MarkS

How about this?... Have the BSA establish a policy that training is optional, but they won't cover you with their libability insurance unless you take all the required training for your position.

Only eight weeks until this Webelos leader will see his boys and himself crossover to a troop. They will form a new patrol, an older scout will be assigned their troop guide, and an ASM for New Patrols will supervise their activities to insure they are doing what is needed to adjust to their unit successfully. It just so happens their troop guide will be their former den chief and the ASM will be their former den leader. I feel like my den chief and I are changing jobs with him teaching them and me helping out (only more from an advisory role). I'm sure there'll be more for me to learn as

Speaking for Cub Scouts. As long as the comparable outside work was done to the best of his ability while he was a Bear, he can apply it to his Bear achievements. I won't let a Webelos who built a catapult in a second grade science project count it towards his Engineer Activity Badge. It needs to be timely and age appropriate--comparable to his current capabilities. I also query the boy a bit and have him describe what he did before I credit him with completing the requirement. If he still has the work, I ask him to bring it to a den meeting and do a little show & tell about it. It ma

Sue's right. Somehow we got on the subject about how to make training more effective rather than how to get leaders trained. Let's assume the training is effective and then work on what the best method is to achieve a totally trained unit... The best method for achieving a totally trained unit is to recruit the right leaders in the first place. People who are likely to want to get trained. Do this along with making training an expectation rather than the exception. Now if we want to add a Council/District standpoint, more emphasis needs to be put on how to recruit in the basic traini

Based on the context of this discussion, I suspect that "The other one won't be 10 until May" is a typo and Jill meant to say the boy won't be 11 until May. A boy turning 10 in May would almost assuredly be a fourth grader and 1st year Webelos. Or one very bright boy!(This message has been edited by MarkS)

Even though we dont know the age of the two boys who wont earn their AOL, it appears the consensus opinion is to have two ceremonies... Or in other words, if the boys are 10, lets have two ceremonies neither of which they can participate in. Not that I have a problem with that. I've always been one to believe you have to earn the award to participate in the ceremony, but I got the impression Jill was looking for creative ideas to avoid excluding the boys. Simple solution if they're 11, they can participate in crossover. It's a little more complicated if they're 10 and want to be

How about a career arrow. It's just a $2 target arrow with bands of tape or paint on it indicating their achievements. An orange band for Tiger rank, navy blue for Bobcat, red for Wolf, etc. Google Webelos Career Arrow. Or how about a shadow box for all their Cub Scout awards?

Are the boys who will not receive the Arrow of Light 11 years old yet? If they're not 11 years old, they do not meet the age requirements of Boy Scouts, can not crossover, and can not joing Boy Scouts--until they get the Arrow of light or age out or finish fifth grade. If you're their den leader, you'll have to continue to lead them until they meet the Boy Scout age requirements. If they are 11 then they can crossover. There are lots of bridging ceremonies that combine receiving the Arrow of Light and Crossover. Google for those, have the boys participate in the ceremony and just don't gi

Joe, This sounds like a precursor to installing 72 foot crank-up with a Force 12 tri-bander on the top. Or do you have a vertical inside that flag pole? Checked out your web site. Looks like you have everything in your shack from DC to daylight. 73, Mark(This message has been edited by MarkS)

Scouting is a volunteer organization, By definition most of the work is going to be done by a few of the people. This is not a fact exclusive to scouting. Your school PTA, your church, and your hobby club all work the same way. There may be events where most everyone pulls together and helps out (e.g., Blue & Gold, organizing a concert for the school band, painting the sanctuary, etc.), but the daily grind of moving forward is usually done by the hearty few. My guess is that almost everyone who visits this forum and makes posts are either members of the hearty few or those who haven't

Lisa, Normally, I'd argee with you but not in this case. You're talking the rule of thumb for a leadership transistion, this situation doesn't seem to be fit. The transition needs to be expedited because the CM is unhappy with the situation. How can you have a quality program if he doesn't want to do the job? He stated before he's a first year CM with six months of experience (took over in the summer). He probably hasn't accumulated a lot of tribal knowledge the pack would need. Also, his pack is likely having B&G in February, maybe their pinewood derby in January or March.

kettle, Sounds like you have a plan in place. Good deal. Though if you are unable to invigorate his interest, I expect it will be a frustrating experience once the focus is more on him.

Hey Tim... Greetings from the North Star District... North Star the best by far. What's this 60 to 70 minutes stuff? Can't you plan any better than that? Just kidding. ;-) Our regular pack meetings are 75 minutes plus snack time. Our Pinewood Derby is about 2 hours from the first race to the last trophy (two and a half hours for those who don't take advange of our pre-race check-in the night before and have get there early to check-in their cars). Our B&G is about two hours and 45 minutes. Two hours of ceremonies and entertainment, 45 minutes for dinner (not necessarily in t

His pack already has a replacement. It's the Committee Chair, just check out the roles and responsibilies section of the Cub Scout Leader Book... "If the Cubmaster is unable to serve, assume active direction of the pack until a successor is recruited and registered." Lisa Bob, et al, indicated correctly that the best way to handle this is to make a polite verbal resignation at your next pack leaders meeting. If they don't know, you might want to show them how to plan the next pack meeting--maybe get them started.

