Beagle Scout

How about the speech by Forest E. Witcraft that ends, "A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove. But the world may be different, because I was important in the life of a boy."

I used this last year to make up nice certificates thanking parents for helping out in the Tiger den (shared leadership).

The full text of the speech may be found here:

http://www.scoutingaround.com/boy_scouts/power/index.php

It probably varies by council, but I am able to turn in tour permits the same day as the event. I usually just take it into the office myself during my lunch break, and the secretary processes it while I wait. If needed, I could fax it in and presumably get it back in a couple hours.

My council does not require listing cars and drivers if everyone is driving their own kids, which is common in our pack.

As for the reason tour permits exist, I always thought it was so the council could review trip plans to make sure the activities are following BSA rules and guidelines. It also provides a record of what unit was where when, so if someone calls the council, hopefully with positive comments rather than complaints, the office can forward those messages to the appropriate people.

I'm with Wingnut--why would you not?

In the training I received, we were given the guidance that a tour permit is appropriate whenever we are going somewhere other than our regular meeting place. I call this "guidance" because I don't remember it being put forth as a rule or policy, just a good idea. The way it was put to us, the council likes to know what the units are up to, and it gives them a record if someone calls the Scout office to comment on the Scouts they encountered out and about.

Our district gives out "Tired Boot" awards every year to the most active pack and troop as measured by the number of tour permits filed. The awards are actual, beat-up old boots mounted on stands like trophies. Our pack received the award last year, and we use it during our spring and fall recruiting drives to show that we are an active pack that does a lot of fun activities.

I was the Tiger den leader for our pack last year; this year I am the Wolf den leader. I am also active at the pack level (popcorn kernel, webmaster, unofficial assistant cubmaster).

During the school year, we have 3 den meetings or 2 den meetings and 1 outing every month, plus the pack meeting, except during school holidays (Thanksgiving week, Christmas break, spring break). This does not include special pack events such as Trailblazer Day (day camp), Scouting for Food, district first aid meet, pinewood derby, conservation projects, and fishing derby. I guess you could say we have an active pack!

We slow down a bit during the summer. My den meets once a month, and the pack has at least one activity every month. Last summer our pack had a park fun day and ice cream social, a private party at our local water slide park, and a pack campout. We also enjoy all the events put on by the council, including family camps, resident camps, day camp, and campout at our local minor league baseball stadium.

At our Cub Scout Leader Pow Wow last year, we made quivers of arrows. Just a small square of leather or suede folded in half and glued, with three of the long toothpicks with the colored cellophane (like are used on deli sandwiches) sticking out for the arrows. Glue a ring of PVC to the back and there you go!

I am thinking of doing these in my Wolf den this year....

The last two years, our pack has paid $50 toward camp for any family that sells $500 or more of popcorn.

This year, we have added more levels to reward the families that go way above and beyond. At $750, the pack will put $75 in the Scout''s account, and at $1000, the pack will put $100 in the Scout''s account. For every $250 above $1000, the pack will put in an additional $50. There is no ceiling. The account may be used to pay for Scouting events or to purchase items at the Scout Shop. Any funds in the Scouts account will be transferred to a troop when the boy crosses over into Boys Scouts. However, if the boy leaves Scouting and there are any funds in his account, the funds will go back to the pack.

Not to mention that the Tiger Track beads are not a permanent recognition like the arrow points (the Tiger Cub totem comes off when the Progress Toward Ranks goes on).

Why are the boys only wearing the hat 15-20 times? In our pack, the boys wear their uniforms to weekly den meetings three times a month and to the monthly pack meeting. In addition, there are other events like the popcorn sale, Scouting for Food, first aid meet, Scouting anniversary, pinewood derby, conservation project, and summer camps. I can count at least 50 separate days during the coming year that we will be asking our Scouts to wear their uniforms.

This is my first year as district popcorn kernel, but it is my third as pack popcorn kernel. Every year during popcorn sale training we have been told by our council that there are no such things as sales territories. In fact, the research shows that the majority of people who have already purchased popcorn will buy again if asked. I have even heard about units that cooperate together so that after one unit covers an area, the other can go in and hit the area again!

Our pack sells Trail's End popcorn as our only fundraiser, and the last couple of years we have done very well. We have been able to achieve 100% participation without having a minimum sales level or an opt out fee. Instead, we focus on overcoming objections and rewarding participation. For example, if a parent does not want to help, we ask permission for one of the leaders to take the boy along with his or her own son when they go out. In addition, we have a sales blitz on the first day of the sale with a party afterwards, and every boy that participates gets a prize. Nobody wants to miss out on that!

Follow My Leader by James B. Garfield is a great book that I read as a boy and rediscovered when my son joined Cub Scouts. It is about a Boy Scout that is injured by a firecracker and how he works through the challenges of being blind, working with his guide dog, and forgiving the other boy who threw the explosive.

