raisinemright

Marbles is great as a time filler or for the backup plan. A few years ago at Cub day camp, a massive rainstorm came in and washed out camp for the day. We had about 50-70 kids in one of the cabins waiting out the storm. The camp staff hadn't had any backups so boredom was beginning to set in. I found a box of marbles and a roll of tape and set up several marble rings. The boys had a lot of fun and a bunch of them earned their unexpected belt loop that day.

Make the most of it. If it's light rain, take a shorter hike with raincoats. Set up some glasses outside and measure the rainfall from start to finish, do the marbles belt loop and pin on the cabin floor, learn about weather safety.

If you can get a video projector, hook it up to a laptop or DVD and have a movie day, complete with plenty of Cub Scout popcorn.

Bears need to learn about Tall Tales for their advancement. You could have a tall tales contest.

Make some food out on the firepit with box ovens.

Sounds like fun, can I come?

Skipper,

We used to have a guy in our pack who nemd his younger son Baden. He must have had it bad.

Sadly, or gladly, I could identify with many of your statements.

There's a guy I know who is deeply involved yet has no kids. He's an Eagle Scout who just believes in giving back. He's got some involvement with a troop, but mostly seems to concentrate on a lot of district stuff which is really great cause it frees up some guys with kids of their own from doing that. I applaud him for it.

What a great and uplifting article.

Thanks for posting it. Below is a copy of the letter I wrote to the reporter.

Emma,

I just read your recent article about the ten new Eagle Scouts from Troop 297 in Roseville. Although I'm from Michigan and will never meet these young men, they exemplify what I want my sons and the Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts I lead to accomplish.

The Boy Scouts of America organization has taken a lot of abuse in recent years from people who do not seem to want to promote the good, honest, decent values that organizations like scouting promotes. I'd like to thank you for researching and writing an article that showcases some positive accomplishments along with the scouts grossest memories.

Regards,

raisinemright

We're putting a new emphasis on Scout Skills too. The kids are OK, but not great at many of them.

Last year, we tried something. We had a 10X20 dining fly that was rarely used. The one time the scouts assembled it, it was done wrong and never fixed for the campout.

We brought it into the gym, dumped it on the floor and walked away. After a few false starts, they finally took a look at the directions and got it assembled.

Since then, we've used it on several trips and it goes up quickly and correctly. Only takes about 15 minutes.

That brings forth the necessity of training, reinforcing and then transferring the knowledge for the boys to train and reinforce these skills.

I agree with Pack212. Set the rules out front. There are a couple tricked out designs online that guarantee a win, so the others are at a complete disadvantage. Ours will say that the sail muas be a standard sail, although it may be trimmed and set at any angle desired. The mast must be used and the sail must be attached to teh mast in the designated hole. Rudder and keel must be used.

One year, a kid forgot to install his keel and rudder. We used a car key and one of those key ring frequent shopper cards from some store. (hat tip to our Tiger leader for that one)

Go to McDonalds and ask for a bunch of drinking straws. They are wide and strong to provide great directional windpower.

I like the Sundae idea.

Wow, Sounds like a tough situation.

I would recommend that the CM or ACM go to each den meeting and explain to the boys what behaviour is expected as scouts. Teach them scout skills and the respect that they must show toward Akela. By doing it at the den meetings, it's a smaller group and may be easier to get the point across.

Then, invite a well trained Boy Scout patrol to attend the next pack meeting. They do the flags, show proper uniforming and attentiveness. This may show the cubs what's expected of them.

Next up is the parents. If they are not at den meetings to hear this, set up a game and pull them aside at the Pack meeting and give them the riot act too. They are Akela and have the responsibility to control their own child.

Instead fo the floor, which can make it easy to squirm, can the scouts have chairs segregated by den with a DL or Den Chief near them? If not, tape off the floor into den segments.

Also, work the scout sign hard. Just stop whatever is going on as often as necessary.

Good luck.

When I was a kid, my mom told me that my grandpa used to take copper screen and toss it in the fire. The copper would burn green and purple. Perhaps you could do something similar with a handful of copper shavings from a piece of pipe mixed in with the ashes.

Or, a small amount of magnesuim from a fire starter block would flare hot and white for a few seconds.

