OwntheNight

SWEET! Our troop will be able to upload their photos to our troop website for all our families to see. Good News!

Our troop and pack both do term limits for our Scoutmaster and Cubmaster(3yrs SM, 2yrs CM) This is my first year in the troop and our SM is starting his final year, so I'm interested in watching the vetting process take place. I've been with the pack for 2 years, so we just went through our CM change, and all is going well as our new CM puts her mark on the program. Watching the new CM take over has been a seamless transition since we prepared for this a year ago and were able to identify the new CM quickly. Next year we'll start the process again for tabbing a new CM. (Full disclosure alert) Yes, I have been approached informally about taking over after this term ends. I've read a lot of posts about SM's or CM's staying longer than they had wanted to or SM's and CM's leaving abruptly without a replacement in their back pocket. I do like the idea of term limits because it does force us as a group to be looking toward the future in identifying and training future leadership. I also think it gives us a change of pace and to bring fresh perspective to the program we deliver. I do understand the other side of the equation, having a SM or CM serve long term is like having a stable rudder that guides the course. You know what to expect in commitment, leadership styles, etc. So, what do you think, To term or not? What does your unit do? Your time starts ....NOW

"If you build it,they will come" I agree with Eagle92 that you're doing a great job trying to change the culture and tradition of your pack. It's not an overnight thing, you're seeing the results of your efforts so far. You've mentioned you have a good size pack, how is your district's day camp program? Is the pack active in day camp? What about Webelos resident camp? With the numbers you talked about showing up for these 2 events, it sounds like you have some scouts and parents who are interested in keeping the boys active with scouting throughout the summer. You have a great opportunity, maybe your families' vacation budgets are a little tighter this year, and they're looking for more family based fun. If the boys start talking to each other about what they did with the pack over the summer, you will see the results. If you strongly believe in the summer program ,start talking to your leadership about changing the program, and getting their input on different activities.Even though the committee decides the program for the year, the BOYS look to you as their leader. Why do we do this, FOR THE BOYS!

Gem, Fun,Fun,and more Fun. The wolf year is a great year! This is the year that boys get to put their hands on a lot of things, and there is still plenty of time for getting requirements completed. This is my second go round with a wolf den, and I look forward to this year a lot. Think outside the box for activities, you've been given a lot of good resources so far, use them all. These boys are like sponges, they can't get enough!!Good Luck this year.

Right now we are at about 50 active boys. Our pack covers the boys from 4 of the 5 elementary schools on our side of town. That's actually how I found this pack, I was the CM for a pack that had just graduated 3/4 of the boys and parents into Boy Scouts, so our numbers dropped to about 5 boys spread out over 3 age groups. I ended up being the Wolf and Bear DL, plus the CM...Not a good situation to be in. I knew I couldn't deliver a quality program myself, and found this other troop surprisingly, through our CO, of all places. It turns out our CO had 2 cub scout packs and a troop. Same meeting place for the boys, the only thing that changed was the number on our sleeve. It worked out great for everybody. The boys have friends all around the area, our leadership is top notch, and we have a great program in place for the boys. It just cuts our recruiting efforts a little thin since all the schools do JSN on the same night. What a good problem to have. Our district has some greatly varied numbers in packs. There are some "Super Packs" with well over 100 active boys and some smaller packs that have 15-20 boys.

Fish, Create the page as a "GROUP" page, not a business or fan page. You have much better control over how much content goes out to Facebook land. I created a group page for our pack and I am the admin for it.If anybody wants to see the contents of the page, I get a request for it and approve it as needed. You can limit the amount of information being sent out on general FB searches by the settings. As I find "Friends" within the pack, I can send the Group page info to them. Our CC set up a fan page through FB, but she wasn't thrilled with it because of having to log out of her FB acct to get into it. I can stay logged in my acct and still see the group info.I set my search settings so that it wasn't on general searches, you have to do some serious searching to find our page. I've only had 1 person that wasn't a part of the pack ask to join the group, he was trying to join 3 or 4 cub scout groups. Needless to say, he was DENIED! Good Luck with it

Ed, We just talked about this at our pack planning meeting last week. We are going to have the incoming Tiger partners take YPT since they will be with all the boys in the den. We are also going to strongly encourage all parents to take YPT so they have a better understanding of what we are doing as leaders. Hopefully, we can recruit some additional leadership out of this or at the least , get some more parents involved in Scouting. If we can get everybody on the same page, it should help us grow stronger as a unit.

