is a Boy Scout award and the Whittling Chip is a Cub Scout award. Sorry for any confusion. Eagle Pete

How about a Den Doodle - There are instructions for Den Doodles on the internet, but basically, you make a stand about 4 feet tall that has a rack or block of wood at the top (this can be decorated). Screw eye hooks into the underside of the block on the top of the stand. Lable each hook with a Cub's name. Attach string or a strand of some sort to each hook. When the Cubs come to Den Meeting, bring their books, and are in uniform, string a bead on their strand on the Den Doodle for each item they do. I would either use different color beads or different style beads for each item. So

Gonzo1 That is precisely why our council requires a boy to earn the Tote-n-Chit/Whittle-n-Chit for the privilege of carrying a knife. We don't want to penalize boys who demonstrate responsible, safe knife use by prohibiting the tool altogether, because we're afraid someone might get hurt. We want to instill responsible behavior with tools early on so that good habits are already in place when they are older and, frankly, able to do more harm with a weapon, which they will get ahold of, whether we've prohibited it or not. Folks, we could go round and round and round with this - deba

Ok Beavah, You got me on that one. I just called our council office. I was referred to the Guide to Safe Scouting where it states "Avoid large sheath knives. They are heavy and awkward to carry, and unnecessary for most camp chores except for cleaning fish." This does not prohibit the use of sheath knives, but it does appear to discourage their use (I wonder why?). Our local council has a policy of no knives over 4" in blade length and folding blades are strongly recommended. Also, the Scout Camps in our council have rules in place like - no sheath blades - period, boys age

GopherJudy Nowhere in the Guide to Safe Scouting does it state that Cub Scouts are not permitted to carry knives at a Cub Scout Day Camp. This may have been a policy for a specific council or at a specific day camp. I know of no such general BSA policy. If someone has a reference which contradicts this, please post it and correct me. I would be interested to know. Eagle Pete

The letter looks well written and covers the major issues which need to be addressed. See if you can get your Cub Scout Committee to vote on the recommendations as well. I only mention this so that you can assure unity in the pack leadership and also so you are fully backed by the Committee incase a parent wishes to challenge your policy. Great work! Let us know what the outcome is on this. Eagle Pete

This is horrifying... What I did notice is that the article specified this was a hunting knife and as we know, fixed blades, such as hunting knives are against BSA rules. Where were the leaders? Was a camp gear inspection done and how was it done? What was missed in the Guide to Safe Scouting? Eagle Pete

Hey SueM That sounds good. A couple questions Not sure how I would edit a PDF file. I don't have software capable of doing this. I can read them, but my understanding is you have to have something like Acrobat Writer or some other application which can edit a PDF. Also, I am not sure what you mean when you say that you cannot save to DVD from PowerPoint. Are you saying that you cannot go directly to a DVD from within the application? If so, you are probably correct, but I wouldn't do that anyway. Typically, I create my presentation, save the file, and then copy the .ppt file

Forgive me, but this does not appear to be an issue of an uninterested scout - That is an entirely different problem and topic. Without much info to go on here, I am speculating that there may be some issues going on at home which need to be addressed. At any rate, a Tiger Partner would seem to be a prerequisite - regardless of the Tiger Program policy on whether to have the Tiger Partner attend every meeting. This boy needs close supervision at ALL meetings IMO. If this issue is not taken care of now, he will carry it into Cub Scouting and will BECOME the "uninterested" scout JeffD is

I am not sure what mom means by "We're handling things on our end.", but you will need to set policy and do some CYA in the pack now, before things get out of hand. At this point I believe you need to get away from involving the kids. You are not going to get a straight answer from the boy with the knife. He's had too much time to think about what story he's going to tell next. You are now going to have to rely on whatever evidence you have. You may be able to piece together a relatively accurate picture by talking to witnesses individually and then comparing stories to see where the

SueM Very generous offer. The only thing is I probably will be using PowerPoint (I know... it's a M$ product). I don't have a copy of Pagemaker. Also, I do want to hold off on starting to create presentations until I get a better idea of what our CD has in mind for them. He will be strictly adhering to the syllabus. I don't know if there are restrictions on how presentations should be setup. And just so you know, there have been some recent changes to the syllabus. As I get further into staff developments I can let you know what we are doing and how liberal our CD is with c

