Krippe

Hey guys/gals thanks for the suggestions. I'm checking them out right now.....

Was wondering if you could give me more detail about the ship. I get car sick and I'm not that keen on spending a couple nights on something that sways....my SM tells me not to worry it will be alright. Great for him he can ride the marry-go-round.

Packsaddle - thanks for the heads-up on Pigeon Forge. I was pretty sure that it was a tourist trap, but by the time we get to that part of the trip we were going to stay in cabins there (hopfully nice bed/laundry facility). We don't think we will have enough room to haul our tentage and all the cooking gear without taking our trailer. We also thought that this might help some of the boys that get homesick (we have serval 3rd year veterans that attend summer camp with us and every year about half way through they're missing home).

Thanks again for your help.

Hi to all-

We are going to the USS Yorktown in July '07 and will be going through the Northern part of Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. After our stay on the Yorktown we will be spending a couple of nights at a cabin in Tennessee. I do not know what roads we are traveling but we wanted to take the scenic route with frequent stops. If you live in any of these areas or know of some fun things the scouts would like to do....any help would be appreciated.

We are staying at Scout Camps along the way and back. Camp Yocona - Pontotoc MS, Camp Bert Adams - Atlanta GA, Camp Mack Morris - Camden TN.

Looking for things to do

Between Springfield, MO and Pontotoc, MS

Between Pontotoc,MS and Atlanta, GA.

Between Atlanta, Ga and Mt.Pleasant, SC.

Things to do around Mt. Pleasant, SC

Between Mt. Pleasant, SC and Pigeon Forge, TN

Things to do around Pigeon Forge, TN (we are staying at a cabin for 2-3 nights)

Between Pigeon Forge, TN and Camden, TN

I have searched the net endlessly and have found somethings but....sometimes things sound better on paper then what they actually are.

We polled the scouts and they wanted to do things like - fishing, caving, horseback riding, bicycling, white water rafting. I found a place in Erwin TN to do rafting (Cherokee Adventures) but I don't know if their is something closer to Pigeon Forge.

Thanks for any help...

Saxun-

I feel for you. I know how hard it is to run a den with only 2-3 boys in attendance.

Last summer our Cubmaster would only let the dens do Pack activities. No den meetings were allowed durring the summer. This made getting the boys back into Scouting real hard. Our Committe Chair and actuall the whole committee was non-active in our Pack. The Cubmaster ran the show. This year we have a new CC, Committee, and CM. They feel that we are a year round program and we try to recruite all the time. We work on the boys to get their other friends envolved. When we started at the first of this school year we had only two Webelos-I and the Webelos-II were moving into the Scout Troop in February. The CC and CM were concered that this would be hard on our Pack and that the younger Cubs would not have any older boys to look up to. The Webelos-I now have 7 in their den. One of the boys it took him 3 months to talk his mom into letting him join. I don't think that it is the boys, but the parents. This year our Tigers have struggled. We have lost several, some due to the new Tiger program (no body to help assist and check up on the leadership like they should have - we just now our looking for a Pach Trainer that would have caught this problem). Also, I think that it is this age group of boys. I have talked to several teachers that say this is a hard group of kids to get their parents envolved.

I agree with you that the outside activities gets the boys. As a Pack we are camping twice this summer, attending a Council trail (hike)activity, and I am sure our dens will come up with other great things also.

I wish you luck in your recruitement effort. Hang in there...and remember its not always the boys fault why they don't join.

Shark,

I know you were looking for spring roundup ideas awhile back, but I just found this discussion link.

This year our pack is doing a first time ever all cub roundup for the spring. Last year we did a Tiger roundup in the spring to let them join in on our summer Pack activities. This worked out great! It let the parents and boys get a taste of Scouting and got us in their routines before school started.

We are planning a school night for this spring but not like we do in the fall (we just invite parents to come and sign up and answer any questions they may have). This spring we are going to do like a mini carnival with hands-on Scouting activities. We are going to cook hot dogs and after they eat (if they choose to), the boys will be able to go around to stations and get a taste of what we do in scouting. We will have a knot tying station, a bird house building station, a tin types station. For the new Tigers we will do some age appropriate activities (i.e. pine cone bird feeders, wind socks, puppets).

Hope this helps...