Some gunpowder maybe.

Whichever you do, I'd be sure to try it beforehand to make sure you don't light the camp on fire.

Check with your council. Ours does not require a tour permit at all if the trip is within the boundaries of the council or at the council owned camp which is a couple hundred miles north. It makes it far easier.

Special consideration toward our own kids should be a concern for all of us as leaders. It's a tightrope between giving our own kid more or less consideration than that of other scouts.

I'm also certain that we're all guilty of it to some extent or another. Two nights ago, I saw a few scouts in silhouette in the dark at a camporee. One was holding a lantern and I saw it take a short swing. As I yelled out to stop thr unsafe behaviour, I realized that I was correcting my own kid. Turned out he was reacting to someone else giving him a light playful shove.

Although it only took a few words, I think it went far that I corrected both boys equally.

Proverbs 29:17 reads "Correct your son, and he will bring you comfort, and give delight to your soul." Possibly the conversation with the SM could incorporate that timeless wisdom.

Our pack will buy the first loop or pin earned by the scout. He's on the hook for subsequent ones.

We started that policy after dropping nearly $500 on awards one month for a pack of about 30 scouts. Many of them were re-earned loops.

If boys are earning too many loops, encourage them to work on pins which show much higher accomplishment.

Welcome to scouting! Now that you've been sucked in to the vortex, sit back and enjoy the ride. You're gonna have a blast.

As a long time den leader and asst. cubmaster, I wanted to help out Tiger den get off on the right footing. Our leader is new as are most of the families in the den. I went to their first meeting last night and it was helpful. The DL had a well planned and executed meeting, but I was able to pump up the boys a little bit and explain to all of them how Cubs and Tigers work and what they can to to "help the Pack grow."

Two suggestions, have an experience DL join you at one of your first meetings.

Also, if Tall Pines does not have a University of Scouting event, Clinton Valley/Detroit Area Council has a joint one November 1 in Madison heights. An invaluable amount of info and support is available at the University and is worth taking a day for it.

Check it at cvc-bsa.org.

We only had two show and sells this year and did extremely well. A lot of people just wanted to give us money, which was gladly accepted.

We did a neighborhood take and deliver blitz last Saturday with about 10 scouts and had great success.

My son is pretty excited this year cause he doesn't need to share sales with his brother who moved up to Boy Scouts. I think he's a bit over $600 right now and we haven't hit up church or most of our neighbors yet.

So, I'd have to say it won't be our best year, but I think it'll be good. It can't come close to being as bad as last year. Our (former)popcorn Kernel made a colossal order entry blunder which got us far, far more product than we needed. We worked it out but it messed up the bottom line.

On a recent backpacking trek, the scouts had Hudson Bay Bread for lunch along with summer sausage. I managed to grab a bit of it before they inhaled it. It was incredibly good and very filling.

Here's a recipe.

http://www.holry.org/essays/baybread.html

The leaders went healthy (against my better judgement although it was quite tasty) Tortillas with cucumber slices, fresh avacado and Tuna.

Thanks for confirming what I thought was correct. For the latest MBC for my son, we got out my copy of the list and I had my son tell his SM which MBC he wanted to use.

That worked well. I was just curious if MBC's wanted to only work with scouts in their district.

evmori,

My question was more along the lines of if it is OK to cross district lines for MBC's.

Minor thread hijack in progress.

MBC's, I'd like to get your opinion on something. Our council has several districts. We happen to live outside the district our troop is in but in the same council, as do several of our scouts. I managed to get a copy of the MBC list for the district I live in and have asked the SM to recommend these guys to some of our boys. He told me that he wants to use MBC's in our district, most of whom are 20-30 miles away while some of the local ones are literally walking distance.

Thoughts?

Oh, changing troops is off the table.

This is a subject over which I think about a lot. Last year, we had a cabin campout with scouts and Webelo's. We had nearly as many parents as scouts. We also did a horrendous job on that trip with patrol method. Very difficult with 40 guys in one cabin anyway.

On one hand, I love that we have highly engaged parents, especially among the dad's. We also have little problem getting dad's to go along to help lead. But, on trips like this one, we had 15 dad's and 15 cars.