Ah.. I was just posting the LDS exception for the benefit of the many LDS units in Scouting. I find that many Cub Scout Leaders are confused about it. Eagle Pete

ScoutNut You are absolutely correct, with one small exception - LDS units have slightly more strict rules for overnight camping. "No Scout-sponsored overnight outings should be planned for boys under age 11." (source: LDS Scouting Handbook, page 4). The earliest age a boy can camp overnight in an LDS unit is 11 years old, which is a separate scout/age organization in an LDS unit. I get, surprisingly, alot of questions on this subject, so I thought I would post the info here. Eagle Pete

I fully agree with and would recommend the same steps outlined by Jeffrey H. No offense, nldscout, but although I understand the point you are trying to make, I am not sure jail is a good solution at this point. When I was a Cub Master, whenever there was a child with difficulties or even serious issues to be handled in the pack, my first and foremost responsibility was the safety of the boys in the pack. This is a serious safety issue, as you probably realize. Drastic measures need to be taken in a situation where the safety of the boys is in jeopardy. I believe the steps listed

I see John (no pun intended) I, too, have some vision issues. Not so severe as yours, perhaps. I do plan to pay close attention to the PowerPoint slides and charts we use. It's amazing how using a slightly larger font can also make a difference. Thanks for the tip Eagle Pete

Yeah, I recall that what John refers to as 'breakouts' were our individual trainings we had with our TG. These were the flipchart presentations emb021 is referring to here. Good info, though on the PowerPoint backgrounds. I will be sure to pay close attention to these and make sure they are aesthetically pleasing. Thanks for the great tips and information. Eagle Pete

kb6jra Congratz! And make sure that you make the BEST of it! I know I will. What staff position will you serve on? Share your experience... I'd love to hear about it. Eagle Pete

Like I said on another post, I need a good salesman in our unit that will sell training (or at least the idea of training). I agree with Jeffrey. At least in our unit, we have 100% volunteers. No one is forced to do anything. Of course we keep to the Guide to Safe Scouting. That is about the only mandatory thing we stick with. In our unit training has always been, at the most, a strong recommendation. When we start putting mandates on those who have graciously volunteered their time to help the unit, we will start losing them. Tell me, does anyone have a real success story about w

I learned the "On Time" lesson very well some years ago as a Cubmaster. And, by the way, this applies to adults (Scouters and parents) and boys (Scouts) equally. We held Pack Meeting at 7:00 pm each month. At least, that was the official starting time. But I was a green Scout Leader and an even "greener" (is that a word?) Cubmaster. I thought that it was important that all the Cub Scouts and their parents be present so that I could start the meeting. I didnt want anyone to miss out on a opener or a flag ceremony. The meeting usually started 5 to 10 minutes late - consistently. This

Just change to red epaulets and cover your badge of office and no one will be the wiser. Eagle Pete

WOW That is fantastic! We have a new Cubmaster now, but I plan to submit this to the Cub Committee and see if we can get this going! What a great way to involve the parents and other adults in the pack as well! Thank you Eagle Pete

I completely agree, 1 Hour Also, I really like the Pinewood Derby Workshop Day. We have a few boys who come from broken homes who may or may not have a dad available and willing to help out with their cars. Their mother does her best, but she may not have the skills or the tools to help make a car for her son. I have seen cars come to the race with wheels and axles falling off and poor design. Even though we did some quick repairs on race day, these cars didn't stand a chance in the race. The workshop day is ideal for those boys because they can get the help they need and tools are m

clydesdale115 You may want to consider personalizing the ceremony to your husband's interests. For example, my wife took many of the themes and elements from Wood Badge which I adopted and incorporated into Scouting and used those as the decor and theme of my ceremony. One of the themes of Wood Badge I really liked was "Leading To Make A Difference" so my wife made some banners with this written across it and posted it around the area where we held the ceremony. Also, be generous with gifts. Get a few tokens of appreciation to present to your husband at the ceremony. There should