Lisabob

Cool! That's great Bob, I'm happy to hear that the crew was able to do this. Thanks for sharing an excellent idea.

Eamonn writes: "If however we are going to mandate these training's not telling and letting everyone know is a great disservice." In fairness Eamonn, we do not know this is the case. Yes BelindaB indicates that her pack camps three times a year. However, perhaps her council has made the BALOO requirement abundantly clear in basic leader training sessions, and no one from her pack has attended those sessions in recent memory (or they didn't pay attention). Or, to use my council as an example, we are not required to fill out a tour permit unless we leave the council. So a pack could camp any time they want, within council grounds, without ever filling out a permit, and therefore without council ever checking the BALOO-trained status of a pack's leadership. In this scenario, the only thing stopping pack leaders from holding camp outs minus a BALOO-trained leader is their own willingness to abide by the council's expectations. There is also a distinct possibility that the pack may have camped without ever filing the required permit. While I have no idea whether this is the case with Belinda's pack, I know many packs do this (including the one I was part of), often pleading ignorance because, again, no one has been to leader training in a long time. This can hardly be laid at the council's feet, unless said training is simply not offered (unlikely, I hope). When a leader finally comes along who has been through training and who tries to do things "by the book" then all of a sudden it raises all the red flags at council - flags that should have been raised long ago, except that pack leadership never let council know they were engaging in whatever activities they were engaging in, to start with. I remember finding this out the hard way shortly after I became the second "trained" leader in my son's pack and discovered that we needed tour permits and BALOO-trained adults to do a variety of our "typical" pack activities. It was the main reason I went to BALOO (so we could do a "by the books" pack camp out) and subsequently encouraged a bunch of other pack leaders to do the same.

I agree it is highly unlikely that the Yorktown folks will ask you for a copy of your tour permit. Most likely your SE was either ill-informed or else bluffing you. That's not a credit to your SE in my book. However, I also think it is the responsibility of your pack's leadership to ensure that you have the permit in hand and have jumped through whatever hoops are necessary to achieve it - especially since you are now talking about a long distance trip and not something local. There is a GREAT deal of planning that goes into making such a trip successful (and in dealing, ahead of time, with various "what if" scenarios so as to "be prepared" for them if they unfortunately occur). Baloo isn't the be-all, end-all of training but it does a decent job of helping participants think through the issues involved in extended outings with cub-aged kids. Think about this from a parent's perspective. Those other parents are trusting YOU (pack leadership) to do the right thing here. They are likely going to assume you've dotted all the i's and crossed all the t's. And you haven't, if you don't have a tour permit. And I would imagine that your CO would be extremely unhappy to discover that you went off on a long distance trip, knowingly violating your council's expectations about preparations and documentation, if something were to go wrong. I know I would be if I were an executive officer of your CO.

The art belt loop is one option to use toward the webelos artist pin; however, the belt loop is not a required element of that pin, and the pin itself is also not required. Additionally, boys can also re-earn the belt loops as webelos (though your pack may not wish to re-award the actual metal loop since they get expensive and after all, at the webelos level the boys are focused more on those webelos pins than the loops anyway). And of course not all cubs are going to stay with the program through webelos. So go for it! They can always come back and do a more advanced version of the loop later if they wish to! As for #2 - we had the boys look at pictures of some famous paintings of various types to identify how fairly basic shapes were used to create more complex scenes. Then we set them to giving it a try. Several of them seemed to especially enjoy a more abstract style. And since drawing stick figures is a challenge for me, I managed to get the boys' school art teacher to come in and lend a hand with this one. Or maybe you have a more art-focused parent in your group - doesn't always have to be you! Have fun, good luck with it.

Our council also requires BALOO for overnighters like "cubs on subs." We don't have an aircraft carrier but I imagine they'd expect it if we did. Right or wrong, that's how it is in some places. We even needed it to do a lock in at the local zoo a couple years ago.

I'd second Eamonn's suggestion. If you aren't sure who your training chair is, or you can't get hold of that person, or they don't help you, call your District Executive (professional scouter who works at the council office). Another suggestion is to call up leaders from some other local packs with whom you are friendly and ask if they have a BALOO trained person who can attend as your pack's guest. Please note there is no "boy scout equivalent" of BALOO.

