IM_Kathy

when my son was in cubs durring the early couple of years they B&G was a potluck dinner... his later years the pack decided to have a catered dinner with a small fee for the dinner. with that we tried to get the boy scouts to do the cooking and such as a fundraiser, but they never took us up on that. as for what we did... the boys recieved awards, and most leaders tried to stress for them to complete their rank badge by then. and then each den performed a skit or song. as to when to do cross over, I'd say that really depends on the pack and troops in their area. my town the cr

one thought on the gear I have is finding out if your CO or any other church or organization would have some extra storage room that you could use. Then you could store the bags, pads, backpacks, etc... I would number them 1-whatever. while the boy is in troop/pack/den he uses the same number every time he goes out - that way you don't have to mess with washing all the bedding after each outting unless they get wet/dirty. I personally have no more storage room either... I have my own gear, my son's, and my daughter's plus as Girl Scout SUM I have a bunch of stuff stored for that too..

I'll to explain this best I can and not too drawn out... my son and 3 other boys started with troop X where they were given the requirements for "Family Life" and told to work on them at home. These 4 boys started to work on them and had completed a few of the requirements, but were told not to turn it in for blue card until completed. Now they are in troop Z and troop Z does it correctly where there are MBC for a lot of the badges. I'm even one of them for "Family Life" and these boys are almost completed with the requirements. BUT, they never had a blue card started so if th

as everyone else has stated the proper uniform is the blue pants for cubs. our Pack did allow anything to be worn, but I recommend all in my den to wear blue pants... due to cost and huge growth spurts most of us actually went with buying blue slacks from walmart for the $10 rather than the offical scout pants. now in boy scouts my son does own 1 pair of offical boy scout green, but then owns a few unofficial green pants as well for those "where are my scout pants" days.

while it wasn't for the cycling merit badge - a couple of our MBC for other badges have requested photos, maps, and the like to show the boy performing such tasks as required for the badge. My son for example has been working on his Fishing Merit badge... at summer camp he did everything but actually catch his fish. So when he goes fishing and MBC is not present (either family trip or troop trip) we take the camera along and photograph it all. Now if he could catch something other than Blue Gill he'd have it done LOL

wow... I'm glad my son is in the troop that he is in. We pay the annual recharter fee and that is it. If we want boy's life then we pay for that too. for fundraisers we do the popcorn sale and then we have 3 popcan drives - weekends after new years, labor day, and memorial day. From those fundraisers 60% goes directly to the scout's account and 30% goes to the troop. we charge for each campout - we have a set amount for setting food budgets based on number of meals and then we add in cost of campgrounds (if any) general upkeep (set amount for each trip) and then an extra little fe

my son is now a boy scout so I don't know if his book is still the same as your boys use, but in his book it has elective 5 "spare time fun" g,h,i you can make more than 1 model - for each model he makes he gets credit for. There are a couple more like that in his book. then in bear they have the same thing, but they also have more requirement choices. the ones they complete but don't need as requirements are awarded as electives.

my son is a den chief for the town we live in, but he is a troop in another town. He crossed over a couple years ago and started out with the troop in our town... he was very unhappy with that troop and was talking about quitting and I asked if he wanted to quit scouts or that troop - he said that troop... so we went troop shopping. 3 other scouts (2 from his old den and 1 a year older) left along with my son and joined this other troop. They are all enjoying this troop and it is what they expected when they moved up to boy scouts. My son still loves all the things he did as a cub

>>> "The reason that mothers traditionally took care of children is because after nine months of pregnancy plus labor, delivery, nursing, and weaning, we're much less likely to kill them."

if swimming is "so important" then why is it not a required merit badge for eagle, rather than 1 with a choice? personally I do agree that is that important and that is why I told my son - you ARE doing that merit badge. And that is why I worked with that one boy to teach him to swim. but on an individual level, if for eagle they are given the option of earning the hiking or cycling merit badge instead of the swimming; then why are they not given those same choices for rank advancements? to me if it's that important than make it that important. -------------------- now as

I wasn't positive on number 1 because that's not a reason here, but several years back it was in national news - just wasn't sure if it was still a reason. as to number 2 - yep that's going on here. and those in the scouting community know that it isn't being done fairly. The sports teams that are town rec teams are not charged a thing. We were told they were charging us fees because of the need for cleaning after (cub/boy/girls follow the rule of leaving things better than we arrive), damage to the building and grounds (I'd have to say those balls being kicked, thrown, and hit in the

some foil meal links... http://www.macscouter.com/Cooking/FoilCook.pdf http://www.djmorton.demon.co.uk/scouting/meals/foil.htm as to what I'm personally had... the hamburger with onions, carrots, peppers is good... but what I think the boys will like the best is Simple Pizza Pockets. take pita pockets (already sliced) have pepperonis and canadian bacon or ham (all precooked meat so it's ok if it doesn't get cooked long enough) add some pizza sauce add some cheeze and wrap in foil only has to be in long enough to melt the cheese and toast up the bread a b