Just posted to my facebook page. Thanks for the article.

Nicky, First and foremost, my thoughts and prayers are with you and your family. Nobody should have to endure that amount of pain. I applaud your efforts to rise up and honor your family in this fashion. It takes courage and strength to stand up to adversity and turmoil. Hopefully your crew mates and leaders are giving you all the support they can. As far as the pins on the uniform go. It only matters to YOU! (caps for emp)You honor their spirit on your uniform, that's how you choose to. The uniform police are not going to come and take away your uniform because you choose to remember your mother and brother with a couple of pins. I'm sure a couple of people will say that according to BSA rules, it is not allowed. Guess what, those people aren't in your shoes right now. What you could use is empathy, support, or even a good shoulder to cry on if needed. I hope you find peace soon. Family and friends are the best place to find that. Hopefully, the other members in this forum can provide comfort for you as well. Best Wishes.

Eagledad You're onto something! Where did the art of conversation go? Some of my best times in scouting and just growing up were the chats with my buddies about random useless knowledge. It's those conversations that led to other questions or arguments for that matter. Marvel vs DC, Ford vs Chevy vs Dodge, John or Paul, F-14 vs Mig 29,Earl Campbell vs Jim Brown, etc...I would spend hours reading books, magazines, album covers and sleeves just so I could have a spirited conversation with my buddies. We didn't have the benefit of googling a topic on our iphone to find out who was right or wrong. That's what made it so great!I learned more about life talking to my friends than anything.A typical conversation I hear while driving the boys to a campout involve finding the secret passage at level 23 which simultaneously opens the vortex to level 31 and releases the power key for this alien boss. HUH!!! Or the conversation is deathly quiet because they're all listening to the their ipods (Yes, we make them either turn them in or keep them in the cars while at camp)Hey, I love technology as much as the next person. ( having my entire music catalog on something the size of a deck of cards, AWESOME)I really enjoy listening to the boys when they do untether from the outside world and get the creative juices flowing for true Theater of the mind. I wish it would just happen more often for their sakes because this should be the time of their lives. I keep a quote in my locker at work that says "Most boys will value something they do with their Dad, and they'll have an experience they'll value for the rest of their lives. If you show them how to beat the next level on the Xbox, it won't last the rest of their lives." This sits right above my sons pictures so I'm reminded why I do what I do every day.

Is it so much "taking the summer off" or trying to cut back some activities throughout the summer? It's been discussed here before about the over scheduling of kids and how we're competing with other activities. I used to play baseball in the spring/summer, basketball and soccer in the fall. I can now sign my sons up to play ANY sport year round if I choose to and if I include the numerous amount of "camps" i.e. basketball, baseball, football, hockey, etc. I could literally schedule my sons entire summer vacation if I chose to. Thank goodness I can't afford all those camps.I told the parents in my den that I wouldn't have den meetings this summer, but the pack has created enough opportunities through the summer to get everybody together as a pack. We have 3 scheduled pack activities for June -August, and a couple of activities that families can come and go as they please. As far as our troop activities this summer, well. this is a strange year for us. We are about to have our last troop meeting and COH of the 09-10 year. Why...Our boys just got back from summer camp, We have 2 separate crew treks to Sea Base this year, 1 trek to Philmont, and our contingent of around 40 or so going to Jambo this year. Our troop is just spread thin around the country to try and get them all together for a campout. Oh, they also did their canoeing campout the first weekend of this month. Hopefully next summer won't be so hectic so the PLC can plan some summer activities

It's moments like that which make you believe you're doing something right with these boys. Thank you for that great story!