Warren, Take some time to talk with your pack's leaders too. What kinds of strengths and weaknesses do THEY see in your pack? Think about how these fit with your own skills, interests, and your position. The "ticket" both is, and is not, 5 individual projects. Ideally it should be 5 items that will, when taken as a whole, all support your vision of where the pack needs to go. So yes you'll have 5 separate tasks, but hopefully there will be an over-arching objective to tie them together. Just to give you an example - when I wrote my ticket I was our pack's advancement coordinator and training chair. Now our pack was in a state of disarray at the time, and part of that disarray had to do with lack of information/communication among leaders about what resources existed to help them plan a solid program. Everybody was reinventing the wheel and getting burned out and frustrated in the process. Den and pack programs were uninspired (boring?), not very organized, and always run by the same couple of exhausted people. No one wanted to help because people did not know where to turn for ideas and were afraid it would all get dumped on their lap if they volunteered. Our few leaders were mostly not trained for their positions either. I wanted to see our pack do a better job of supporting leaders by making sure they had the resources they needed to plan an exciting program based on various awards and advancements cub scouts could earn. All of my ticket items focused on providing better information to leaders about how advancements worked, what local resources were available, and how they could use those resources to provide a better program to the boys. There were many off-shoots and additional benefits (both intended and unintended), but my main focus to improve the quality of our pack's use of advancement and award opportunities. It worked, too. Over the course of 18 months we recruited 15 new leaders, trained all but one, kept all but three (one moved, one left scouts, and one passed away). We provided every leader in the pack with a local resource book including where to go, who to contact, and ideas for den meetings, for 20 beltloops and several additional awards. We introduced the (at the time) "new" beltloops and coordinated with the local elem. school to have a "language and cultures" beltloop workshop as part of the school's international week. We re-introduced the world conservation award to the pack (no one had earned it in several years) and got a pack-wide conservation program up and running with a local, under-resourced nature center who were delighted to help us help them. Another person from our pack attended the same WB course as I did. His focus was on improving the pack's outdoor-oriented program and his ticket items were related to that goal. On the last example above, his and my ticket actually overlapped. I am NOT saying you should do what he or I did. I am saying that you and your pack will get more benefit from a ticket that has a coherent vision of what you want to do and how each item supports that vision, than from a random list of 5 projects that need doing. In fact, if I had it to do over again, I would probably spend more time honing that vision than I actually did.

I think you need to focus somewhat more clearly on what your current volunteer position is, because tickets are usually written with an emphasis on what you can do in that position. Doing a district website seems like a great idea and very helpful - but it has little or nothing to do with your position as a bear (soon to be webelos?) den leader or pack committee chair! Do you have a meeting coming up with your patrol, before the second WB weekend? Will your troop guide be at that meeting? If so, ask your TG to come a few minutes early so that you can bounce some ideas off him or her. That person may be able to help you hone your focus a bit further. And one thing I realized as I was working my ticket is that scouting life after WB is all one big ticket. You only get beads for that first part of it, but I can guarantee you that you'll get to a point where you see potential ticket items everywhere you look in scouting (sounds like you're already there). You don't have to do everything now, and you don't need the motivation of beads to keep right on "working your (unofficial) ticket" on your own, long after you earn the beads.

I'd say support him too.

.the Webelos can't camp in tents under 40 deg. F though cabins would be fine. I too have not seen this in writing. Elyria, this is probably a local rule (and not necessarily even a bad one, but just FYI). But let's stay focused. A boy does NOT HAVE TO CAMP in order to earn AOL. He does, however, need to visit a boy scout oriented outdoor event. "Boy scout oriented outdoor event" is not defined in the webelos book so there is considerable latitude in terms of what a den leader may accept. Just last weekend our troop did a "winter survival" camp out and invited quite a few webelos out for the daytime. All you need to do, cineburk, is contact local troops, find out what they have coming up, and ask to visit for the afternoon/day/weekend. Unless you know there is a district event coming up very soon, do not wait for that - it could be months! Your DE can help you get contact info for local troops, but he or she probably has no idea what the troops are up to this month - so ask them directly instead. Edited to add: in a pinch, I have heard of some webelos visiting a troop meeting where the troop did some dutch oven cooking outdoors as their "outdoor event." If none of the troops have anything appropriate in the works for the next couple of weeks I suppose you could ask whether they would be willing to do an outdoor cooking activity for your webelos to attend. (This message has been edited by lisabob)

Make the best of things for the next couple of months if you feel you'd like to maintain continuity for the remainder of this school year, and then find a pack that is a better fit for your family for next year. No point in staying where your efforts are unappreciated!

My TG approved my ticket, theoretically in consultation with my Course Director. My TG also ended up serving as my ticket counselor. I wouldn't say he "kept tabs" as I progressed - more like, I tracked him down to let him know as I completed various portions of the ticket.

