howarthe

I would just like to add, as a matter of semantics, that cub scouts do not earn their rank. Their rank is assigned to them based on age or school year. They may or may not earn their badge of rank. I don't suggest that anyone here misunderstands that in any way, but sometimes we say that a cub is earning his rank when that isn't really the case.

We have a new district executive. The former district executive used to write email to me saying things like: let me know how I can help. I wanted to write back: let ME know how YOU can help. I had no idea what would be a resaonable request. I guess what I wanted to ask of him was to set up a recruitment booth at a certain place and time. Is that the sort of thing that DEs do? I haven't seen him do anything like that. We have done all of our own recruitement (with varying results). What does your DE do for you?

Lot's of good advice here. I have to agree with most of what has already been said. Yes, I think a boy should be allowed to participate in Scouting even if he is unable to attend meetings for any reason. We have a boy who attends very sporatically. His blue shirt has no patches on the front, but he is happy and eager and enthusiastic whenever he able to participate. I've told other paretns that they can choose their level of involvement, and then I just try to have a more exciting program than the soccer league or the baseball league. I don't think that you are wrong to take this as a personal slight. You are a good den leader. You might never know why these parents don't like you. The best you can do, I think, is to always be kind to them and continue to provide a quality scouting experience for as many boys as possible.

My best advice: don't present the bear badges to anyone. I never present the badges of rank. I present the segments and arrow points and other awards, but the badges of rank are presented by the Cubmaster to the parents, and then by the parents to the scouts. The reason for this is primarily because we do a face painting ceremony and I wish to participate as a parent. My son is in my den, and I want to paint his face Maybe this would work for you.

This year we had 20 Cubs entered in our pinewood derby. I think we also had one sister, but I'm not sure. We weren't really organized to accept sibling cars. She just brought one. She got to race it down the track, but I donlt think she received any recognitions. Anyway, NEXT year I want to do this better. We usually buy the cars for th scouts. We can't afford to buy cars for all the siblings and parents, but we might be able to if we made it a fundraiser. We usually try to raise a little money for Friends of Scouting during the pinewood derby by selling hotdogs and soda. What if ANYONE could build a car and race it for a fee? I'm thinking $10 would include the cost of the kit and a trophy or certificate. We coudl have a dad's division, mom's division, sister's division, brother's division, maybe others, maybe it should go by age. Maybe all the Boy Scouts in our associated troop would like to build cars again and race? Maybe all the Girl Scouts in town would like to come race? Hmmm.... What do you think? Have any of you ever tried anything like this? How did it go?

I have read that women are less-likely to take the lead in any discussion where men are present. This is not due to any physical difference between the sexes, but it is a result of cultural biases which we subconsciencely teach our children. Of course, there are MANY exceptions to this norm, and we have some very NASTY names for such women. Anyway, girls and women are more likely to take and accept leadership roles when men are absent, so Girl Scouting IS the right place for them. Our public education system does not really teach leadership on purpose. They teach reading, and writing, and math and science and history. The way they teach require students to sit down and be quiet and pay attention, so I'm not surprised that mixed gender schools are able to successfully teach our children. And, I am very pleased to have my daughter registered with the Girl Scouts, and my son registered with the Cub Scouts. My daughter is able to tag along on Cub Scouting activities more often than my son is allowed to tag along on Girl Scouting activities, but they don't really seem to mind. My daughter is older than my son, and she is starting to lose interest in the things he is doing.

I took my den hiking yesterday through Hoyt Arboretum. It was a lot of fun. The scouts practiced their frount country guidelines of being courteous to others by calling back to the others: "keep to the right," everytime we met other hikers going the other way. We received several positive comments from people about how much they loved Cub Scouting when they were kids, etc. The scouts were all in uniform, but they were wearing jackets over their shirts, so you couldn't hardly tell, except for their caps. I was thinking that they would have looked really sharp if they had all been in matching jackets, and so I started hatching plans and ideas for getting the pack into blue jackets. I've seen packs in matching tshirts, and I've seen pictures of troops in matching jackets, but I've never seen Cubs. I wonder if anyone here has ever tried anything that worked (or failed).

