Twocubdad

We don't do den dues, rather collect dues annually which average about $50. We also do very well with popcorn sales. As part of our pack budget we allow $20 per for the den leaders to use as they see fit for den materials and activities.

I don't have my insignia guide handy, but I don't believe there is any difference between a temporary patch sewn on and one hanging from the button. The only restriction is that you can't wear both, except that is is permisible to wear both a temporary patch sewn on with a Progress Toward Rank totem hanging over it. I've seen boys -- especially Cubs with every patch they own hanging from their button. I figure if they are proud enought of their participation to wear all the patches, I won't be the one to call them on it. I don't know if there is any procedure for replacing Philmont arrowheads, but I do know they are restricted to one per trek. Have you tried looking on eBay? (Whoever asked about God and Country medals may try there too.) I bought one there several years ago for about $30. Because they are restricted, they ain't cheap. I wear the one I bought and have the the original one I earned hanging in a shadow box in my office.

I believe the time limit is on Jamboree council strips and unit numbers, not the event patches themselves. I wear both my Philmont Arrowhead and a 1973 Jamboree patch. The jambo patch is sewn on above the right pocket, and I wear the arrowhead as a temporary patch. I know of no official restriction on wearing any official patch, as long as it is worn properly -- which usually means as a temporary patch. I get questions from lots of boys asking the significance of the various patches and it gives me an opportunity to sell that part of the program.

You're re-inventing the wheel. The outline you need to be following is already out there. But you're not far off: 1) The method of shared leadership you are describing is what the Tiger program looked like up until about three years ago. Now, there needs to be one TRAINED, registered, uniform Tiger Den Leader who supervises the program. He or she is responsible for coordinating the portions of the program led by the parents. The parents still have a responsibility to help provide the program. The suggested method is to let them handle it on a monthly basis, as you describe. But the TDL is still there to make reminders and to have a back up plan in case the parent/leader falls through. As you suggest, it is a good idea to sit down with all the parents and come up with an annual calendar. That, too, has already been done, if you choose to use it. Pick up a copy of "Program Helps" from the Scout Shop. It has a year's worth of programs already laid out for you. You can follow that program, or you can pick and choose the ideas from Program Helps that interest you. The most important thing is to make sure the den covers all the den requirements and Go See It's the boys need for their Tiger badge. That's not to say you only have to cover five requirements/outings, but after the five requirements are complete you have much more flexibility to do whatever interests the den. Foto did a good job of covering the basic elements of a good den meeting. Program Helps also gives you an agenda for every meeting along the lines of what Foto describes. Personally, I like my humble pie with a dolop of whipped cream and a glass of milk, but however you can get it down is fine. Bon appitite!

Our pack always includes a couple hanukkah boxes with the Christmas boxes we send to the troops.

Our Webelos I's make shadow boxes for the graduating Webelos II's, similar to the ones in the Scout catalog. It counts toward the Craftsman badge for the WI's. The boys build them but the pack pay for the materials. We also give the boys a Boy Scout Handbook and their red shoulder tabs.

I'm the cubmaster but I always wear my uniform to my son's den meetings, although I'm there only as a parent. There are times I wear a Scout uniform four nights a week. You're not going to find any reference which discourages anyone from wearing their uniform to a Scout function of any kind. Is it an issue for some reason? The orange tiger shirt is still available and is optional for both boys and parents -- "Class B" if you like using that term. I don't think I've seen any of this year's tigers or parents wearing one.

Last night we worked out our duty roster for the upcoming campout. After discussing it with the boys, they made the boy who has been second class longest the head cook and rotated assistant cook for all the meals. They agreed to handle cooking responsibilities for all the upcoming events that way until everyone completes the requirement. We have six in the NSP, three of them are hard against First Class. With four campouts between now and the time the new Webelos crossover, we can take care of the three and set up a friendly competition for the fourth spot -- of the other three, the first one to get Second Class gets the fourth campout. All in all, accommodating six boys isn't that big of a deal. We should have about that many coming in again in February but now I know to do a little better job of managing the cooking schedule and will start a little earlier.