Warren, not to get side tracked, but what you are describing re: den leader guidelines should be covered at least in part (large part) in the standard position-specific training for den leaders that your council and district should already be offering.

Hi Warren, Glad to hear you enjoyed WB and are ready to roll up your sleeves and get to work! Have you been assigned a ticket counselor yet? If so, these are great questions to ask him or her. If not, you could also ask your troop guide. There are different ways to approach developing a ticket but I think the big thing is to give some real thought to how the specific items will fit into a shared vision for where your pack is headed (by shared, I mean you are going to need buy-in from other adult leaders, and if that buy-in doesn't already exist, you may have to build it). And you may benefit from spending a little time bouncing your ideas off of someone who knows you and your unit as well as the WB process - ie, your ticket counselor and/or troop guide. YiS, Lisa'bob (A good old bobwhite too!)

SSScout, that is going beyond the call. Thanks - I'm sharing this with my son who keeps giving me the "there was nothing I could do about it!" line. Sure there is...if you're willing to be a little flexible.

I don't know for sure what the G2SS says (sorry) but you may want to check with your scouts' parents and make sure they're ok with an 18 year old driving their children around. Some may not be, regardless of the G2SS.

This is an issue that comes up from time to time in our troop, although at present most of the scouts in the troop are some type of Christian so the diversity of religious obligations is a little bit less complex. We do have many Catholic scouts and families. The troop typically leaves on Friday evening and returns from a camp out on Sunday mid-morning or early afternoon (depending on where we're going). Most camp outs are within an hour or so of "home base." So the standard practice has been that if a boy's parents wish to retrieve him early in order to make it to Sunday morning services, then they are welcome to do that. Some do, some don't, only one recently has attempted to tell the troop they ought to change their habits in order to accommodate her family schedule. And that is unlikely to happen. Troop leaders do not take the kids to religious services, other than their own kids. It seems to work for us. This might be different for a unit whose CO is a religious organization. For us, our CO is a service club and they have no specific religious leanings. GW - I thought elsewhere you said you were Orthodox? Greek or Russian? (I had no idea either of them roasted rams...learn new things every day, right?)

kbandit, what you are describing reminds me of a boy we had in our troop in the past who had some very obvious emotional/behavioral impairments along with (way beyond) ADHD. Unfortunately our troop did not handle the situation all that well despite enormous amounts of patience and good intentions for the most part, and we eventually lost not only that boy, but also some others along the way who couldn't deal with him any longer. I think a couple of really caring adults need to sit down with mom when they are not annoyed or frustrated about something the boy has/has not done, and have a serious talk about it. It needs to NOT be a laundry list of accusations or complaints from the past (which ought to have been addressed in the past, no point in laying it all on her now really, except to make her feel cornered.) Ask her point blank for more assistance in understanding and working with her own kiddo. But I wouldn't call her a helicopter mom from what you describe - after all, she may be actively trying to give her special needs son a place of his own where she isn't intervening every moment of every day (although this seems to have backfired from what you are describing). Back to the original thread, I suppose it depends a good bit on how severely impaired the boy in question is. But I will tell you that we have a boy right now in our troop with some serious impairments, who struggled with some of the requirements for 1st Cl. rank for three years. His parents were about to give up and request alternate requirements when the boy was finally able to complete them as written. And that boy was walking on clouds for weeks after that. His parents and many other adults in the troop were surprised that he had been able to do it. The boy himself told me that he had learned a lot about determination and that nobody should think he is a quitter. Wow. If the rest of our boys who earn 1st class would learn that same lesson I would be delighted. Joe, your new scout may have more significant impairments and the alternate requirements option may make a lot of sense for him. You've received good advice about how to go about that process. But just don't sell him short; his leadership and abilities may be different from other scouts but you may be surprised at the type of role model he could be for others in the troop.

Isn't this one of the things "scouting and soccer" was supposed to help with, recruiting hispanic youth? I have my doubts about that as a strategy, but then, I haven't seen it in action. I would expect that, like many minority populations, hispanics might suppose that scouting is a primarily "white" activity and therefore it may not be on the radar for many families. The idea of finding local members of that community who were scouts as youth seems like a great place to start. So does the idea of approaching organizations that work in the community and asking for their help - whether as COs for new units, or to promote existing units to a more diverse community. I hope you will keep us informed on how things unfold in your area as I think this is something many more of us should be paying attention to in our own towns and districts/councils.

