Quixote

Maybe not applicable, but after reaching 1st class many years ago, i wasn't motivated to stay in Boy Scouts and JUMPED at the chance to go into Explorers. Much more serious than Boy Scouts and my Post was ENTIRELY youth led - Advisors were just that. I don't know whether the Troop could have done anything to keep most of us active especially since there were girls in the Explorers . $.02

I personally think a leader making a child do pushups is corporeal punishment and has no place in scouting. My second reaction is that you would make a great scout leader - volunteer and sit in on the committee meetings and let your voice be heard - not in front of the boys though as undermining a leaders position in front of the boys is detrimental to unit discipline and the life of the troop. Is the leader properly trained for the position?

My son's den had a parent requirement or requiring a parent to be at every den meeting (with an occasional lapse). All the parents in the den actively participated and we will graduat our entire den into scouts. As soon as a boy expressed any doubt about scouting, a parent was there to reinforce that scouting was where the real fun was - just wait...

Never asked anyone if they were or not.

Many moons ago, we used to play capture the flag outside with flashlights for lasers. It is even better to play at night without flashlights - you get tagged and your out - the slowest and quietest scout usually wins - had one boy climb a tree until everyone but one other kid was dead and he came back down and calmly walked over to the other flag and picked it up.

I think that the Central New Jersey Council did a Wild West themed one a couple of years ago - don't know who to contact regarding it, but they have a website for the Council.

Try getting a den chief from a local troop - i haven't had experience directly with this, but the one den in our pack that has one seens to like it. Also, see if you can schedule visits to the scout troop for the den - maybe even do an overnight campout with just your den and the troop?

if you have that many, maybe you can make a provisional patrol within the pack just for those boys who are left after the normally scheduled crossover so the boys can continue in a group. I would think that it's better to group them together than to have several dens of 2-3 boys each. After talking to some of the scouts last night, it looks like i probably will only have 2-3 total if that many that don't cross over next month.

I agree with Bob White, but would add that you don't have to neglect "base camp" cooking either - I was in a high adventure Explorer Post growing up and we did quite a lot of backpacking (week long trips up to 50 miles) and using the patrol method, were able to backpack in a dutch oven and all the fixings to make some nice stews, cornbread, fruit cobler, etc.

That's what I thought.

i'm the asst cubmaster and we have our crossover scheduled for March - i think there are several boys who will not receive their AOL and from my reading, they won't be eligible to go into Boy Scouts until they finish 5th grade or turn 11 - what happens to them during the two months when the rest of the boys have crossed over (they will probably be at Webelos Woods as Scouts while their otherwise classmates will be there as Webelos?) Thanks