Got to agree with NC. Donate them to the pack, let the Webelos use them on the Web only campouts. Remember, you are now transitioning them to join a boy scout troop where they will be in a tent with their patrol mates. How empowered will they feel when they get to set up their own tent and sleep in it without Mom or Dad in it? Save the competition stuff for the program year. A good pie in the face of the DL for beltloops or activity pins earned can be a great motivator for the boys. They'll remember that moment more than winning a tent for scout spirit or attendance. Have them create a den flag at the beginning of the year, and then award the flag to one of the scouts at the end of the year for whatever criteria you want. Sometimes it's not about the "stuff" they get, but the memories they'll remember forever.

A few things jump out from this that raise some flags: How does the pack leadership feel about this situation?, Are they aware that one of their den leaders is changing the rules for his benefit? It sounds like Scoutnet will catch the age, but what happens when the dad spends the next year working with his younger son on Wolf activities and then Scoutnet rejects those entries because they should be Tiger Cub entries. He's taken an entire program year, just to have it rejected by Scoutnet, and then the boy misses out on the opportunity to earn his Tiger Badge legitimately. I'm sure the father means well, but maybe somebody in the pack needs to get him signed up for leader specific training or at least a refresher course so he understands the program that is being delivered is actually age specific. Also, Just thinking ahead... When the younger son is in 2nd grade and the bear den is working on their wittling chip, Is the dad going to let the younger one do it as well? I took our Webelos to resident camp last summer and I noticed a huge difference in the maturity level of our soon to be 5th graders as compared to our soon to be 4th graders. How is that going to play out when they hit Webelos with a soon to be 3rd grader trying to mingle in with soon to be 4th graders. Hope everything works out for you

Was coming home yesterday from the troop meeting with my son, and I noticed he was more subdued than usual. After some coaxing and prodding, my son tells me he heard one of his patrol members tell another patrol member when we came in the building, this other scout pointed to the both of us and said " Those two are idiots". Knowing the scout who said this, I dismissed it as an 11 yr old trying to show off to his buddies, and began explaining to my son the whole "sticks and stones" theory. I was then greeted by an emphatic "That's not FAIR, Dad!" I finally ask my son what he would like to see happen to this other Scout because of what he said. " I want him kicked out of the Troop" At this point, ASM radar shuts off and Dad radar comes on. There is something more to this, than just name calling. I am finally able to get out of my son that this is the third incident he's had with this other scout. The first happened on a campout about 2 months ago, when both boys had an argument about the sleeping arrangements in the patrol tent. Apparently, this other scout kicked my son in the back and then my son supposedly kicked him back in the leg. (This is the information I've gotten from my son, so No, I don't have all the facts, I understand this) The other scout got out of the tent and told the PL and APL that my son kicked him. PL and APL ask to see his leg and scout shows them a scar. Both the PL and APL tell this scout if he had been kicked, there would have been a mark or a bruise of some sort. This scout finally said that my son didn't kick him, and the PL gave him a fair punishment by making him pack my son's bag and gear from the weekend. Thrilled from an ASM stand point that the boys took care of it themselves. The second incident happened on the last campout ( which I didn't attend)when this scout (according to my son) came up and hit him in the head, not hard enough to hurt him, and quick enough that nobody saw him do it either. As an ASM, I'm supposed to be a role model for living the scout oath and law. As a father, I can't stand back and not stand up for my child. He needs to know I have his back, because that's what we do as parents. My dilemma is this: My son enjoys scouting, I don't want him to get a bad taste for it and then decide he doesn't want to do this anymore because of this boy. On the other hand, knowing the situation this other boy is in (family issues,hyperactivity)I know this boy needs myself and the rest of the troop to be an inner circle for him in finding his purpose in life. He needs scouting now, he just doesn't realize it yet. I recognize this behavior as a call for attention, It just stinks that my son has to be the object of this attention. I decided to talk with a good friend, who is an ASM in the troop also, and explained the situation. He thought that this was inappropriate behavior for any scout and would contact the SM for his opinion. My ASM buddy called back and said that he and the SM would monitor the situation and speak with all the patrol's about behavior like this. This is unacceptable for any scout of any age. Sounds like a scoutmaster minute in the works.They also want to stress the importance of working together as a team. ASM also asked to talk to my son, and told him that if the situation happens again on a scout function, he needed to find any of the ASM's or the SM and let them know what happened. He also told me they might talk to the father of this scout to reiterate what they are trying to do as leaders for the troop. The next step will probably be a SMC with the boy if needed. I'm OK with the outcome. I don't want to see two kids lose the opportunity that scouting provides. It is definitely a fine line between ASM and Dad. Thanks for letting me get this out by the campfire.

