SeattlePioneer

The Bobcat Den is formed by a Pack for a few weeks in the spring to give new Cub Scouts and new Cub Scout families sopecial attention in learning about the program and having a good experience. After having a few meetings to complete the Bobcat requirements, have a quality day hike and hot dog roast, the Bobcat Den is dissolved and the new Cub Scouts are "sorted" into the dens formed when all the Cub Scouts advance into their new dens in June. I've thought about using a "Sorting Hat" like in the first Harry Potter movie to sort the Bobcats into their new dens.... That might be an exciting and personalized way of doing that task. It also helps me as Cubmaster identify new parent leaders and get them used to helping with den and pack activities.

Another example of using abbreviations that are completely opaque. And in the title of a thread, yet.

I'd be sending this complaint to your district "Key 3," the District Executive, District Chair and District Commissioner. They are the ones responsible for improving such scheduling goals. Our district does an annual planning activity for district leaders in January each year. That includes the opportunity to schedule events two years out, although not all district events plan that far out. Each month at our district meeting, we review activities scheduled for the next three months looking for any errors or omissions. That works pretty well, but there are still events that don't get planned in a timely fashion. Our district Pinewood Derby is done by the same Scout Troop this year usually in April. That has slipped to May this year I happen to know and is still not scheduled. But by and large we do reasonably well, especially with activities organized by the district where we can keep a pretty firm hand. Could be better....

I use the Bobcaqt Den as an opportunity to identify parents with leadership ability, and start directing people that way by healping to lead activities right away. Other parents are asked to start contributing right away as well in one way or another. > The problem is, if things fail to launch in the fall you are in trouble. It's all too common for Tiger Cub Dens to fail to form, which leaves a huge hole in a pack that can be the beginning of a downward spiral. That's a major reason why I want to recruit Tiger Cubs in the spring and to identify the new leaders of the den right away. That way you have a program already in motion and ready to take off promptly in the fall. That's my theory anyway.

Hello Eamonn, Personally, I don't like to add newly recruited boys to existing dens in the spring when those dens are trying to finish out their program year. My method is to start a "Bobcat Den" for a few weeks that all the new Scouts enter with the aim of having a sample of high qaulity Cub Scout activities, which include completing the Bobcat requirements in time for our June campout. At the June campout the new Scouts in the Bobcat Den cross over into the newly formed dens for the next Cub Scout year. Our recruiting night will be May 9th. Boys signing up for Cub Scouts get a "Bobcat Handbook" that describes the Bobcat requirements so that boys can start completing those requirements right away. We will be using the rocket launch competition to understand what "do your best means," and that requirement is completed with a ceremony at the recruiting night for those interested in making a promise to "do you best." The next Monday May 16th we have a den meeting in which we go over additional Bobcat requirements and prepare for a hike on Saturday, May 21st which is capped by a hot dog roast. We have a pack committee meeting May 30th that new parents are invited to attend to plan our June camp out. We have another den meeting in which we complete the Bocat requirements and prepared for our overnight camp and crossover. By the time that is completed, new Cub Scouts have had some good Cub Scout experiences. We march in a 4th of July parade and do Cub Scout daycamp in July and are planning a barbeque in August. I've had good experience with the Bobcat Den ----this will be my third time using it in the spring.

Hello jamist, Not being a big Pinewood Derby fan, I take somewhat the opposite approach you do. I make a PWD car each year that I use when I do recruiting in schools and when promoting PWD in packs. But my PWD car has not been a woodworking project. I just use the basic block of wood. I paint it, then look through some Cub Scout literature and use decorative cutouts that I glue on as decals. Stick the wheels on and you are done! Some parents (quite a few, probably) just aren't going to be up to a wood wroking project. What I promote is the simplest possible way to do a PWD car. And it still looks pretty good!

