mschwartz

It's easiest on a blackboard - when I was a kid, we had an actual wooden phone booth with a folding door and a seat in the house (my mother loved it, actual privacy for phone calls with no kids hanging on her arm - what is it about the phone anyhow that as soon as the mom makes a call, the kids appear out of nowhere needing things desperately and immediately??) and anyhow, the phone booth had a blackboard on the side for messages, which is where I learned the party trick. You start with your hands together and write "forwards" with your right hand and "backwards" with your left hand, sam

My father (who's a leftie) claims that I was supposed to be left-handed. My husband is left-handed. My younger son is left-handed. I sense a trend here... I write right-handed, but can write left-handed if the need arises (and can write with both hands at the same time, mirror-wise, as a party trick!). In my batting days, I was a switch-hitter. If I'm paddling a canoe, I prefer to paddle on the left. I am left-eyed (left is the dominant eye) which means archery, riflery, looking in a Mel-Temp, etc. is leftie. I play cards left-handed! (Haven't seen that one listed abov

Our town has three Packs, and we divvy up the town roughly using school districts. So our Pack has students from two public schools and at least three private/alternative schools. Given that variety, we don't even try to integrate school calendars into Pack activities; in fact, we run into more problems with townwide sports events (the Basketball Banquet was conflicting with our Blue & Gold Banquet, so we moved it!). The Pack has been around long enough (pushing 50 years) that we have a pretty good schedule worked out, and we tell parents WAAY in advance when different activities are going

I've used the second recipe above many times (although I just use equal parts Elmer's Glue and water). I disagree with the do not mix or stir part, though - I've always mixed/stirred and get great results! We call this one "Silly Putty" since it acts very similarly. I wouldn't call it both a solid and a liquid, though - you may be thinking of the cornstarch/water mixture that acts as a non-Newtonian solid (push your hand through it slowly, it behaves like a liquid; hit it hard, it behaves like a solid). That one generally goes by the name "Oobleck". A really slimy slime comes from u

College professor - main responsibility is teaching organic chemistry (I'm the bane of premeds everywhere! ;p) And in my "spare time" - mom of two Cub Scouts, den leader for five Tigers, newsletter editor, web diva, committee member...

All the den leaders in our Pack have been told that if we take our dens (or the Pack for that matter) on an outing outside of the town we live in, unless it is a specific Council/District activity organized by the Council/District, we absolutely need to file a tour permit. I don't think we've ever gotten the "accident waivers" (permission to treat, etc.) though.

My council just recently posted the links for online training - I've done both Fast Start for Cub Scouts (it comes in many different flavors, from Tiger Den Leader to Committee Member and lots in between) and the Youth Protection Training. Our Committee Chair was very excited to hear that YPT is online now as we've had a hard time getting people to do it because of the time required. I thought that both were very useful. If your council doesn't have it, ask them to look into it!

We have 80+ Scouts in our Pack, and so we use the better part of a Saturday to run our Pinewood Derby. The strategy we've used for a while now is to schedule the day so that (for instance) Tigers come check in at 9:00 (which involves both uniform inspection and weigh-in of the cars) and then start racing at 9:15 or 9:30 depending on how many there are. [staggered start times, as mentioned in another reply above.] We guesstimate the amount of time the races will take, then have the Wolves appear about a half hour before the Tigers will finish. And so on. That way we never have the entire Pack t

We have 80+ Scouts in our Pack, and so we use the better part of a day to run our Pinewood Derby. The strategy we've used for a while now is to schedule the day so that (for instance) Tigers come check in at 9:00 (which involves both uniform inspection and weigh-in of the cars) and then start racing at 9:15 or 9:30 depending on how many there are. We guesstimate the amount of time the races will take, then have the Wolves appear about a half hour before the Tigers will finish. And so on. That way we never have the entire Pack there at once, and the boys who are there are very focused on the ra

I just checked some of my bookmarks and found the following up and running: http://www.powwow-online.net/program/tigers/ http://www.pack846.org/Ranks/tiger.htm http://usscouts.org/advance/cubscout/tiger_electives.html http://www.kidsdomain.com/craft/_tiger.html http://www.geocities.com/~pack215/tiger.html http://www.creighton.edu/~bsteph/pack114/library/tiger/ Which Tiger Cub sites were you finding down? I'm always looking to add to my collection of bookmarks...

Not quite a font, but I did come across this website: http://usscouts.org/counterhowto.asp which has the numbers 0-9, just like on the uniforms, for use as counter digits... And http://www.ct-troop39.org/check.htm#FONTS has a number of Scout-specific fonts.

Our Pack does one (1) fundraiser - selling candy bars in September. That raises enough money to get us through the year with no problem. We frequently do a Bowl-A-Thon in March, but that doesn't benefit the Pack - all proceeds go to a designated "good cause" (this year it'll be to the educational fund for the three kids of a den leader who died suddenly this summer).

