Mom2Scouts06

We have Bears who will be receiving their Bear Badge at Blue and Gold Banquet. We were hoping to offer a course at our COR to complete the Emblem of Faith requirement for the Webelos I group soon. If the Bears have received their Bear Badge and they took this course could it count toward the Webelos Badge requirement even though they won't have officially crossed over?

Our Blue and Gold is full of activity! We do not do AOL or Crossover at Blue and Gold....we just prefer that be seperate cermony recognizing just WEbelos.

We do hand out rank advancements, Trophies and certificates from our Pinewood Derby, We do a Dad/Lad Bake Off Auction to which last year we raised over $800! We used to do a potluck but got stuck to many times with not enough food. This year we are having it catered by a friend of one of our committee members. Parents will bring desserts for the Bake off and drinks. We will also have a birthday cake to say Happy Birthday to scouting!

Some dens do a skit or song. We always do the Lone Scouter skit this year we are having it with a twist! Our Blue and Gold is on a Saturday and last about 3 hrs!

We had a new Scout join our Webelos II patrol this year who had never been a Scout before. We made it clear to him and his parentst that if he wanted to earn AOL and cross over with the rest of the group then he had a lot of work to do! I can say that I am so proud of this Scout. He has worked his butt off in den meetings and at home and he is on track to earn AOL the same time as the rest of his patrol. Granted, we start den meetings the first of August and the boys are crossing over first of march so he had about 7 months.

We are very forunate in our den that we have awesome parents. They are always willing to step in to lend a hand in leading activities that they are knowledgeable in in regards to the pins we are working on. For example we have one parent who is a sign language interpreter. She brought one of her deaf church members to our den meeting to talk about how her life is different than the hearing. The boys were fascinated!

We had another parent build catapults with the boys, and another one who was an aeronautical engineer come and do demonstration for the boys and bring some really cool plane parts!

I say use the parents for different pins so you don't get burnt out over that 20month period!

My husband has been the WDL for two years now and will be again next year with our youngest son. I am his sometimes assistant even though he has a wonderful assistant!

I agree that fun is a big part of what to look for. We looked for a camp that had activities that the boys liked. Canoeing, climbing and rappelling where the BIG 3 that our boys wanted to do. They had received a quality program, had alot of fun along the way, and worked on advancement in the process. They had so much fun their first year of Camp that all they talked about the whole next year was how much they couldn't wait to go to camp again!!

We are crossing over all 8 of our Webelos and they all have their first deposits in for Troop Summer Camp!

One more thing to add..the boys that chose to attend both years of Summer Camp will be crossing over with all 20 activity pins completed!

In our pack in the summer Webelos go to our local council Webelos Resident Camp. Webelos I scouts work on 6-8 activity pins and usually complete most if not all the requirements while at camp. The Webelos II scouts do more Scout skills at their summer camp.

We finish our pack year in May, boys go to camp in July and we start den meetings back in August (we have year round schools).

Our Webelos II scouts are ready for the Arrow of Light now but we are waiting on our pack trip to the USS Yorktown that we have had planned for over a yr and they have already paid to attend. They will be crossing over the first of March.

we also have 3 den meetings a month!

We have done numerous flag retirements in our pack. We do one every year at our end of the year campout.

We have done one where the Webelos cut off a strip and placed it in the fire with a Retired member of the Armed forces placing the star section onto the fire.

We did one last year where we had numerous flags to retire so we asked for people in our pack who were former military to please come forward and they were each given a flag to place into the fire.

Our boys have always understood that is a moment of reverance and silence and we have never had any issue with them remaining silent during the entire ceremony(even Tiger Cubs). We do not speak during the ceremony itself but once the flags burn down no more wood is to be laid upon the fire and as it is burning low one of our former military gives a little speech about why we do flag retirements the way we do and how important they are. The grommets are then collected once the fire cools and one is given to each Webelos upon Crossover.

Our local Scout shop already has the belt loops out but don't have the requirements printed yet that I know of. I asked and they said they don't have them yet.

In our pack we don't do combined Arrow of Light/Crossover Ceremonies. We do Crossover at the Troop Meeting so they can go directly into their first Troop Meeting as Boy Scouts. Arrow of Light is it's own special ceremony for the boys with the focus on no one but them. We do no other awards or achievements that night, it is not held at Blue and Gold or a regular pack meeting. Since the Troop and Pack meet on two seperate nights this has worked out very well and the boys get two special cermonies. One from their old pack and one from their new troop.

AOL and Crossover are really two seperate cermonies anyway most packs just combine them into one.

We always said we would never let our boys have long hair or wear a mohawk..Now my oldest had VERY long hair(just recently cut it so it is better) and our Youngest has a Mohawk!

Hopefully that is the worst they do but I know better...we figure our youngest is just bidding his time til he turns 18 and can get a tattoo!

I agree pretty much with most of what has been written here. Unfortunately no matter what the situation is in regards to why they haven't turned in the money they are still responsible for paying. You should never deliver popcorn to a customer without getting payment at the same time! If that is what these families have done then this is a hard way to learn that lesson but they need to pay up!

If you have a copy of their order forms(and you should) someone needs to call these customers to find out if their popcorn has even been delivered. How terrible if they have paid the families but have no popcorn to show for it...or if they are waiting for their popcorn delivery and never get it(paid for or not). That cast a bad light on Cub Scouts in general and those people will be hesitant to order in the future from other Scouts.

