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I like the belt loops and pins better than the tiger track beads. For those of you not intimately knowledgable of the tiger program the tiger track beads are the equivalent of the arrow points earned by wolves and bears. I wish the tigers could earn arrow points. There's room on the shirt for six columns of arrow points, isn't there? Anyway, I've found the academics and sports program to be a great way to expand my sons interest in other things and to broaden his interest in specific things. For example, this past summer, his grandfather taught him to play chess. He became fascinated and made me play a hundred games of chess with him. (I hate chess). He earned the belt loop-no problem, but to earn the pin he has to do some more things that I can't really help him with, so he's getting a chess book for his birthday next week.

The video game loop and pin was how I convinced him that Cub Scouting was going to be a fun thing for us to do together.

It might be just as much fun to create a list of animals not used....

My contribution: BOBCAT.

My daughter is a second-year Brownie. She will bridge to Juniors soon, but before that happens, I need to sew on a bunch more patches, and her uniform is full. The front is full and the back is full. Does anyone have any ideas? I'm thinking about making her a camp blanket or poncho where she can display the rest of her patches. What do you think?

We have a den flag. Someone made it. They did a nice job. It is the face of a tiger cub (from the badge) painted on a blue field with the pack number above it in red and white. The boys love it, but I think I will give it to the new tiger cub den in June. What should we make next? I don't want to do the same thing with a wolf and then hand it down again. I want a flag we can use as cubs and Webelos. The flags they have for sale in the scout store are different for scouts and Webelos and they feature the den number. We could put the den number on it. We could put a tiger a wolf a bear and Webelos badge. Or hand prints. That might be fun if each boy put his hand print in a different color-not very scouting, but we could put more hand prints every time we add boys to the den. That might be fun. What have you done for a den flag?

No doubt you have all read this:

"Consider displaying temporary insignia in ways other than on the official uniform. Here are some suggestions:

1. Wear it on a BSA red patch vest, campfire robe or blanket, or special neckerchief.

2. Dispay it on a wall plaque, trophy hide, or mounted in a frame.

3. Or, make a special neckerchief slide, sectional totem pole, or flagpole insignia for display."

Some boys in our pack wear the red patch vest. I've seen blankets and ponchos covered with patches. I saw a special Scout Sunday neckerchief, but the neckerchief usually identifies your den or troop, so I don't think I would want to start covering it with patches. I can guess what a patch would look like on a wall plaque or mounted in a frame. I love seeing custom neckerchief slides, and a patch there would be neat.

But what I'm really posting to ask about today is the reference to a sectional totem pole. What is that? I mean I know what a totem pole is. We actually have one outside the elementary school where we hold our pack meetings which is probably why this jumped out to me like it did, but I can't imagine how to display patches on a totem pole.

Does anyone here have a ceremony in which they graduate the first-year Webelos to the second-year Webelos. I have found various ceremonies on the Internet for graduating tiger to wolves, wolves to bears and bears to Webelos, most involve trading neckerchief, slide and books, but since the Webelos maintain the same neckerchief, slide and book for two years. So does anyone here do anything for them?

When do you you usually sit down and plan the annual calendar? Do you ever sit down and sketch out the year? Does the year start in June or September? The monthly themes this year were all about the 12 core values. Is that the new standard for every year?

Do you have a pack meeting every single month? Do you skip June, July and August? Do you skip the months that you do Pinewood Derby and Blue and Gold banquet? Do you skip any other months? Spring break?

My mother had a similar problem with a teenage girl in her youth group at church, but in that situation, the girls mother had a very similar hygiene problem, so I don't believe that the issue was ever resolved. If the dad is showering regularly and washing his clothes, then your battle is not nearly so difficult. I think you should speak the father and tell him clearly and kindly that his son needs a bath and some clean clothes. Be careful not to hide your message in too many euphemisms. It would probably be easier to say nothing and suffer through it, but you are not serving the boy or his family in this way.

After the pack meeting tonight (and last month), the boys sort of go a little crazy and start getting into trouble. It sort of dissolves into a wrestling match. I suppose that part of the trouble is that the parents (including myself) have turned their attention away from the children and are busying themselves with putting the room back into order so that they can go home. Has anyone else experienced this sort of trouble? How do you keep the boys from yelling and running around? We use a gathering activity at the start of the meeting. What could we use at the end?

I don't really know that much about the Boy Scout program. All of my experience has been with cubs. I should think that one way to boost the relative prestige of the volunteers in your cub scout program is to help them earn their square knots. I think there are six or seven of them available to cub scouters, and I think they each have a tenure requirement of one year, so if you were careful to meet all of the other requirements each year, then adult leaders might graduate themselves from cub scouting to boy scouting with five square knots on their chest in various shades of blue and gold. That would impress the heck out of me.

I've decided to build a cub mobile for my den to use in the district cub mobile race in June. I'm looking around the Internet and finding a lot of nice designs. I wonder if anyone here has any experience with this. What are the pros and cons of using 4x4s and 2x6s instead of 4x4s?

I have a question about the family award. I'm a little confused by what I am reading. To earn the award, you need to do 10 activities in 5 categories in 12 months. Got it. No problem. My confusion is that there is a patch for each category, so I'm sort of guessing that the award is a certificate given when all 12 activities are completed. Are all five patches also given at that time, or are they given as progress awards after the two activities in each category are completed. I think I understand the pins. They are awarded after as two more activities are completed in category. You can earn those over and over again. Sort of like the academic and sports pins.

Does anyone here have any experience earning or awarding these patches? How does it work?

Hi! I'm just introducing myself. I just registered with the forum today. I served as den leader and Webelos den leader for four years in my church pack before my children were born. Now I'm serving as tiger cub den leader in my son's school pack. I'm having a blast!