Good point, FS. I had intended to make it as well but got ahead of myself. If I were advising a boy on an Eagle project I may steer him away from one involving a permit for his sake, however. Sometimes the the hoops you have to jump through can be rediculous. A couple years ago we had a Scout who proposed to build a handicap ramp at a local Head Start program. He knew he would need a permit and included that in the proposal which was approved. What he didn't know was that because the building was county-owned he had to have engineer-sealed drawings and meet a much higher level of construction. Between the cost of an engineer and the added construction cost, the project was over $1,000 over budget. Of course the Scout was a death-bed Eagle and didn't have time to start over, his family came off the hip for the added cost.

Being a contractor, I can tell you that if they are seeking to limit liability, the need for a building permit is a poor indicator. You tell me which has the higher risk involved: building a playground swing set or your outdoor stage/deck a foot or two off the ground? The playground equipment doesn't require a permit, but the stage does. While permit requirements vary greatly from area to area, the threshold for a permit is generally base on making structural, electrical or mechanical changes to a structure or if the total cost of a project exceeds a set amount. It has little to do with the complexity or risk of the project.

It's not like I've done an extensive study of various tent, but I have two and are very happy with both. One is a six-man Coleman I bought 3-4 years ago for $100 when my boys joined Cubs. It's plenty roomy for the three of us plus gear. Both boys sleep like Tasmanian Devils, so I like to throw the two of them in the mosh pit at one end of the tent with all the gear between them and me. The thing I like most about this one is that the waterproof flooring material extends up the sides of the tent 6-8 inches. We've camped in it in driving rains and stayed completely dry. Of course it weighs a ton. My other tent is a two-man Eureka Alpine Meadows II. I use it when I'm sleeping alone. It was an expensive, state-of-the-art tent when I got it 20+ years ago. It has an external A-frame which takes some practice to set up quickly. I like all the clips and pockets on the inside which are very convenient. I recently refurbished it with a new set of poles (Eureka still sells them), resealing the seams and waterproofing the floor and fly. A little mildew on the fly, but 20 years later it's still a great tent.

For those of you who use new Scout patrols, how do you handle the requirement to serve as patrol cook for a campout? I now have a slug of boys wrapping up First Class who all need this requirement. Up until now, the boys have shared responsibility for cooking on campouts (two boys cook lunch, two more cook supper, etc.), so no one has completed the requirement. With one boy serving as patrol cook per campout, this is a real bottleneck. It doesn't help that our troop camps something less than once per month -- we have outings but not traditional campouts. Any ideas for getting around the bottle neck? In the mean time, I'm suggesting the boys serve as patrol cook in the order in which they earned Second Class.

I'm with your guys on this one. A Scout may be Clean, but there's no sense in going overboard with it. We've had the discussion several times regarding how often one needs to change underwear on a Scout trip. The boys calculated that they can "change" underwear front-to-back, right side out-to-inside out and get four days out of the same drawers. If you and your tent mate are approximately the same size, you could change underwear with him, go through the same rotation and get a full week of camp out of one pair of shorts.

On the one hand, you can't die on every hill you climb. If this pack isn't a good match for you and your son, perhaps moving on to another one is a good idea. On the other hand, there are a lot of good ways you can contribute without either butting heads with the current leadership or taking over yourself. Sounds like the pack/den is spending too much time on adult stuff and not enough time with the kids. At the next meeting, go armed with a game for the boys to play. When the adults start in on fundraising or whatever, offer to take all the boys outside or to another corner of the room for a game. Unless the leaders are either idiots or control freaks, they would be nuts to turn you down. Maybe after a couple weeks you can offer to handle the program for the following week. Get a copy of the Cub Scout Leaders Book or the Den Leaders' How To Book for ideas. Take Den Leader training youself to learn the outline for how a den meeting should be scheduled. Sometimes the easiest approach is to just start doing things that need to be done. Forgiveness is easier to obtain than permission. Just make sure you're doing it with a helpful attitude and not make it a confrontational thing with the leaders.

