Lisabob

What's your take on former cub leaders returning to pack leadership after their boys have moved on to boy scouts? Good idea? Or not? What pitfalls and/or advantages are there to consider before agreeing or declining to return as a pack leader? Are there conditions that should be attached to such an invitation, or to its acceptance? Yes, I have a specific situation in mind but I'd appreciate your hypothetical comments for now. Thanks. Lisa'bob

By the way when you get adults who complain that "this is a pack tradition" you should ask them whose tradition it is, exactly? You mention that the song has been around at least 7 years in this pack...no boy is a cub scout for that long so it must be the adults who are perpetuating this tradition for their own reasons. But cubs is for and about boys, not adults. Chances are good that the boys really won't mind giving this up as long as some other fun (and appropriate) song is substituted. In fact they'll probably hardly notice unless the adults make a big deal over it. Lisa'bo

Although we sang the short version at camp when I was a kid and it was pretty harmless, I'm not too excited about some of the lyrics in this longer version. I think it crosses the line between harmless fun and rudeness and goodness knows kids have enough exposure to rudeness and put downs as it is without needing to learn it at cub scouts too. If you want some songs to "get the wiggles out" there are lots and lots of these out there that don't wander into the realm of questionable taste or poor manners. Boom Chicka Boom is a good example of one that cubs inevitably love to sing. Amon

Ugh. I hope this guy doesn't do anything to cause a scene at your pinewood tomorrow. If he is NOT the CC then who is (in name, if not in fact - who is on the recharter paperwork)? This is one of the few positions that you actually must have filled to have a viable pack. If he is NOT the CC, then he has absolutely no authority to start trying to oust existing leaders (not that he would have a lot of authority to do this as CC, but at least he'd have some). How's he doing as a DL? Personally I can't imagine too many situations in which someone who yells at the boys for not

Where do the CM and the ACM fit into this picture? Have they been trained? Are they actually doing their jobs? The Committee Chair does in fact have a lot of power, but not unlimted power. This CC appears to think otherwise and needs to be reined in (and perhaps replaced but perhaps not). Do you have a unit commissioner? (if your answer is no, or "what is a UC?" then you should contact your district leaders and ask them about it - every unit is supposed to have a UC assigned to them). If so, this is a good place for him or her to provide a little insight to the committee as

jd says: A sink or swim attitude toward winter camping is dangerous and worth getting angry! Yeah, well "momma bear" has emerged once or twice (or more) in reference to this issue, believe me. jd, I don't have any intention of letting a troop off the hook for failing to prepare their new scouts for winter camping. Among other things, I think THE TROOP should've been pushing to come to one of my webelos den meetings to do this. After all, the troop leaders surely knew that winter camping requires special preparations and they should've considered that their soon-to-be new scout

Agreed, tickets vary widely and what might be accepted by one CD and troop guide might not be by another. I think it depends a little on the unit's circumstances too though, to a certain extent. One of my tickets was to develop a leader's resource book with information on places and programs within a 30 mile radius of our town, related to 20 beltloops and 10 webelos pins. It just seemed to me that because turnover among leaders is fairly high in cubs, that people were spending way too much time re-inventing the wheel on this kind of thing. The resource book is now being provided to al

Scoutldr, I couldn't agree more that the way things actually worked out was not desirable at all. The idea of pushing cross over back to late spring is something the other WDL and I seriously considered, but for a variety of reasons (worthy of their own thread) we decided not to go that route. Fact is, nearly all packs/troops in my area do their cross-overs in Feb or early March, and the weather can be counted on to be lousy through mid-late April. We've even had snow in mid-late May some years. Rather than telling the boys they can't go on the first two or three campouts with their

There's a great thread in the camping section (under equipment reviews) about keeping warm while camping in winter. I decided to spin off into the cub forum because cross-over time is coming up for a lot of webelos II boys, many of whom probably have no experience with winter camping. What's one of the first things they'll do with their new troop?...Go winter camping! Last year when my son crossed over (late February) he went camping a week later. Temps were in the single digits. He had no idea how to stay warm and neither he nor I knew enough about proper gear. He froze, was miser

You guys are a gold mine of information. I shared several of these posts with my 11 yo, who is getting ready for a late January camp. Hopefully he'll actually remember to do a few more of these things and share the info with his patrol mates too. All the tips here would've been so helpful to us last year - when he crossed over from webelos and went camping less than a week later, in single digit temps, with practically no training and inadequate gear (what we know now...). Of course he had a lousy time, froze the whole weekend, and swore he'd never camp in snow again. Happily, he's

I second the enforcement comments made by others here. Our troop has by-laws/procedures/things to know or whatever you want to call them. New scouts and their parents are required to sign off, indicating that they've read, undertand, and will follow them. Of course, the boys at least don't ever seem to have read them so I don't see a lot of utility there. Some address practical concerns (ex: how to get a refund if you transfer to another troop) and I find those helpful. Some others address behavioral types of issues and I find these less useful because they are enforced sporadically.