My first idea was just to add jacket to the uniform list that I give to every new scout. I would list it as an optional item. I would suggest that it be blue, about the same color as the uniform, and I would suggest that it have a hood and pockets and be waterproof. It rains a lot here in the Pacific Northwest.

My second idea was to choose soemthing approparite and having it embroidered at a local business, the same business that does all the fan apparrel for the local high schools and the community soccer league. Then, parents could go order one in the right size for their scout and maybe even add his name. I could give one away every year to the top popcorn seller or something like that.

Or, I could do both.

I was also thinking about a pack sweat shirt. Lots of boys wear sweatshirts over their uniforms.

Or a long sleeve t shirt for under their uniform...

What do you think?

To your second question: what other restrictions do LDS Cub Scout packs have? I will answer that Cub Scouts are not allowed to go to resident camp, only day camp or family camp. Our council lets all the parents come to resident camp. If they did, if all the parents came, would that make it a family camp? I don't know. If I were still in the LDS pack, I would probably try it.

Most LDS Cub Scouts do not participate in fund raisers. The chartered organization is supposed to pay for everything (awards), but camp is usually too much for the ward budget, so they often do a fund raiser for that. There are no dues collected. When I was a den leader in an LDS pack, I was told not to do anything from the academics and sports program because we didn't have enough money to buy the belt loops. I'm sure that varies from one pack to another.

We try to provide at least three pack activities: a picnic in June, a hike in July, and a day at the pool in August. We also invite parents to attend as many district and council events as possible. The most important is day camp, but last summer there was also a cub mobile race, a fishing derby, a jamboree and mud cubs. Our main focus last year was helping every scout earn the summertime award. They had to attend one event inJune, one event in July and one event in August. We tried to invite everyone to lots of events, so that they could schedule around their family calendar. All but one of my scouts earned the award. This summer I think I will add a den outing each month. We don't get to do enough outings during the year. Too much rain in the Pacific Northwest

While reading the link posted by ADCinNC I am reminded of one advantage to serving in an LDS unit: all registration fees are paid by the ward, both adult fees and youth fees.

This is not true. As an LDS scouter, I can assure you that non-LDS are permitted to serve in any position withing the Cub Scout Pack. HOWEVER, the chartered organizational representitive takes an active interest in all leaders. Most of the leaders, in most of the LDS packs, were "called" to their positions. Effectively, they were "invited" to "volunteer."

If you wish to volunteer for a position on the pack committee, I am sure that you will be welcomed with open arms, but it is entirely possible that the bishop will want to interview you. All bishop's are different. He might already know you well enough that he feels confident signing your volunteer registration application, but most bishops take their resposibility in this respect quite seriously.

I am not currently serving in an LDS pack. My LDS pack didn't have a tiger cub group, so I joined the school pack. It is chartered by the Kiwanis. I was really surprised when our chartered organizational representative signed our volunteer registration applications without having any idea who the volunteers are. I'm ot complaining, but it is very different from what I was used to.

I think Beavah hit the nail on the head. I remember when I was a young woman in an LDS branch. No one in my group had ever earned their medallion. A new girl moved in. She had earned her medallion. Our leader tried to tell us what it was all about and get us interested in earning it too, but we knew that she was sleeping with her boyfriend, so we weren't interested. I couldn't believe it was worth doing if she had done it. Not sleeping with your boyfrined is THE most important rule of being a young (12-18) LDS woman.

So, unless you find reason to beleive that he WASN'T smoking on the campout, I think he should definitly be put on probabtion. This may or may not teach him a lesson, but hopefully it will help maintain the trust you have established with your other scouts.

Thanks for all the ideas. Our meeting place is an elementary school. I do not beleive they would give or rent storage space to us. They are always short on space themselves. Our chartered organizaiton, the Kiwanis, don't have their own meeting place. I think they meet at the library or a restaurant. One member of the pack owns a boat yard. It might be possible to build a shed there. I think we've already asked to use some space in one of her barns, but they are all full. Temperature control might be a problem. I live in Oregon. It doesn't get very hot or cold here very often, but it is very wet almost all the time. I think our best bet is going to be a rental space. I'll ask again if there is any way we might be able to afford it. I'm intrigued by GSDAD'S comment that the storage company donates the space in exchange for free advertising the blue and gold program. I'm not sure what that means. I'm not sure we have a blue and gold program. Do you mean a sheet of paper that you pass out to everyone attending listing the various activities: flag ceremon, eat, advancement ceremon, etc.? We don't have anything like that, but we could. We do have an associated troop. I will ask them how they store their stuff.