BSA has issued the requirements for the new Heritage MB today. Here they are: Requirements 1. Discuss with your counselor the life and times of Lord Baden-Powell of Gilwell. Explain why he felt a program like Scouting would be good for the young men of his day. Include in your discussion how Scouting was introduced in the United States, and the origins of Boy Scouting and Cub Scouting under Baden-Powell. 2. Do the following: 1. Give a short biographical sketch of any TWO of the following, and tell of their roles in how Scouting developed and grew in the United States prior to 1940. 1. Daniel Carter Beard 2. William D. Boyce 3. Waite Phillips 4. Ernest Thompson Seton 5. James E. West 2. Discuss the significance to Scouting of any TWO of the following: 1. Brownsea Island 2. The First World Scout Jamboree 3. Boy Scout Handbook 4. Boys Life magazine 3. Discuss with your counselor how Scoutings programs have developed over time and been adapted to fit different age groups and interests (Cub Scouting, Boy Scouting, Exploring, Venturing). 4. Do ONE of the following: 1. Attend either a BSA national jamboree, OR world Scout jamboree, OR a national BSA high-adventure base. While there, keep a journal documenting your day-to-day experiences. Upon your return, report to your counselor what you did, saw, and learned. You may include photos, brochures, and other documents in your report. 2. Write or visit the National Scouting Museum in Irving, Texas.* Obtain information about this facility. Give a short report on what you think the role of this museum is in the Scouting program. * *If you visit the BSAs national traveling tour, Adventure Base 100, in 2010, you may use this experience to fulfill requirement 4b. Visit www.adventurebase100.org (with your parents permission) for the schedule and for more information. 5. Learn about the history of your unit or Scouting in your area. Interview at least two people (one from the past and one from the present) associated with your troop. These individuals could be adult unit leaders, Scouts, troop committee members, or representatives of your troops chartered organization. Find out when your unit was originally chartered. Create a report of your findings on the history of your troop, and present it to your patrol or troop or at a court of honor, and then add it to the troops library. This presentation could be in the form of an oral/written report, an exhibit, a scrapbook, or a computer presentation such as a slide show. 6. Make a collection of some of your personal patches and other Scouting memorabilia. With their permission, you may include items borrowed from family members or friends who have been in Scouting in the past, or you may include photographs of these items. Show this collection to your counselor, and share what you have learned about items in the collection. (There is no requirement regarding how large or small this collection must be.) 7. Reproduce the equipment for an old-time Scouting game such as those played at Brownsea Island. You may find one on your own (with your counselors approval), or pick one from the Scouting Heritage merit badge pamphlet. Teach and play the game with other Scouts. 8. Interview at least three people (different from those you interviewed for requirement 5) over the age of 50 who were Scouts. Find out about their Scouting experiences. Ask about the impact that Scouting has had on their lives. Share what you learned with your counselor.

It's not on your list of activities, but our troop decided they wanted to go Ziplining for a fun campout. You have Lake Tawakoni listed as a campsite, we stayed there for the weekend. We drove to Canton (about 30 min. from the state park) and spent the day out at the Zip line course. It was an absolute blast. They have the tallest and longest ziplines in Texas. The owners and staff out there were great to work with, everybody has to go through safety training and if somebody is uncomfortable, they do not pressure that person to get on the line. Do a google search for Wired Zip Line, Canton, TX

Swimming and First Aid at my first summer camp. Swimming was my favorite because I was able to qualify for Lifeguard training and then spent the next summer sitting in the tower working on my tan.