Have to laugh...my son's patrol had exactly this exchange the other night while trying to plan a menu for their upcoming campout. Last time, due in large part to poor planning and execution on their part, they ended up with a lot of extra food, much of which was perishable. Additionally, they took ice cream with them and ended up storing it in their patrol box all weekend rather than eating it. Surprise surprise, it melted all over everything, made a mess, and ruined some of their dry goods too. The boy who ended up taking the patrol box home and having to clean up the mess was quite verb

This is a great thread, very informative. Thanks everyone for you contributions! I have a related question - do you recommend any different tactics for small, skinny younger boys? We've got a bunch of 10-11 yos who are just all bones, hardly any body fat to speak of. Seems no matter what they try they're cold - and it is common for temps to get into single digits or low teens around here for 3-4 campouts each year. My son's one of these guys so any advice would certainly be welcome. Also what's the view on those chemical hand/foot warmer packets? Lisa'bob

My son's troop is doing a campout in a couple of weeks and due to lower than usual attendance from several "regular" patrols, they will be splitting into two small "campout" patrols of 5-6 boys each. However, they do tent in pairs and there was some talk of doing some cooking in pairs. This is because several of the younger scouts want to work on the cooking reqs for 2nd and 1st class and they thought it would be easier to do in pairs (ex: backpack stoves - not everyone has them so they're pairing up with boys who already have one). Lisa'bob

There are circumstances under which I agree that this young man probably shouldn't earn his eagle and Beavah has a good point that it would be difficult (impossible?) to demonstrate a true change of character in as short a time as 2 months. Depending on what happens legally (ie, is he actually found guilty? or just accused? big difference), this boy may well not achieve the eagle rank. My point was simply that, until the legal issues are settled, and whether the boy makes Eagle or not, the committee would be doing this boy a serious dis-service by asking him to comment on the legal matt

We bought a box of 12 cedar arrows for about $36 from Cajun Archery last year. Here's the link if you're interested. http://www.cajunarchery.com/Products?product=1309-1 Aside from the fact that they had blue & yellow fletching, they were just plain. I lightly sanded them to take off the finish and then painted them with stripes according to the various ranks and awards each boy had earned, and mounted them on oak Arrow of Light (the sunburst design like on the patch) plaques that the other WDL made. They looked really cool. Lisa'bob

Sniffles, I have not seen the actual budget for our day camp. However, as a general overview: 1. staff are entirely volunteers, including the day camp director and asst. director. 2. our camp has been held on a council property so there's no fee for use. 3. we've had a day camp for a looooong time so most of the equipment is already there (bows & arrows, bb guns, targets, etc.) and we only need to pay for upgrades and replacements on a limited basis. 4. much of the material for crafts is donated, thank goodness, because we have approx 500-700 boys at our day camp each year.

Semper - yup, and that's usually a good thing....(grin)

jd did I read that correctly, your cub day camp costs $100 and the BBQ dinner is extra? Wow...ours is typically in the $30 range, including T shirt and a family "festival" (no meal though) on the last of three days. On the other hand we have done ours at a council camp in the past which means we don't have to pay to use the facilities. Lisa'bob

Well my guy had his first BoR the other day and made his tenderfoot rank. As some of you may know from my previous posts it hasn't been a very smooth first year. There have been some pretty big debates in the troop regarding how the first year program works (or whether there is one) and what kind of experience the younger scouts are having. We've given serious consideration to switching troops but decided to stick things out a bit longer. It has been a difficult path for my son but at the moment I think he is glad he made that choice, and I'm proud of him (well yeah, I'm his mom...).

Well put, John. I can't believe anybody would get into presonal attacks over LNT??? Yes, I am certain that there are people out there who take LNT to such an extreme as to be ridiculous; then again, that seems to be true of nearly every part of the scout program. There are core groups of fanatics out there for everything. However, my experience with learning and teaching LNT to cubs and their parents is that most of the kids I interacted with had no acquaintance AT ALL with the basic principles of LNT. None. Now, how is teaching boys (and parents, who tended to be worse) to b

I really like the idea of sending the webelos off on their own daycamp program. My son went to daycamp for 4 years and had a good time, yes, but it did get a little repetitious by the final year. As a volunteer all 4 years (You can call me "Range Leader Lisa'bob") I noticed that the boys who had just finished 4th grade and were moving on to wII seemed to have crossed some kind of serious developmental line in comparison to the younger scouts too. Not that there weren't differences between the other ages too, but this is where I saw it most prominently displayed. So a separate webelos progr

nldscout, I have no idea what is or is not actually happening in the councils referenced by the previous poster. However I do know that if you were to use my council's web site as an indicator of what's actually going on in the council, you'd form a rather incorrect picture of reality... Lisa'bob

Scoutldr is right. Don't let your CM dictate this. Talk with the committee chair about including a discussion of the pack's camping program on the agenda. Then when your committee meets to discuss the pack's camping plans and the CM says "but everyone loves this place" you can offer factual evidence that this is incorrect (Hmmm let's see a show of hands for people who'd like to try a new place). Easily done. Aside from that, even if "everyone" really does "love" this site, change can be nice. Does the CM have a boy in the pack? If so, remind him that his boy too might enjoy exposu

Getting back to rkfrance's original post... Seems to me it is easiest to start a new pack, harder to start a new troop. With the cub program, pretty much any group of well-meaning and dedicated adults can learn to run a good program pretty quickly and with relatively little in the way of equipment or other physical needs, besides a good meeting place. To run a good troop you need much more specific knowledge about camping and the outdoors. While various BSA trainings offer some of that knowledge, if you had a group of parents with limited personal experience, there's just no way (in my