Hello moosetracker, Good post and I think your reasoning and actions are sound. I find it a waste of time when my district training chair asks me to prepare for presenting the Tiger Cub Den Leader Training I do and no one shows up. In particular, a year ago he nagged me to do that class at our regular March Cub Scout training. But heck ---- you KNOW that no one is going to take Tiger Cub training in March! The new crop of Tiger Cubs hasn't been recruited and the existing crop of Tiger Cub parents have nearly completed their Tiger Cub year! As district membership chair, I decided that getting Tiger Cub dens started reliably an effectively was a key activity that every Cub Pack needed to sdo every year, but often it was done in a haphazard manner. To improve that, last year I put together a program that included doing Tiger Cub Den Leader training before our June Roundtable and using our Tiger Twilight Camp done with our Cub Scout Daycamp as an example of how an effective Tiger Cub program should be done. That was marginally effective --- I had two people for the training and one of those also did the Tiger Twilight program with his son. On the bright side, that one person was from my Cub Scout Pack and he has been our Tiger Cub Den Leader this year and done an excellent job. The District Executive and I are going to be promoting the training and Tiger Twilight Camp as part of our spring recruiting program, selling this as a package in hopes that more people will participate. That's my theory of how to improve turnout for training, but I haven't proved I can make it work. Also, I'm trying to improve turnout at our unit recruiting training by offering a quality FUN activity at it that parents can do with their Cub Scout, hoping that will improve turnout. If you could do something similar for training (can't think how, offhand) perhaps more parents would attend with their Cub Scout. Just a thought....

Hello sr540, Are there particular ways that OA membership can be leveraged in a Cub Scout Pack to encourage camping and crossover to Boy Scouts? As a Cubmaster with inactive OA status, I'd be glad for any pointers. I don't think I've ever seen an OA sash worn by a Cub Scout Leader, although quite a few CS leaders were OA members as youths I'm sure. Perhaps there are things OA chapters might do to promote OA membership among Cub Scout leaders. The BEST reasons is that there are useful ways OA membership can promote an improved Cub Scout program and crossover to Boy Scouts, but I'm not quite sure how to do that.

Hello Chippewa, Lot's of words of wisdom and experience in your posts, Chippewa. Most of the fun in Scouting is at the unit level. But the activities of the district and counsel are vital to keeping things working for units. There is a certain satisfaction to be had in helping to provide those services I find as a district leader. I think that was stoked by having taken Wood Badge in my case. And as a district membership chair, I thank you in particular for taking a weak unit in hand and building it back into a fine unit. Too few people are willing and able to do that, but doing so is a great service to Scouting in my opinion. What kind of relationship do you have with Cub Packs in your area and what efforts do you make to keep in touch with and help them?(This message has been edited by seattlepioneer)

Hello moosetracker, I get that kind of error when I do something like: 1) don't have my username correct --- "seattle pioneer" rather than "seattlepioneer" for example. 2) Fail to select a forun on which the post will appear. Usually a minor error that is easy to overlook. With a long post, you might want to copy it to a notepad file until it posts correctly ---- we don't want to lose any words of wisdom!

hello Shortridge, We'll be e-mailing the annoucement one more time, so we'll clear up that ambiguity ---- thanks. The idea is that parents and Cub Scouts will work together in making the rocket out of an ordinary sheet of paper as a gathering activity and for the first 10-15 minutes. After that, Scouts will be launching their rockets for distance in the gymnasium ajacent to the Roundtable site. After the parents get a look at that we'll be starting the Roundtable and continuing with our model recruiting night. The Scouts will be arranging their own competitions while shooting for distance, and the winnder of each competition will get a sticker for a certificate they fill out. The competition will be supervised.