Some advice for the advisors... Assuming the boy only has a couple of months left is premature. He may not age out of cub scouts that soon. It certainly doesn't look like he'll get his AOL at 10 so he can crossover. If he turns 11 in June, he'll be in Cub Scouts until he completes fifth grade. It sounds like he'll be the only boy in his den to not crossover, so the pack, his parents, and den leader will need to make some choices. Does he stay in the pack or is that it? If he stays in the pack, he and his den leader would likely have to particpate with the first year Webelos during th

All that work and no one told you about guying your flag pole. ;-) Instead of reattaching each ribbon, what about scanning them to JPEG, burngin the pictures on a CD-ROM and just attaching the on CD-ROM to the flag pole? ;-) Just kidding with you. Sounds like you did a great job.

scoutldr and ScoutNut are right, the first decision is what your son wants. My thinking was what would I recommend if he couldn't make up his mind. Both the recommendation and the decision making process to arrive at that decision need to be explained so he understand it though. He should believe it's the right decision too. The fact that he's not the only boy from his den crossing over makes a big difference.

Based on the scenarios you described, I'd go with Option 2 unless something negative comes out following questions. None of his current Webelos friends are going to join the troop your pack feeds so it will stay around 22 boys. However, if your boy and all the boys of the other feeder pack join the other troop, it will have 16 boys with five of those boys potentially being in his classes in middle school over the next three years. Other things to consider... which troop has the best leaders, are those leaders trained, how many took Wood Badge (shows dedication to the program if nothing el

Ham radio ops don't use ACP125 but I suspect many who were in the service are familiar with it. The ham equivalent for BZ is FB for fine business--meaning excellet. http://www.ac6v.com/morseaids.htm#CW provides many of the typcial abbreviations hams use in Morse code. We also use Q signals (google it for more info).

There are no rules that say what you can and can't do as your Blue & Gold banquet but as a celebration of the anniversary of Cub Scouts, it's also a celebration of the accomplishments of the Cub Scout program--whether historical or for the current year. I disagree with FScouter that the banquet, AOL, and crossover are necessarily separate events that are dilluted if you combine them. They are all a celebraion of the accomplishments of the Cub Scout program. I think it is perfectly reasonable to include AOL and crossover as part of the banquet. In fact, they can reinforce each other if

Crossing over to a troop and participation in troop activities (such as camping) do not necessarily need to be tied together. A boy can crossover as soon as he meets the age requirements. Parents and Unit Leaders can then decide if he should skip an activity (such as camping) the first time around. There's still plenty he can do. Just need to make sure that this is done to a very limited extent and get him involved as soon as he's ready. BTW... Why isn't mom making sure the boy is completing all 20 pins before February! I'd be turning that responsibility around. I'm wouldn't hold extra me

A K-grade "Lion" program will simply mean more attrition and reduce the overall number of boys participating in Cub Scouts. We have enough trouble getting parents to recognize that Cub Scouting ia a family program and getting them to participate as an "adult partner" in the Tiger program. Sometimes I think we'd have more Wolf, Bear, and Webelos boys if we didn't have a Tiger program. It certainly seems we have a vastly larger percentage of boys who start as Tigers drop out of the program vs. boys who start as Wolf, Bear, or Webelos. The Adult Partnet concept simply doesn't seem to work for us.

uz2bnowl... my thought is after taking the class you would still need a second kit to assemble yourself during your den meeting activity as the boys build their own kits. My preference is to have an extra kit with which to demonstrate each assembly step rather than take one of theirs to demonstrate the step. Given that the book that comes with the kit has all the info you're looking for, I'd rather spend the money on an extra kit for the den activity than a class. Even if it's a buck fifty more. It's also kind of fun to learn along with the boys. Don't know about BRAVO ZULU, pretty much j

Greg Nelson said, "Shoot me if I'm wrong, but I believe that the diamond-shaped Webelos badge was supposed to be discontinued after 2004." You're not wrong but discontinuing a product or changing a program has never stopped the BSA from selling out-of-date patches or handbooks until their stock is exhausted. Here we are in year two of the new Tigers uniform and the handbook has yet to be updated.

The GSS also says, "All Scouts registered in Boy Scout troops are eligible to participate in troop or patrol overnight campouts, camporees, and resident camps." There's that overnight campout phrase again. Does it mean one night or does it mean a type of campout? This description of what is considered permissible Boy Scout camping makes me question the description for what is permissible the Webelos even more because we do know that Webelos can participate in camporees when invited by a Troop and in Council sponsored resident camps. My big complaint with BSA guidelines is the lack of