MollieDuke

We did Cub Survivor once during summer. We had a trail set up and each den went out at intervals. They had to follow a trail map (and they went with an adult and Scout guide). At each station, they had to read the card, follow the directions, and there was an adult judge there to ensure they did the activity. Then, if they finished, they got a card with stickers on it....The most stickers competed in the final event. We had several groups get all the stickers. The final event was a "Quick Recall" like HiQ or an Academic Contest with all questions coming from Cub literature and their hand

We had an Honor Guard in the Cub Pack my son was in years ago. They had a former service man who had been in charge of these things in the service work with specifically chosen boys who even travelled and gave ceremonies to people like visiting dignitaries and such. They were always in demand. They were sharp, accurate, and serious. They wore the traditional white gloves and complete/correct uniform of the Cub Scouts in blue. The oldest boy my son's year was a whopping 9 years old. It CAN be done, correctly and with the reverence it deserves. Don't do it by halves. Do it, teach it

When I lived elsewhere, the Webelo's all crossed over at the Blue/Gold banquet in February by coordinating with our local Troops. It was done with much pomp and circumstance with all the local troops attending as we did not feed directly into a specific troop. Everyone could choose the troop that fit them best and we had a huge turn out. The younger boys were in attendance, and it was a big deal to them to see the boys come out all decked out from the BSA as well. While I know the requirement does not say hold 'em till February, I felt that this was the best run system I'd ever seen the re

I have THREE rules. Yep, only three. The experts say no more than five, but I've reduced mine to THREE. They are: Show the following: Respect, Responsibility, Safety That seems to cover it. I have the kids make a list of things that fall under each of the three and then when they misbehave, I ask which one they broke. That follows with what was the better choice, how to make ammends, etc. Works very well and takes little time. My initial meetings always revolved around getting procedures established. Examples are: 1. How do you wish them to enter the meeting? (show,

I like the idea of adding badge requirements to Star and Life (just to ensure some time management), but I'd add Cooking required for the FIRST CLASS badge. I feel that cooking is an essential thing just as a pullup or sit up or those hurry case first aids. You do part of it anyhow, so let's just finish it and be able to actually COOK dinner instead of eating pop tarts as I've seen from boys before.

At summer camp, our counselor makes the participants mobilize to look for "little Annie" who is a rescue dummy we use for lots of stuff. They place "Annie" in a secret location and must search/sweep to find this dummy. Our home TROOP, however, got a dose of reality when we were at a local park one day having an outing. There was a terribly distraught mother who noticed we were scouts and came to request help finding her lost 4 year old son. He'd wandered off and we had to mobilize on the spot to help sweep the park to find him. As it turned out, he'd just gone to an air conditioned buildi

When I had my dens, I had approximately 15 boys with 1 assistant leader and a den chief. We had our denner take role on a clipboard each meeting while our assistant denner took the dues, counted the money and checked off each boy that paid. Our boys were required to bring books each and every meeting with all new requirements met marked with a small torn piece of paper as a page marker. While they did their pre-opening, opening, and pledge, I went through each book and wrote what they did on thier sheet in my notebook I made with a page for each boy from the advancement record book from BSA.

I think Barry has a good point in the way boys are brought into a troop. Funny, I'd never thought of it before. I can certainly see how entering a troop in various times of the year 2-3 at a time instead of the mass exodus from Cubs in the early quarter of the year would lesson the "advancement dragon" as I see it. There would be less competition as boys would be fewer in number and the "need" to grow as a large group would be gone. It's amazing how much that cleared things up for me in my own experience. Also, that would give more individual needed time with each boy to teach a skill cor

I have a friend from college who teaches in WV and was sharing with him this thread. He said that in a recent piece of literature they were discussing at his school, approximately 16% of WV students graduate from college straight from High School with their 4 year degree. Even assuming this percentage could be slightly flawed, the statistics seem quite low to me. I know that in some urban areas, the graduation rate is approximately 80% from high school, and in our area it is said to be approx. 92%. Makes me wonder why the laziness of students. Hearing these comments, though, has mad

Good dialogue so far. I have to agree with Herms, though, in that we are teaching our country's youth to be average. I hosted exchange students in the past from different countries and they are shocked to see how "easy US schools are" and "how little discipline there is here" and similar comments. Additionally, I have been asked to serve as CC for the remainder of the year (until I move in March, actually), and having done this in the past for two other units, I am not satisfied with the QC of this unit. I am discussing it, but frankly, they feel that since I'm merely placeholding until the

I forgot to include my own basic geographic area which is very southern Ohio/northern KY area. I am moving soon, though, which is why I thought to include basic geographic area. I will be writing things for youth from all areas, and was curious as to what others' experiences were and where. Thanks to those who pointed that out to me. :-)

I spun this from another thread because I like the term Quality Control. I think this is the missing link in Scouting Advancement. I have many co-workers in Scouting that do exactly as in the initial thread "Well, I'll just mark it off" for whatever reason. We need a quality standard to shoot for whether that is tying a knot correctly 8/10 times or whatever. We SHOULDN'T have to have QC because a scout is "trustworthy", but it seems like that is going down the drain fast. How can we promote Quality Control within Scouting without having to mandate it? How can we get parents to

I've worked in Scouting over 20 years. In that time, both in Scouting and in school, I see changes I don't like. Most of these involve attitude of both parents and boys. Now, I'm wondering if it's prevalent or just locality. Please address these based on your locality as I'm curious about what's going on in cities, rural areas, central US, Western Seaboard, etc. My experience I wish to discuss is purely those boys who believe it's ok to quit school at 16 and test for the GED (which they believe stands for "good enough diploma"--no kidding). They feel that No Child Left Behind means

I work with behavior disability students. These are the kids with no veil of acceptablility and thus do whatever/whenever. I will give you some really good advice that was given to me by a mentor: 1. Kids only hear 5 words at a time. If you don't want them to talk, simply say "Don't talk" in a very firm voice. 2. Make sure you teach and spell out expectations including rules. Make sure you only have 5 rules or less. My classroom has THREE only. My poster says "At all times we will have: Respect, Responsibility, and Safety." Then, I explain what each includes but are not l

In the troop I work with AND in the Crew I work with, we require the BOOK be present. Not so much that we NEED that book, but so we can review the dates for discrepancies or errors and make sure that these dates match MY records (I'm advancement chair for both). We don't want these boys coming up for Eagle and finding out at that time there were errors. Everyone present checks the book, satisfies themselves it is acceptable and filled out correctly since it is THE "blue card" of rank advancement. We will not do a BOR w/o this book, but the boys are told in advance to be sure to bring the b