E92: Our theme this year is CSI:Cub Scout Investigations. I was thinking I could do the David Caruso glasses with dramatic pauses and cheesy one liners in between announcements, maybe a little "WHO" in the background? We've got a costume store down the street, I was going to see if they had a Sherlock Holmes hat and overcoat. One of our running jokes between camps is that pirates always show up trying to make it a pirate fest, usually in defeat, but the boys get a good laugh out of it. Love the Star Wars idea..."Try not, Do you must"

Whichever one I can find, since I'm usually running out the door trying to get Tigerson or Scoutson into the car to head out without being late But seriously, the rotation right now is my new FOS hat (our council is doing special editions, with each year being dedicated to the 12 pts. We're on friendly now)A baseball cap I picked up at Philmont, My Wood Badge patrol hat, with Philmont brandings on it, or a CSDC hat that resembles the state flag of Texas. For the troop, I wear the official troop baseball cap. For COH and B/G, I wear my official Wood Badge Resistol straw cowboy hat. I am looking for a good summer hat for my stint as Cubmaster of day camp, something that will stand out, not just another baseball cap...Any suggestions? maybe my Jack Sparrow 3 point? sorry, thinking out loud again

Thank you for that truly moving story. Thoughts and prayers from North Texas

Took my Woodbadge course last Summer out at Philmont, It was a week long course. Our project took place on Thursday after we hiked from Tent City to RMSC. We knew going to the "outdoor" portion of Woodbadge, that we would be presenting our project to the troop at that time. With that in mind, we knew we had to make our project mobile and easy to set up, with all patrol members carrying parts of the project in our packs.Nothing was done to accomodate us because of the shorter time to prepare. Our patrol figured out real quickly, after the first day, that we were in for a time crunch. We decided to use the "time management" technique. Go to cracker barrel, make a quick apperance, then head back to our classroom to work on our projects. Maybe, only 1 trip through the line at lunch, then back to the classroom for more project fun. We broke our projects up into 3 mini projects, since we were also designing our totem, and patrol flag at the same time. We had no lack of access to materials. The classrooms at Philmont are WiFi enabled now, somewhat slow though, but we could still get online for any info we needed to look up. Our council provided us a small library of scouting resources to use as we needed. As far as the challenges of a week long course, that's what made it so great. Our patrol had to NSFP in a hurry or we all were sunk. It really brought the 7 of us together and made us better friends for life and made us a great patrol for that week. Always a Beaver Ron

First off Axe, I raise my Nalgene, and give you a hearty, HERE,HERE! Congrats on finishing your ticket items, very well deserved. This is a great achievement and you should be acknowledged for it, not just passed out with membership cards and training materials. What I was told during my course, is that after the TG approves the items, the TG contacts the SPL who then contacts the recipent to arrange for a proper beading ceremony. If it was important enough for you to take Wood Badge, it should be important for somebody to properly acknowledge your accomplishments. Ron Always a Beaver 3 of 5 tickets done

Looking forward to our B/G this coming Sat. Catered BBQ (including cleanup )All of our cubs have been decorating birthday boxes for the table centerpieces, they have the filled those boxes with age appropriate toys and toiletries. Local dentists have been donating toothbrushes and toothpaste to us. After B/G, we will be delivering all boxes to a local charity that assists underpriveledged and homeless children. Everyone deserves a birthday present, even if it's not their birthday. We will have the obligatory rank advancements for all dens. Our Web II DL is pulling out the OA headdress and the portable fire for an interesting show. We are also having a couple of the young men who graduated from this pack, who literally had their ECOH 3 days ago, come back and talk to our boys. We are also doing the WEB II slideshow recap. We've got 15 WEB II's who all have earned AOL, so we're planning on not having a dry eye in the house. This B/G is bittersweet for me, since WEB II son...sorry, SCOUTson now is officially crossing over to the Troop, but Tigerson will earn his Tiger badge and I know I still have 4 more years of Cubs and am now pulling double duty with Troop and Pack. Should be alot of fun.