All of our local sports franchises seem to be very Scout-friendly. The Bobcats recently hosted a Scout night and it turned out to be the first win in franchise history. That was a cool game to go to. Lowe's Speedway also give free entry to uniformed Scouts and their families to one of the Busch races during race weeks in May and October. One year the president of the speedway grabbed a couple of our guys and made them his guest for a tour of the pits, introducing all the drivers as they went. A couple years ago the Panthers had the Scouts participate in the pre-game flag ceremony on the field before an NFL game. I think something like 1500 Scouts showed up, were treated to lunch and the game. Of course there are exceptions, but generally most of the games I've attended are very family-friendly. I have season tickets to the Panthers and they are pretty strict regarding fan behavior. The team has taken a lot of flack over the years for some of the rules -- no smoking in the stadium, men (and I'm sure women, too) must keep their shirts on, no beer sales after the third quarter -- but I've never been concerned about taking my sons to a game. Anytime anyone gets out of hand, they are escorted out pretty quickly. Jerry Richardson, the owner of the Panthers is pretty old-school and doesn't put up with much. While we've had our share of bone-headed players, (anyone remember Rae Carrouth?) he's pretty quick to cut them for off-field infractions.

We sell a ton of the 6-pack boxes at $7 each. Of course that is a dollar more than they would cost if you bought the entire 30-pack variety box. It's interesting to me that we quickly sell the three butter varieties (light, regular and ultra), but the two kettle corn flavors lag. They usually sell though, to people who simply want to buy something inexpensive as a "donation" without really wanting the product. As an update, we did much better in take orders than expected so our pack total is over $26,000. That an increase of about 20% over last year.

To answer one small part of your question, Eamonn, units can be chartered for less than one year. In our district all units come up for recharter in February. There for if you charter a new unit in, for example, June, the charter would be for nine months. On the other hand, if you chartered a new unit in December, you could get a 14 month charter and would skip rechartering with the rest of the district this year. I believe the longest charter you can get is 18 months. As to the bigger issue, this is all part of the numbers game played with Venture crews. Fortunately, in our are it seems to have run it's course. A couple of years ago someone got the bright idea to charter all the OA chapters as Venture crews. Every district jumped on the bandwagon before the idea was shot down. Several years all the large troops were pressed to charter a crew. Now we're paying the price in unit numbers as the troops are getting tired of carrying these paper crews are starting to drop them. I hope this is a national trend.

Bless you, brother. That's the best post I've read since I joined this forum.

I'm a day camp director too. I believe that the programs we run are almost independent of the camp theme. We essentially do the same activities every year, with a few exceptions, but try to massage them into the theme. One responsibility of the program area directors is to develop their activity to include the camp theme and to teach the values of Cub Scouting. For example, every year the obstacle course is one of the stations. This past year our theme was Lewis & Clark so we got an old PVC kayak and had the boys protage the kayak through the obstacle. They also go a history lesson about how L&C had to portage around the Great Falls of the Missouri. The relation to the them is obvious, but it also relates to the Cub Scout value of teamwork. T-shirts, patches, decorations, opening and closing ceremonies also relate to the theme. Theme aside, here are the stations we had this past summer and somewhat how we related them to the theme: Crafts (the boys made a leather cover journal which they used throughout camp -- all L&C's men kept journals on the trip) Gold panning (we actually brought gold-bearing dirt in from a gold mine -- there's no evidence that L&C panned for gold, but this sounded like fun) Obstacle course (see above) Sports/Games (taught Native American games) Water play (squirt guns at 20 paces, pretended this was the Great Falls of the Missouri) Secret codes (L&C used secret codes to relay info back to Thomas Jefferson) Canoeing (obviously) Fishing (same) Nature (used the journals to ID plants and animals and made sketches of each, as L&C did) Trail Life (actually pioneer life, but adapted to L&C) Orienteering (also obvious) BBs and Archery (no one cares how this related to L&C, but we can't do day camp without them.) Webelos also had a chance to work on Naturalist, Outdoorsman and Engineer WAPs.