I need a place to store the Pinewood Derby track, the rain gutters for the regatta, and I'm not entirely sure what all else. I think renting a self storage locker is too expensive. I think the smallest one I found is $40 per month. I think we could probably do about $60 per year. My dad is a scoutmaster in Michigan. I think they store most of the scout stuff in a trailer and keep it locked up and parked in the back of the church parking lot. Our chartered organization (Kiwanis) doesn't have a meeting space, so that solution wouldn't work for us; although, I really like the idea of a trailer. It would easily transfer to the next Cub Master or Pack Committee Chairman. I'm posting here to ask what it is that you all do with all your stuff. Do you just make some room in your garage? Add a shed to the back yard? Piece it out to the families?

I'm sad I never earned the tiger knot. It was black and orange, and I just missed my chance. I'll beat myself up over that for a long time, I think. But I'm looking forward to earning my first den leader knot. I don't really care that the den leader knots are all the same now. I wish they didn't emphasize the differences between tigers, cubs and Webelos.

I was thinking that a Hot Wheels car would make a rather excellent trophy! I was thinking to spray paint them gold, silver or bronze. What do you think?

Last year we only had six cars at the pinewood derby. We gave out awards for first place, second place and third place. My son received an award for best design. I don't recall if there were any other awards, but every boy received a "drivers lincense." This year we may very well have 30 cars. I don't imagine that anyone is going to try to give everyone an award. It might be nice to do 1st, 2nd & 3rd for each den (except one den only has 2 scouts). Aside from best design, what other awards do you present at the pinewood derby?

I am a den leader, and when parents ask me, "do I have to stay?" I say: you are welcome to stay, but you do not have to stay for the den meeting. You do need to attend the pack meetings. Your other children are also very welcome at all of the pack meetings.

My experience has been with Cub Scouts. They wear their uniforms to school with pride and explain to everyone who will listen how they earned each patch. Everyone wants to be a scout.

I am perplexed by one of the requirements for the Leave No Trace Award, and I was hoping that someone here has earned this with their scouts. Requirement 4: "Participate in a Leave No trace-related service project." Can this be as simple as picking up trash along a hiking trail?

Almost any patriotic march from Sousa. Theme music from Star Wars, Superman and Pirates of the Caribbean would all be excellent. For a completely different vibe: Native American pipe music.

Cool.

I accidentally found this page while looking for something else. Are these really officially licensed patrol patches? I thought scouts were limited to the type of patrol they chose. They have some really cool patrol names in here like the ninja patrol and the zombie patrol, and they have some silly ones like the duct tape patrol and the old goat patrol. Can scouts really choose these patrols?

I tried your search suggestion and I got a link the BSA shooting manual and a story about some scouts killed in a car accident.

another quote from the new LDS website (Mormons and Gays.org)

"David To me I think one of the keys when there are difference in beliefs and differences in points of view is to focus on the individual. Rather than as we relate to others focusing on the issues as we may think of them in our mind. Focus on the individual. If we focus on that person, those people, all of others as individuals versus as some kind of a group or a group of people with different opinions or different beliefs. That makes a huge difference. It comes down to can we see people as real people, as brothers and sisters of ours, as friends and neighbors, versus seeing them as on an opposite side."

Another quote from the new LDS website (Mormons and Gays.org)

"Mike One of the most important things we can learn while were here upon on this earth is how to love those who may think differently than us, may have different ideas than us, who may have different beliefs than us. Thats what it means to be Christ-like. Its one of the most important things we have to learn in order for us to return and live with our Heavenly Father again. Well, we only learn that by being around people who are different than us. We wont learn what God would have us learn by simply learning how to love those people that we sit in Sunday school class with. Well learn it by loving those who are not in Sunday school class."