Is it possible the date and time of the den meetings could be changed to accomodate the family whose son plays football?

This is a subject that I am passionate about!

I understand that different communities have different demographics, so the products may be too expensive for some people. However, I would highly encourage everyone to give the sale a chance. I truly believe it can work, and work well, if it is done the right way. Yes, the popcorn is too expensive to sell in front of a store. However, research has shown that it sells very well door-to-door. If you provide the right incentives to the boys and their families, they will participate in the sale and do great. Here's our pack's success story:

When my older son was a Tiger, our pack sold $2900 in popcorn with approximately 25-30 boys participating in the sale. Due to confusion on how the sale was to be run, my son and I got a late start in the sale. We had heard that the pack had ordered some popcorn in advance and thought the pack was going to arrange times to sit in front of a store to sell it, but it turned out all that popcorn was given to the Webelos because the popcorn kernel did not believe that any other Scouts could get it sold. My son and I ended up taking orders for about $350 of popcorn in the last two weeks of the sale.

The next year, I volunteered to be the pack popcorn kernel. I figured if my son and I could sell $350 of popcorn in two weeks, we could do at least $700 during a full month of sales, and if the other families were motivated they would participate more, too. We implemented a simple incentive program in addition to the Trail's End prizes. The pack paid $50 toward summer camp for any boy who sold over $500 in popcorn, and the top seller in each den got to throw a whipped cream pie in the Cubmaster's face. Five boys qualified for the summer camp discount that year, and the pack sold $6900 in popcorn. With about 30 boys participating in the sale, the average sales per boy were approximately $250, which is right about the national average. It was a good sale, but I knew we could do better.

Last year, we set a higher goal for the pack. We decided to focus on Show and Deliver (door-to-door sales with immediate delivery), so we pre-ordered $10,000 of popcorn. We started with a sales blitz from 9:00 to noon the first day of the sale followed by an after-blitz party with pizza and pop for everyone who participated. I bought about $200 in prizes ranging from $20 value down to $5, and the boys picked what they wanted in order of their blitz sales, highest to lowest. Every boy got a prize, regardless of how much or how little he sold during the blitz. We had excellent turnout for the event (nearly 100%), and our total for just the first three hours of the sale was over $4500.

We again offered $50 toward camp for any boy who sold over $500 in popcorn, plus we gave any boy who sold over $1000 a gift card to the Scout Shop for the full amount of the pack's commission on the amount sold over $1000. We added additional prizes for the top three sellers at the midpoint of the sale, and we offered prizes at the end of the sale to the two boys who sold to the most customers and to the two boys who made the largest single sales. We also awarded a $100 den party to the den with the highest average sales per boy, and the top seller in each den got to throw a whipped cream pie in the Cubmaster's face. All of this was in addition to the Trail's End prizes. We had 100% participation in the sale, and even though we had the same number of boys participate as the previous year, with the added incentives the average sales per boy rose to about $430. The pack's final sales total was just under $14,000.

We do not let families opt out of the sale. It is not just about the money. Sales is an important thing for everyone to learn. All professions have some aspect of sales to them, whether it is actually taking money for a product or representing yourself or your ideas for acceptance by others (job interviews, anyone?).

We have never had a minimum sales quota, nor do we have pack dues beyond the yearly registration fee. Even when our sales were not that good, we had enough money to run the pack. We just scaled back the program to match our funds. I must say, we had an incredible program last year due to the extra money we had from the popcorn sale. The pack paid for Boy's Life, pinewood derby cars, and pack T-shirts for all the boys, plus we had a private party for all the pack families at our local waterslide park and we're doing a pack campout later this month.

If anyone wants more information about what we did or how it worked, please let me know. I am more than happy to help!

I do not have any of the original B-P ashes, but at Wood Badge a couple weeks ago we each received a container of ashes from the campfire with a printed history similar to the one I linked to earlier in this discussion. According to the history I received, my ashes go back to the Second World Scout Jamboree in Ermelund, Denmark, in 1924.

I would encourage you to start your own ashes tradition, keeping the ashes from your campfires and recording their history. Eventually you will get the opportunity to mix your ashes with someone else's, probably at a major event, and then you can combine your ashes' history with the other ashes' history. With luck, you might be able to work the history until it can be traced all the way back to the original B-P ashes. Whether you get there or not, the main thing is that the Scouts at each campfire have shared the spirit of Scouting with all those who have gone before.

Check out

http://www.bsatrainer.org/Ashes/ASHES%20Opening.html

Do your dens do songs and skits at your pack meetings? In our pack, each den is encouraged to do some sort of presentation. Here is what our Tiger den has done this year:

November (Cubs in Shining Armor)

During the month of November, the boys and I made knight helmets (from the Cleveland Museum of Art website http://www.clevelandart.org/kids/art/haveago/armor.html) using different colored poster board. At the pack meeting, each of us introduced ourselves using the color of our helmets and one of the core values, such as "I am the Blue Knight, Sir David the Helpful." After all the introductions, we sang "We Are Knights" (from Baloo's Bugle).