As an ASM, I've "lead" several subsequent activities. I've been known to say, "we have 8 scouts going, so we need 3 parents and two cars." I firmly believe that the fewer cars, the better trip cause the boys get to ride with each other.

I think the Polar Bear is a council related award. Our council awards it if you spend 24 solid hours outdoors between mid-December and mid-March. You may only go into a church or a latrine.

They have no specific temp requirements

However, we went on a patrol campout the week after the dates expired and it was unseasonably cold, hovering at 20F most of the time. Council OK'd the Polar Bear for that one.

That's cool and congratulations to your son. Mine is also 2nd class and really seems to enjoy serving. I'll be he's got 50 hours of service time in this year.

Our (newer) troops first Eagle candidate just completed his project last week. It was far bigger than he'd anticipated. He built a sand volleyball court. I spent 8-10 hours driving a skid steer and I think my son went to the jobsite at least five times and helped move dirt and sand. I was very proud of his desire to help. My Webelo also spent a couple days helping out too.

Even though the service doesn't really count for rank, it goes far toward instituting a lifetime of service toward others.

Pack15,

Taking a group like that, including Tigers without support vehicles and without pre-checking the road may get you tarred and feathered if it doesn't go right. I understand not being able to afford going yourself. However, if it were me, I'd call the Council offices in the area of the ride and ask them about it. A really good resource would be to ask for one of the Bicycling Merit Badge Counselors in that district. They would likely know the route, or can go recon it for you. Since the MBC's have probably had Cub Scouts of their own and are usually good cyclists, they would be able to give you good advice.

This will probably turn out to be the coolest trip your Pack has ever done, however, it has some potential to be the worst trip took if a bunch of little cubs bonk.

"bonking" is a cyclist term for totally, completely and absolutely running out of energy while riding.

Great topic.

A couple years ago, I took my then Wolf Den on a 5 mile bike trek to earn their belt loop. We have a bike trail nearby so we drove to it and rode the five miles. We had ten kids, ten parents and a few siblings. I assigned one dad to lead, one to take the tail and I was a roving leader.

With 25 or so people, it was about unmanageable as one group.

However, it was a lot of fun.

Here's my advice.

-DO THE RIDE!

-Advise parents in an e-mail that the ride is long, downhill and lots of fun. They can make the go-no go decision for their scout.

-Helmets are required of all participants. Period with zero exceptions.

-Break up into a couple groups. Assign a tour leader to each group. He should be an experienced cyclist if possible. Then pick a lead and tail parent. Nobody goes ahead or behind this person. Tail should have a radio or a whistle to stop the group if there is a problem. One blast means slow down, two means stop.

-Plan several short breaks with snacks. Plan one longer break, preferably near a creek or waterfall for the kids to play around near.

-Each rider must have a water bottle in a cage attached to the bike.

-Have a chase truck staged at the five mile point. They can pick up any that have mechanicals or physical breakdown.

-Carry a complete first aid kit and have the chase truck have extra water.

-On any road crossings, have a leader stand in the road and act as a crossing guard.

-By all means, pre-ride the trail. If it's too far away, call the council and see if a local Cub Scout leader can pre-ride the trail and give you a report.

-If you pay my expenses, I'll gladly pre-ride it for you, but since I'm in Michigan, expenses will be very high, but it sounds like a great ride and I'm envious of you and your cubs for doing it.

-Pre-check the bikes. A local bike shop may be willing to send a technician to your meeting to show how to check tires and lube the bikes.

-Take a couple spare tubes and a patch kit, along with a good floor pump.

-Sunscreen and sunglasses are very important.

-If it's in your budget, get some neon yellow pack T-shirts made up with the Pack ### Cycling Team on them.

Have fun.

Commit that you're going to have fun.

When the inevitable problem happens, roll with it cause it's not an adventure till something goes wrong.

Sorry for being so long.

1HRWK

Kahuna,

Thread Hijack time! Since you mentioned laundry, what do you guys think of having the troop bring enough clothes for three days and setting up a laundry station in the campsite consisting of two five gallon pails and a plunger. Fill pail 1/3rd with water and soap, drop clothes in and plunge for a few minutes, transfer to clean water bucket, plunge some more then dry on clothesline.

Thoughts?