as for the off topic question... it depends on where you are and your schools rules. 1) some schools have banned boy scouts from using their facilities because of boy scouts stance against homosexuality and the like. In fact they don't just ban boy scouts - they ban any organization that does not allow any and all members to join. 2) our schools allow it but they charge such a high usage fee that non-profit organizations cannot afford to use it

if this was my boy or another boy in the troop that I was looking for a councilor for I'd buy one of the MB books and start calling people that I think would be up to the task... for First Aid I'd check with EMT's, Doctors, & Nurses. And if talking with an EMT I might also grab a Emergency Preparedness book. If any of them said they would be interesting in helping out I would then arrange for a coffee trip and sit down with them and let them know what the troop needs, let them look through the book, bring the sign up form and if they agree and fill out the form leave the book with them a

my son's former pack (now in boy scouts) finally changed their "cross over" to December where the rest of the packs have it. The rest has stayed the same... they recommend the following... new scouts - Bobcat by November Webelos I - try to get Webelos badge by Nov-Dec Tiger, Wolf, Bear ranks completed by B&G in Feb and then the TW&B get their elective beads or arrow points at the end of the year cross over which is in April. once they cross over they can start the next level... when I was a den leader except when they were webelos I got the boys together every so

I couldn't find any with Lion in them, but I did find these 2 that had a couple of verses you didn't have so thought I'd pass them along. http://www.boyscouttrail.com/content/song/tom_the_toad-248.asp http://www.bsatroop780.org/entertainment/song_t.html

the only thing I would want removed is the swimming requirements for 1st and 2nd class. While I'll agree that this is a very important skill to learn, but not everyone can do it. And while you can get a medical pass if it's because of a medical problem... what about the scout that's parents couldn't afford swimming lessons? or what about the scout that nearly drowned when he was 3 and has been afraid of the water sense then? I'm all for these requirements for the swimming merit badge obviously. And I'm alright with teaching the reach and throwing rescues as part of rank... just don't like

never did one of these but it sound interesting. and you made me dig out my son's old Bear book. just in looking through here are some of my ideas: (hopefully requirements haven't changed since my son has bridged up) 5 - Sharing your world with wildlife - have a naturalist come. include building a birdhouse - boys love to build 7 - Law Enforcement - mainly why I mention it is because it's sometimes just feels bad to ask an officer to come speak to a small sized den. but if it's a big group I think it would be easier to get organized. 9 - cooking - depends on where you are

you've got some great ideas... I love to hear people already planning a year ahead of time! I was a helper when my daughter was a daisy... I was her leader part of brownies and juniors, then took some time off, and became a leader again when she was a cadette and am still her leader - my troop is senior girl scouts (9th graders) and I'm also the SUM and my troop helps quite a bit with the younger and new troops at the beginning of the scoutting year with helping at first couple of meetings... it's acutally a lot of fun - although I will say I'm glad my troop is older now as it allows for

with the discussion on "boys don't care about advancement" In our old troop we had a boy who was still sitting at Tenderfoot while in 8th grade... we had our new 6th graders already working toward their 2nd class rank. He even sat in on some of the rank class work and he understood and could do it all, but he didn't want to get signed out or go through board of review. He just wanted to come to meetings when he wanted to and go camping with the troop. There was nothing anyone could do to motivate him - he had no interest in becoming anything more than what he was. In our current t

Be Prepared For A Happy Holiday (Merry Christmas or whateve) And A Happy New Year!

cookie price and profits do vary from council to council... so I can only speak of what my council does. Our cookies are $3.50/box and the troop gets $.40 for each box which would be about 11 to 12% but in saying that you may say, that's nothing compared to what a boy gets from popcorn sales. But, our council also has camp credit seperate from this amount. I don't have my sheets from last year to recall the exact amount but as I recall my daughter sold 200 boxes and got something like $100 (like I said I can't recall totalling - ask me again in a few months when our sale starts

"You have your own desk & filing cabinet just for scout related paperwork." thank god I'm not the only one like this, but I have a whole lot more than that if you go into the non-paperwork... 1/2 closet for Servie Unit storage, 2 tubs of craft stuff, a shelf and a file cabinet for all the paperwork... then there's the 2 sets of shelving full of camping related goodies. I sooooo wish girl scouts could get a trailor like the boy scouts do! It would sure help me empty at least 1 of those sets of shelves LOL another thing to add is... so use to having your handy tool at

Hey Roy, when I was a den leader and just a co-leader for girl scouts I couldn't begin to count the number of girl scouts that would attend a pack event and tell me that they wish girl scouts did these things. So, when I was asked to take over being the leader and then also Service Unit Manager I took steps to fix this. it is hard in girl scouts in that they talk so much about letting girls do the things they want to do... so you'll have crafty girls, musical girls, sporty girls, camping girls all in girl scouts and then you need to find activities that will provide a good mix for a

the best camporee's that I've been to have had at least 1 activity that was either for the Scout Master's to do or was included in. Summer camp we have scout master golf - they have to make a golf club to use our last camporee they did a scout master race - run to a sack, grab item, put on, run to next, and continue... turns out the new scout uniform is a skirt, blouse, scarf, and a purse... they looked lovely LOL another camporee they did stretcher races and one of the legs was carrying the scout master... several scout masters had better hope they don't go down, some are very