Yesterday was Scout Sunday in our parish (Catholic). They made a big deal of it this year - asked all Scouts who regularly attend Mass to come to the 9AM service, in uniform, including leaders. We all processed in (had about 20 Scouts, 7 or so leaders) and sat together. The priest did a special blessing for the leaders, and one of the Webelos received his Parvuli Dei (sp?) award. It was very nice, and went off quite smoothly. Nice to have Scouting appreciated!

Also from the Minuteman Council, Boston MA. We're keeping him in our thoughts and prayers. Marietta

Well, our Pack gives patches to anyone who participates in things like: Pinewood Derby (we have a design contest for that patch), Spring Hike, Fall Hike (design contests for those patches too). Scout Days at the Circus gives a patch; Scout Day at the Red Sox gives a patch; the Celtics give a patch when the Scouts go... Plus there's a Reading Patch, not the Boys Life one (I saw the patch at the Scout Store yesterday): Tigers: Obtain a library card from your local library. Read three books or have someone read three books of your choice to you. Read a book of your choice with y

Please add me to the distribution list for the stories! Sounds like a great idea.

We have a four-lane wooden track, made by a parent about ten years ago. It's holding up pretty well. We use a "three-times-and-you're-out" system - an electronic sensor at the finish line determines the order of finish (we don't time them), and cars 3 and 4 get an 'X'. Each car continues to race until it has accumulated three X's, then it's out. It works pretty well. In the past, lane assignment has been random - we now have a couple of volunteers working on a system that would make sure that every car essentially races on every lane, to be sure things are as fair as possible. We've had v

I didn't plan one, but did attend one! It was held on Saturday, October 5, at Drumlin Farm in Lincoln, MA. This was the first one that the Patriot District (of the Minuteman Council) had done, so there were a few glitches along the way, but the boys had a ball. They were broken up into groups and each group did an activity, then they switched. Activities that I can remember included: feeding the chickens and letting them outside (and gathering eggs); pulling carrots in the garden and learning about seeds; digging for worms in the compost bin and learning about compost/recycling; carding wool;

We do a few different things in the fall - we clean up the leaves at the church where the Pack meetings are held (they're the sponsoring organization) - this can happen anywhere from October to December, depending on the weather and the trees. We also do a Toys for Tots collection at our holiday party in December, as well as going to area nursing homes to sing carols. Our food pantry drive is usually at the November meeting.

Our December meeting is always a Holiday Party. Groups of the Scouts go caroling at area nursing homes, then we all meet back at the hall for pizza and fun. We generally have some sort of entertainment (a clown, a juggler, Yo-Yo Man, something like that) and try to focus on just having a good time. Families are invited, and the Pack pays. This year we're asking people to bring a plate of holiday goodies to share for dessert. It's great.

Hi all - I have a Bear Cub Scout in my house this year (plus a Tiger, but he's easy) and we're trying to figure something out. Throughout the Achievements section of the book, each piece has a signature line and then a place to check "Bear Credit" or "Arrow Point Credit". So my question is this. If he does something, for instance 9e, Make some trail food for a hike, twice (he thought the trail mix was fantastic and begged to make it again), can we count it once towards his Bear badge and again for Elective, or is it one or the other? I'm sure all the experts out there will be able to expl

Back to the original question... My husband carries the Swiss Army knife with the tweezers, corkscrew, and toothpick - and has it ever come in handy on any number of occasions! I have a smaller version of the Swiss Army knife that lives in a zippered pocket of my purse, and a faux version (handed out by our campus Environmental Health & Safety people at a training session) in my desk drawer. We both have to remember to leave them behind whenever travelling, but that has gotten fairly ingrained. He's in Toronto right now, and the knife is on the kitchen counter, patiently waiting

Anyone else have opinions on this? We're also beginning the search for a software package - have identified Packmaster, Rank-N-File, and Scout RecordKeeper as regular software possibilities, and scouttrack.com as a potential online alternative. I can see pluses and minuses to both directions, and would love to hear some of your experiences.

Our local office gave out a new CD with games on it this year - our Pack decided only to give it to the new Tigers (we test-ran it on some older kids and they thought it was too "babyish" but the Tigers loved it). It has three animated characters. You click on the Tiger (whose name is "T.C.") and you do Tiger Cub stuff. Click on Akela the Wolf, you do Wolf stuff. Click on Baloo the Bear, you do Bear stuff. So it appears that while all Cub Scouts still do "Follow Akela" (and the Bear book, for instance, still has Akela signing off on stuff), at least on this CD they've got a different iden

Another source (while you're trying to find the paper book) is the Virtual Cub Scout Leader's Handbook - it has a whole section on leader roles and responsibilities, including Committee Chairperson and Pack Committee Functions. Look at http://www.geocities.com/~pack215/leadership.html -Marietta