I think you're all wrong. Remarkably, I don't believe the knot on the current logo is a real knot at all. A larkshead, Bob, would only have one bite crossing over the front, not two as shown. But as Bob suggested earlier, an overhand knot would leave the two working ends of the rope hanging. Interestingly, looking at my early 1970's-era First and Second Class badges hanging in a shadowbox here on the wall, the two working ends of the rope are clearly shown, dangling to the left side of the knot. The rest of the knot is the same as the current one. I'll bet that over the years some graphic designer with no appreciation for the finer points of knot tying thought they would "clean up" the logo and get rid of the two dangling ends. As to the Eagle knot. On my medal it looks most like a hangman's noose. Actually it isn't a knot either. The wire representing the knot is in a loop which is pulled through the eye of the scroll then twisted back around itself.

So how are popcorn sales going for everyone? Anyone seeing any interesting trends? What do you think of this year's product mix/prices? We are about even with last year, a bit over $20,000 in total sales. Our take orders were due yesterday, so I don't have a final figure from our Popcorn Colonel. We go very heavy on show and sell, so take orders make up a fairly small percentage of our total. Generally, I thing the trend toward bigger, more expensive tins isn't a good one. We sell hundreds and hundreds of the $7 tins and very few of the $40 and $50 tins. We pre-ordered enough of the big tins so that we could have one at each show and sell location, but are having trouble selling even those. They need more products in the $10 range. I think many of the folks who buy the $7 tins do it just to do something to help the scouts. If we had a $10 item my hunch is that many of those $7 sales would easily pay an even $10. The $20 kettle corn has turn out to be a real dog for us. The local VFD will be getting a pile of that this year. (We convert all the extra donations we receive into sales and donate the popcorn to various organizations.) How's it going for the rest of you?

Our Council has mandatory training that is supposed to kick in Jan. 1. We'll see. I've yet to find anyone who thinks it's a good idea, so I'm not sure how it got through. There is a one year grace period for new leaders to take the training. Since Cub leaders change positions every year (with the exception of the Wolf/Bear years) I don't know how that works. Cub leaders just keep changing positions and keep restarting the clock. I don't think they've really thought it through largely because I'm convinced it's all a bluff. I'm sure the thought process was that there's no way to enforce the policy, but if training is called "mandatory" they'll get a few more people trained than they otherwise would.

To me it all goes to intent. If the flag is cut apart as part of a respectful ceremony, it's okay with me.

There was no relationship. Those were two separate examples. My apologies if that wasn't clear.

My father and I have an on-going disagreement over this one. He has held every possible post in the local UW and is deep into the regional stuff, too. Despite his involvement, our council taking money from UW is like making a deal with the devil. I'd like to see us tell them no thanks and step up our community FOS program. Something like that may be in the works. Our council recently announced a capital campaign for next year. Part of the money is to be put into the council's endowment. Interestingly, at 10% the endowment amount will generate income equal to our current UW allocations. Sounds like someone downtown is on the ball.... Over the past three years our UW grant has been cut in half. Nothing political, always "just because." Two years ago UW was 12% under their goal. For some reason BSA took an 18% cut to help make up the difference. Now our funding is down to an amount equal to our Scout Reach budget. Because we still take money from them, we have to jump through all their hoops. One rule is that you can't lobby folks to make directed contributions. If we could, I suspect that BSA could generate contributions far exceeding our current allocation. How they handle directed contributions is a sham. Specifying that your dontation goes to BSA doesn't increase our allocation. I have a dad in our pack who designated his $2500 contribution go to the council. Although "his money" is theoretically sent to the council, the council won't get any more because of him. I suggested that next year he make his contribution directly to FOS, but he said he is "required" by his company to make the contribution through UW. Another rip-off is that UW allows people to designate funds to non-UW agencies. These agencies get the actual dollars that are designated to them, less the vigorish UW keeps. If I can designate my money to the Left-handed Dwarf Scholarship Fund and have them get the money, why doesn't designating money to BSA count? As I write this, it occurs to me that someone could designate their UW contribution to the "Pack 1 FOS Fund." Because the fund isn't a regular UW agency, they would send Pack 1 a check, less their cut. We could then send the contribution to the council at FOS time. Any of you who work with UW know any reason why this wouldn't work?