Right pack212, but that's the thing. It doesn't tell you that you have to join boy scouts if you are 11 (or 12) and in 5th grade. The choice is not dictated by the BSA. Consequently, the dominant interpretation I've seen matches what LongHaul posted and it is typically the parents that get to decide whether the boy should stay with cubs (and his grade-based peers) or go on to boy scouts (and his age-based peers). Trailblazermom, whatever your son ends up doing, there are benefits to both programs. Webelos can be a whole lot of fun and was my favorite time spent with my son in cub scouts. Boy scouts provides an atmosphere of more independence and has its own benefits. I hope your son has a great time, regardless of how this all works out.

Here are two games we used. I suppose they have some variants that exist in many cultures but these are games many Danish children play and they are very easy. Game #1: Cat in the Corner One boy is the "cat" and stands in the middle of the room. The rest of the boys are "mice" and start out in the corners of the room. On your signal, the "mice" must scurry to another corner. The cat tries to catch one of them before he makes it to the new corner. The one who is caught becomes the new cat and the original cat takes his place as a mouse in the corner. If it is too easy for the "mice" you can add another cat or two. Game 2: Fire, Ice, and Water You need three adults (or older children) to stand in different parts of the room. Each represents fire, ice, or water. In their parts of the room, people must do certain things - for example, in "fire" everybody is hot and has to make a fire-related noise (in Danish you'd say puha! - sounds like pooha - which translates loosely as "whew!" while wiping your brow or fanning yourself), in "water" everybody makes swimming motions while saying "bubble bubble" (boble boble in Danish) and in "ice" everybody shivers and says polar bear - iisbjorn! sounds like ees byorn! in Danish. The kids stand in the middle of the room and the leader yells out FIRE (for example). The kids all run to the "fire" part of the room and start making the correct motion/sound. The last kid to get there and make the right motions becomes the game leader and picks the next thing to yell out. I used both of these with a group of mainly tigers and wolves when I did a beltloop workshop for this beltloop. It worked pretty well and they had a lot of fun with it; just watch that you have sufficient space to avoid collisions.

a lynch mob? Did O'Reilly actually say that? Oh dear. Not the best choice of words, given the cultural connotations. Not that I'd be all that shocked to find O'R spouting more dumb and offensive stuff but that one just seems like such an obvious one to have avoided.

"The latest is end of either the school year that he turns 11 or the end of Fifth grade, whichever comes first." Pack212, where did you find it written that it was whichever came first? I have not seen that (though perhaps I have missed it) and in my neck of the woods people like our council registrar and DEs and unit leaders tend to interpret that as "whichever is more suitable in the eyes of the boy's parents."

OK I did somehow miss that he will be 11 before starting 4th grade but still I don't think that is a major issue. I know for a fact that many boys in my district are still in 5th grade when they turn 12 and are allowed to remain registered as cubs, and to earn their AOL. There is a grade-based allowance for them to remain registered as cubs all the way through the end of 5th grade. Due to the fact that they are older, they have the *option* of joining boy scouts instead of remaining cub scouts, but it is not a mandatory requirement - at least not as understood by our council registrar and professional staff. So I would recommend that trailblazermom contact her council office, ask to speak to the registrar, and find out what they say. I suppose I may be wrong but I'm willing to guess that the registrar will confirm that 5th grade boys are eligible to be webelos scouts on the basis of grade in school, regardless of age. If that's the case then the question is really one of deciding what is best for her own son (and that might go in either direction), and then working with the Webelos DL and possibly the Scoutmaster of a local troop to make it happen.

With regard to the age cut-off for AOL, this is not as set in stone as you may think. Some units do use strict age cut offs (mainly LDS) for eligibility to be cub scouts (and therefore to earn AOL). However, most units use grade in school as the guideline. And boys who are in the 5th grade can be webelos until the end of 5th grade even if they already turned 11. Consequently, yes, your Webelos DL is correct in asserting that boys can work toward AOL even after they turn 11, if your pack is not strictly age-based (LDS) and if the boy is still a registered webelos scout. What a boy cannot do is cross over to boy scouts and still work toward earning a cub scout award. All that said, I'm not sure I understand why you are in such a hurray for your son to fly through the webelos program? Yes you could cram it all into a short time frame, but what is to be gained by this? Before you decide that your Webelos DL is not doing the job right, stop and consider that maybe that DL is trying to balance competing demands from lots of parents. As a former WDL myself I know that some families wanted to meet all summer long but most did not and a few even got really annoyed when I tried scheduling more than one or two den activities during the summer months. Trying to come up with a happy medium was challenging at times and it was more challenging when parents (most of whom were not trained and didn't want to be DLs themselves either) insisted that I accommodate their child first, to the cost of other children in the group.