February (Aloha Cub Scouting)

For our Blue and Gold banquet in February, the boys and I wore Hawaiian shirts and sunglasses and sang "Superwavehawaiiansurfer" (from Baloo's Bugle).

March (Baloo Skies)

During the month of March, the boys worked on earning their Weather belt loops. Before the pack meeting, I handed out index cards to several people in the audience with the beginnings of weather-related jokes on them. During the pack meeting, I explained to the audience that the boys were now weather experts and would demonstrate their knowledge by answering weather-related questions from the audience. I then called on the people I had previously given the cards to, they read their cards, and the boys delivered the punchlines.

April (Cub Cafe)

During the month of April, the boys made chef hats (from the FamilyFun.com website http://jas.familyfun.go.com/arts-and-crafts?page=CraftDisplay&craftid=10587) and learned three songs:

- Gopher Guts (from Baloo's Bugle)

- Roadkill Stew (from the Boy Scout Trail website http://www.boyscouttrail.com/content/song/song-1323.asp)

- Chicken Lips and Lizard Hips (aka Mamas Soup Surprise from Baloo's Bugle)

For the pack meeting, I pretended to be a TV reporter interviewing a group of Cub Scout chefs who had just opened a new restaurant. I asked the boys questions and they responded by singing one of the gross food songs. After each question and song response, I pretended to be more and more disgusted until finally I ended the interview.

May (Cubs & Bugs Galore)

During the month of May, the boys will be making bug puppets from paper bags, and at the pack meeting, the boys will do a puppet show with the puppets telling bug jokes to each other.

The requirement is to visit a television station, radio station, or newspaper office and find out how people there communicate with others. I don't remember anything that says it has to include a weather forecast.

Talk to last year's Tiger den leader and find out what they did to satisfy the requirement. Maybe he or she has a contact you can use.

Be sure to look into every possible location. Don't forget the public TV (PBS) and radio stations and the smaller newspapers. For example, here in Spokane we have a daily newspaper but there is also a free weekly paper and a bi-weekly business journal. Checking out the high schools and colleges is also a good idea.

I would think that the meeting time would be set by the den leader, not the committee. I would also hope that the den leader would take everyone's schedules into account when setting up den meetings and Go See Its. Seven o'clock does seem a bit late to start, though. Our Tiger meetings start at 6:30 and are scheduled to finish in an hour, but sometimes we run long.

My Tiger den is just finishing up our first month of shared leadership. I did the first couple of months to get everyone used to things, then I approached my most excited parent and asked for help with this month. I provided her with a printed copy of the Program Helps and this month's Baloo's Bugle (see below) and told her to look through them for ideas, then we met for an hour and planned out the month's activities together. Other than providing some support and starting and closing the meetings, she did everything, and she did a great job! She's already "volunteered" one of the other parents for next month, and I fully expect that parent to do just as well. Of course, I'll do whatever I can to help the parents be successful, but the important thing is to get them to take some ownership of the program. After all, I hope that most of these parents will take on roles in other areas of the pack sooner or later.

Program Helps

http://www.scouting.org/cubscouts/resources/34304/index.html

Baloo's Bugle

http://usscouts.org/usscouts/bbugle.asp

Regarding sales tax on Scout shop purchases, this must vary state to state. Our local Scout shop here in Spokane, Washington, charges sales tax on purchases.

Sorry, my earlier post should have said that the Inland Northwest Council offers the 11oz. tin of caramel corn with peanuts for $8 (not $7).

My understanding is that product mix and pricing is determined by the council. For example, the Inland Northwest Council offers an 11oz. tin of caramel corn with peanuts for $7. We sell plenty of these as well as the more expensive tins and boxes of microwave popcorn.

For continuity sake, could you just add another digit in front of your current unit number? For example, if your pack is Pack 234, your new troop number could be 1234.

I actually just learned this song a couple months ago at day camp when the Boy Scouts taught it to the Cubs. I later found the words (not exactly what we learned but close) at this site:

http://www.scoutorama.com/song/song_display.cfm?song_id=209

(BTW, the boys loved it....)

(This message has been edited by Beagle Scout)

I'm curious how many Tiger dens out there actually have/use assistant den leaders. I did not think there was a need for assistant DLs if shared leadership is used, and I don't think the National Council recognizes an assistant Tiger DL position.

My understanding of the program is that all the parents should be helping the Tiger den leader, and over time they will identify themselves through their actions which would be good den leaders, assistant den leaders, committee members, etc. That is how I came to be a Tiger den leader. During my older son's Tiger year, I was the most involved parent (except for the Tiger DL, of course). Last year, I was the assistant DL for the Wolves, and this year I am the Tiger DL for my younger son's den.