Tami the Mom

Thank you all for your responses! I'll be making them this weekend for Monday's parade!

We're getting ready to march in the Memorial Day parade. I LOVE making new neckerchief slides with the boys. We have several "theme" slides now. So last night, out of the corner of my eye, I saw my bucket of army soldier toys. You know the ones- little green plastic army guys. How would they be for slides? They are based on WWII soldiers, which is in large part what Memorial Day is all about. Would they be seen as a tribute or would it be disrespectful? I plan to call the local VFW later today, but thought I would put it out here as well.

We really target incoming Tigers as well. Several reasons - #1 - it gets them into the pack a few months early, so they can start having fun right away, #2 - they are guaranteed adults at daycamp, #3 - we can get their parents trained over the summer and hit the ground running in the fall. Ok, so since our school also will not let us send home papers either, we look to other ways. We got permission and will distribute papers at the little league field. I am going to check with VBS to see if we can also recruit through them. (Shouldn't be hard, the pastor involved is a big Scouting support

That is amazing. What a great group of boys.

Oh, wow! Every word of your post made me sadder and sadder, angrier and angier! Go to a roundtable asap. Hopefully your district's leadership is in much better shape than your pack's. You should be meeting at least 3x a month with your Tigers - regular meetings, field trips, pack events. Your whole pack should be getting together once a month to give the boys whatever awards they may have earned. Cub Scouting is all about giving the kids constant reminders of how great they are. Beltloops, pins, patches - these are like gold to a little kid! I understand you are busy with your Girl

Almost all of the Webelos pins require re-earning one or two beltloops. My pack doesn't give the boys another beltloop, we just give them credit for earning it again. All of this information should be in his Webelos handbook.

Ea - I'm not sure how any of that pertains to my question. First, I am not a denleader, so I'm not asking to drag him to meetings I am leading. If we ever are able to get DC's from the only troop in our town, we'd make sure to assign them to dens where they don't have a younger brother or cousin. And we would definitely not put an 11 year old Boy Scout with a Webelos den, because they are too close in age, and the Cubs would not see a "Boy Scout", they'd see a "five minutes ago he was a Cub Scout". Of course all of this is moot, since we cannot get the SM or ASM or SPL or even the ASPL to disc

Ok, well, to clarify, the reason I am asking is because my sons troop seems bent on denying boys the right to participate in outside activities. This fall, they decided that only 1st class and above could participate in the Webelos Woods program, and since all of the boys in the troop 1st class and above had other plans, they didn't participate at all, even though (as a program chair) I told them we would happily take ANY scouts who knew the layout of the camp property, as most of the parents don't, and we'd need boys to help move the Cubs from program area to program area. They still declined

I want to get my son and some of the other boys in his troop trained as den chiefs so they can be official for daycamp this year. I have asked his scoutmaster and assistants several times, and keep meeting with either blank stares or downright denial of knowledge. So I tried looking myself, but I cannot find anything that gives me the requirements for a Boy Scout to be a DC. Are there minimum age requirements? One page I found says they are "usually" first class, but not that they have to be. Help!

I don't think there's ever a "need" for a Tiger to carry a knife. Carrying a knife is a big deal to a kid. As such, it should be treated with respect and care. If anything, holding Cubs off until they are Wolfs, or even Bears, only serves to make it more special. Our pack doean't let the boys earn their card until they are Bears.

Sounds like a terrific time!

What you want is a yardstick, with distinct marks at 3.5 inches, 5.5 inches, 9 inches, and 12.5 inches. I can't remember word-for-word how the script I had went, but I can paraphrase. First, the reasonings for the markings - each half-inch of the yardstick is to represent one year of an average mans 72 year life. You have marked off 7 years, 11 years, 18, and 25 years. Here's the story - Please look at this representation of an average mans life. That average is 72 years. See here (point) we have the boy at his birth (I drew a little blue bootie)- he's small and helpless, he can't do any

Hey - nldscout - what council are you in? I'm in Twin Rivers, and we haven't heard any news on anything yet. We have lots of families interested in a Lion program. I think a lot of them have daughters who joined Daisies in kindergarten, and now they want their sons to jump into Cubs. I know I have boy/girl twins, and it was a big reason why my daughter waited until 1st grade to join Brownies.