Hello Lisabob, I think you have much the best post on this thread so far. The concept of an "elite" comes from Social Science in my experience as a Political Science type: Elite (occasionally spelled lite) is taken originally from the Latin, eligere, "to elect". In sociology as in general usage, the elite is a group of relatively small size, that is dominant within a large society, having a privileged status perceived as being envied by others of a lower line of order. The elite at the top of the social strata almost invariably puts it in a position of leadership, whether it be expected or volunteered, and often subjects the holders of elite status to pressure to maintain that leadership position as part of status. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite One example of a now old timey liberal academic using the term: The Power Elite is a book written by the sociologist, C. Wright Mills, in 1956. In it Mills calls attention to the interwoven interests of the leaders of the military, corporate, and political elements of society and suggests that the ordinary citizen is a relatively powerless subject of manipulation by those entities. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_Elite It's very common for new grass roots group to attack established political groups as elites. If the Tea Party people stick around the Republican Party a few years the next uppity grass roots group will attack THEM as "elites"!

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I've done several "Fall Recruiting Roundups" with the aiming of encouraging Cub Scout Pack in particular to do a good job of recruiting new Scouts. We've often had a good program, but a rotten turnout. Pack leaders don't seem especially interested in devoting an evening in June or August to recruiting. Frankly, I don't think there's a good time to flog fall recruiting. Packs tend to be either done with their program in June or still very busy with it, and August isn't attractive because of competition with other activities. So I'm doing our Fall Recruiting Roundup in March this year, at our Roundtable. We'll be flogging spring recruiting really, which several packs don't do, but should. And this isn't being promoted primarily as a recruiting seminar, but as a fun activity for pack leaders to do with their Cub Scouts. Recruiting nights should have a REALLY FUN activity to draw boys and parents to the activity, so that's what we will be doing at this model recruiting night. Here's the e-mail we're using to promote this, which is going out to pack leaders in the district. It's a little too wordy due to trying to do too many things, but oh, well! Email Title: "Enjoy Cub Scout Rocketry Thursday, March 10th!" Hello Cub Scout Leaders, The spring season to recruit new Cub Scouts is fast approaching! We are making our March Cub Scout Roundtable a chance for Pack leaders to have a fun night with their Cub Scouts, making and launching "stomp bottle rockets" and to learn some new methods for Cub Scout recruiting. A video of stomp bottle rockets being launched is at: Having a REALLY FUN and attractive activity to draw new boys to your recruiting night is one of those methods. We are inviting each pack to send two adults and their Cub Scouts to our model recruiting night at Roundtable Thursday, March 10th from 7:30-8:30pm. We would encourage a current pack leader to attend with their Cub Scout and a new parent volunteer with their Cub Scout who will help organize the spring recruiting effort and who may become the Pack Membership Chair. See if you can use this fun activity to recruit a new pack volunteer! Spring recruiting is a key to having a healthy Cub Scout pack! We invite pack leaders to do some thinking about when you can do a spring recruiting night and to have that date available at the Roundtable so the district can support your recruiting night by helping to promote it. (This message has been edited by seattlepioneer)

Unfortunately, it just might be true that Scouting could be succesfully sued by authorizing patrol camping without adults to supervise. Even if parents approve that too, if someone gets severely injured or killed, you know the family is going to be looking for someone to pay. Money. An award might be discounted because the parent approved that, but if the parent is held 50% responsible on a $10 million judgment that's still a lot of money. I'm no Xpert on such things, but around here we are getting a lot of $5-15 million settlements being paid by government to adult cyclists injured when they ride down the street, hit a rough patch and get severely injured. I'm thinking of a troop outing where a patrol was camped about 100 feet from the adults. I happened to notice a flare of fire from liquid propane leaking from a not properly connected twenty pound fuel tank. It might have taken me 30 seconds to a minute to get over there and shut off the valve on the tank. In that time, none of the Scouts had figured out what to do. They WERE being smart enough to stay away and not mess with it, which was a satisfactory response in my opinion. But suppose a Scout had messed with it and been badly burned by liquid propane and no adult had been along? How would that go over with a jury? In this case, I think Scouting within 100 feet was a reasonable idea!