My sons went door to door this year in our neighborhood selling popcorn and at school. We had one person move away and one leave the school so we were left paying for their popcorn but it was our responsibility to either pay for it or return it to the pack. We chose for our children to get credit for the popcorn sold.

If they won't return the popcorn or pay then it is just plain stealing and someone higher up than you needs to deal with it. Talk with the COR immediately and keep all paper records of any communication you have with them over this matter!

Sorry you are having to deal with this!

In our pack we never go anywhere without 4 Deep Leadership. Because in the event someone gets hurt or sick you need 2 to be able to drive the sick or injured child home and 2 to stay with the rest of the group at the activity.

In our pack we collect dues at the beginning of they year. $50 per scout due by the September pack meeting. If they have not paid dues by December when it is time to recharter then their son does not get rechartered and no longer earns advancements, belt loops, etc. We also have a policy in place where they can not pay for any trip or campout unless they have paid dues.

We started last year passing out invoices in November for those few families that had not yet paid dues. No one is singled out or embarrassed but we can let them know they still owe. That usually works!

We also tell people from the start that if the dues present a hardship for you to please let us know immediately. The sooner we know the sooner we can help!

Our pack does individual scout accounts for our Popcorn Fundraiser and this year we included our 2 pack yardsale funds in the scout accounts. When our pack sponsors the District pinewood derby and our Cake Auction at Blue and Gold we put all money raised in the General Fund. Yardsales and Cake Auctions are awesome because the profit is 100%. We made $3000 this year on yardsales and a cake auction! Good Luck!

If you really want to do the Readyman program contact your local PAID fire department. We have a Dad in our den who is a LT with the FD Search and Rescue...he set up our Readyman for our Webelos last year...it was Awesome!!

They will be able to provide equipment and demonstartions with trained personel to answer any and all questions...as well as show proper techniques for emergency situations.

The FD is used to doing these sorts of things all the time.

Is there anyway for you to add an Aquanat program? I know most of the Webelos in our area go to Resident Camp instead of Day Camp because of this specific reason. They are actually adding this to our Day Camp program this year!

Just a thought.....

Don't worry Lisabob i am not going anywhere! Matter of fact I have been lurking around for a while just enjoying the virtual campfire and coffee.

Hoping to become more of a regular poster....

Thanks everyone for jumping in on this one...i do appreciate it!

Sure did but in response to your comment prior. That was the comment I was referring to as rude but I am not going to get in a silly who said what argument with you. You obviously feel the need to try to point out the silly things in someones post to try to show how much you *think* you know about Scouting so from this point on I have nothing to "say" to you.

Eamonn thanks for your extremely well thought out post...I really appreciate your advice and input!

I know it makes no difference...just didn't appreciate your condescending tone.

And since I never referred to them as Webelos I and II I was pretty taken aback at your response and thought it was pretty rude.

Thanks Eagle92...Thankfully the parent is not the WDL! Good ideas!

evmori...It is fairly common to distinguish Webelos into I and II based on year and grade...especially in packs with large numbers of Webelos.

Good idea Nike...we have done that with a few projects like Letter writing to a friend or relatives.

Scoutldr that is what I dread seeing happen with this Scout. I know his Mom does all his school projects and homework for him also because my son was in class with her son once and she was constantly calling saying SHE didn't understand the homework! I would just tell her that we expected our son to take responsibility for his homework and we would only give help when needed which was not very often. I would hate for him to get Eagle "cheating". I just feel like if they are like this now what are they going to be like as adults? Just setting them up for trouble down the road, IMO.

LisaBob, I think the Scout gets it and wants to do it on his own but he is not given the opportunity. He seems embarrassed when before presenting a project when his Mom is like make sure you say this or do it this way....just sad!

Well first let me correct the use of the word "homework". They do not have weekly work to complete for den meetings. Some requirements have to be completed at home like family trees, family member requirements, etc. There are so things that can not be accomplised in the den.

In our den parents do not sign off on achievements the DL/ADL do that. How do you not approve a project that has been done by the parent (which is obvious because it has mommys handwriting all over it, and is perfectly neat lol)?

I do find it sort of entertaining that first I get told in an earlier post to have the Webelos become more independent in doing requirements to better prepare them for the Boy Scout system of Self Motivation to now being told we should be completing requirements in den meetings! Good thing our program is running very well with well trained leadership or we could be all confused following advice on this board lol!

On how you handle parents who so obviously do everything for their Scout. All the Webelos homework that has been given this year you can tell has not been done by the Scout but by his parent.

Is it our place to say Hey we know Little Johnny did not do that homework. I mean these are second year Webelos and the homework is not Rocket Science. When we give an assignment like a family tree we don't expect perfection just a good effort. We feel that this kid is going to have issues with two Helicopter parents in Troop.

Just curious on everyones thoughts.

Fortunately my husband will have some great Troop leaders to help him out. He actually commented to me after their first Webelos/Troop campout how nice it was to not have to do everything! The boys started their own fire, cooked their own dinner, slept at a seperate campsite etc!

He will still get plenty of time to "Be Large and In Charge" because he will also be our youngest sons Webelos I Den Leader next year. LOL!