I know there was discussion of a new Lion rank coming in for kindergarteners. Does anybody know where it stands now?

From my experience, gathering a top-notch staff will really help make things go right. In our RT (I am the CSRTC) we have a woman who coordinates a "gathering activity" - sometimes a game, sometimes a project, just something small and quick and theme-related that folks can do as they arrive, before they take their seats. Then we have a general session - opening skit, a song, some outdoor and theme related idea sharing, a training highlight, then breakout sessions. I have a really fun guy who takes Cub denleaders to one table, where they make crafts, sing songs, play games - it's a full-on cirs

From my experience, gathering a top-notch staff will really help make things go right. In our RT (I am the CSRTC) we have a woman who coordinates a "gathering activity" - sometimes a game, sometimes a project, just something small and quick and theme-related that folks can do as they arrive, before they take their seats. Then we have a general session - opening skit, a song, some outdoor and theme related idea sharing, a training highlight, then breakout sessions. I have a really fun guy who takes Cub denleaders to one table, where they make crafts, sing songs, play games - it's a full-on cirs

We had our FOS presentation last week at our Pinewood. We had a captive audience, near full attendance, and it's early enough to give folks a chance to pay their commitments before the end of the year. Our presenter is fabulous. He keeps it short - not more than 8-10 minutes, and he involves the group. He mostly points out some facts - we get less than 10% of what we used to get from UW. We have a beautiful camp that we don't want to lose. And more and more industry is leaving the area - meaning fewer corporations to contribute. Even with directed giving through the UW, we don't get nearl

We bring in a guy with a bounce house on Fridays when we do a carnival. Also, folks we know who have popcorn machines and cotton candy machines. They never charge, so we make sure their kids get to go down to archery and they always leave with a covetted "skull" bead.

We bring in a guy with a bounce house on Fridays when we do a carnival. Also, folks we know who have popcorn machines and cotton candy machines. They never charge, so we make sure their kids get to go down to archery and they always leave with a covetted "skull" bead.

If you get the chance to go, I highly recommend! We had a terrific time! The campground is very nice, all the amenities- flush toilets, nice tent sites, camp store with plenty of souvenirs, and a pool, tho we never used it. The one thing we were surprised about was the train tracks that went directly along the grounds, and the freight trains ran all night long- every 45 minutes or so. We brought extra food for breakfasts because their description of the provided meal was "breakfast in a bag" and we were afraid it wouldn't fill the girls. Well- it was plenty! In each bag was a single serv

I stayed with the pack when my son crossed because the troop said they didn't need my help. I didn't start over as a denleader though, I was and am still assistant CM. Our pack CM also stayed after his boy crossed to Boy Scouts. We think it's important for continuity of leadership. A few years back our whole committee left at the same time. Their sons had all gone on at different times but they stayed on for a while. The problem they left us with was no trained leadership. We had to scramble to get a new committee trained and in place.

Our council is an early adopter. We're not sure how things will shake out, exactly, but we might as well make the best of it. From what we understand, as the councils merge, most of the paid staff will be trimmed down. However, a lot of things will become "regional" where they were before considered "council functions". As far as keeping us in the loop- yes, absolutely. We had a meeting last week with a council rep who told us as much as she knows at this point. Our specific concerns were how they will handle "council" functions- our every-third-year council camp, and some of the bigger

We don't give trophies to everyone, but we do give certificates to every boy. We've had to add some over the years as the pack has grown to make sure every kid got something different. Some of our newest categories- Baloo's Favorite (chosen by CM) Akela's Favorite (chosen by ACM) Pit Crew Favorite Best Fixer-Upper Judge's Favorite Best Non-car (things like pencils and spaceships)

Good survey. As pointed out, no mention of a Girl Scout history or adult leader awards. Another question I might have added would have been- what position/s do you hold or have you held?

I would love to see a Lion program for kindergarten boys! As a mother and an aunt of twins, both sets boy/girl, it was hard to explain to our boys why their sisters could be Daisies while they had to wait to be Tigers. And as a leader for both sets, I see how much fun the younger boys could be having. Isn't the whole point of a test program to work out the kinks?