Hello Eamonn, > The biggest service we can do for Scouting is not to do more ourselves, but to invite and encourage more people to be volunteers. That's my theory these days. I'm not especially good at that, but I try to keep it in mind much of the time. There an e-learning course on the Myscouting.org website, I think it's on staffing the district committee. It has good ideas that apply just as much to Cub Packs or Scout Troops.

QAs a Cubmaster, I've just been considering this issue based on discussion in another thread. I'm seriously considering reactivating my OA membership. I have a Tiger Cub Den Leader who is AOL and Eagle Scout, and an inactive OA member4 as well I'd suppose. I'd encourage him to activiate his membership as well. There are certainly other inactive OA members in other packs I'm aware of as well. The idea of OA is cheerful service, and Cub Scouts are a good place to start that tradition again, and service to the Cub Pack is a vital habit Cub Packs need to cultivate. Beyond that, OA sashes are going to help encourage Cub Scouts and Cub Scout parents to understand the promise of Boy Scouts and crossing over to Scout Troops, I would suppose. And Cub Scout leaders appearing at district events wearing sashes might get some Scout troops thinking about Cub Scouts and talking to Cub Scout leaders more than they do. So I'm beginning to see it as a plus...

Hello Hawkrod, Do you have any tricks to share with us on recuiting those committee chairs? We have a new Cub Scout Daycamp Director this year. I'm suggesting that we ask stronger Cub Packs and perhaps troops to take ownership of particular activities this year, and perhaps in the future too. That would give units skills they can practice as units and provide an important service to the day camp as well. That's my bright idea, but I'm always looking for more! Seattle Pioneer

Here's my one experience with "Patrol" camping: Circa 1981 I was doing rowboat cruising around Washington State's famed San Juan Islands. I had rowed over to Sucia Island which is a state park with no commercial development other than modest campgrounds (pit toilets and such). http://www.google.com/images?rlz=1T4GUEA_enUS381US381&q=sucia+island&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&sa=X&ei=_o1yTYutKpO2sAO00e3aCw&ved=0CEEQsAQ&biw=1003&bih=539 I was getting my tent set up when a power runabout beaches itself and a family gets out, unloads a two boys cica 12 years old in Scout uniforms and their camping equipment, and then the boat leaves the boys. They set up their camp next to mine. At the time I was a Scoutmaster, and they told me they were Scouts in a troop at Friday Harbor, the County Seat of San Juan County. They did quite creditably in their camping from what I saw, and they were interested observers of my baking a cake in a Ditch Oven ---and sampled the results. I'm not sure if this was a formal patrol outing, but they did fine on that occasion anyway.

Good idea desertrat! Perhaps I haven't thought of that since I tend to like to help with Cub Scout cooking myself. But finding someone else to do that sounds like the smart idea, and might give a new parent a good experience to boot!

Hello Chippewa,

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As I think about this issue of dealing with problem parents, I realize that I have to be cautious myself about getting in a conflict situation. I could be the one making a fool out of myself over a trivial issue. You might have seen some of my perfomances with Kudu on this forum, for example! I'm not necessarily a tactful person. Parents flipping pancakes might not be the best situation, but the risk is that I might make things a lot worse if I wind up dealing with a parent who resents my intervention and wants to resist it.

For decades liberals and Democrats were weeping and wailing about the dismal performance of minorities in public schools. At the same time, elite programs were being set up to give the sprigs of the middle class a premium education rather than being consigned to the education the rest of the dregs received. It was a conveniently hypocritical method that allowed the academic performance of minorities to remain low for decades. Then George Bush had the NERVE to take the idea of improved academic performance for all SERIOUSLY! He put the screws to public schools, who were induced to start improving education for the dregs, often at the expense of those privileged elites. And not surprisingly, the elites HOWL! That's most of what's going on. Of course, the elites howl about whatever is convenient to howl about. Democrats imposed oodles of unfunded mandates on public education, but those were LEFT WING mandates, so they get a pass. But an unfunded mandate by Republicans, especially one that bites the elite students, is obviously something to complain about. Complaints about "teaching to the test" are just another type of partisan warfare.