Twocubdad

Johnsned;

Thanks for a very thoughtful post. I can certainly appreciate you position.

My point is that the burden should be on the person(s) who have the special obligations. If your beliefs require that you not sleep in the same campsite as the women, then you should excuse yourself at bedtime. Bmchugh should not be denied part of the Woodbadge patrol experience to accommodate your convictions.

By the same turn, if I'm kosher or vegan, I shouldn't expect the entire group to restrict their diets just to accommodate me. I'll take the salad and baked potato and keep my mouth shut about the porkchops.

Ask around if any of the moms have a "serger" machine, which trims and binds the edge of a piece of fabric in one pass. I don't think you'll be embroidery-quality piping, but by using a contrasting color thread, you'll get a similar look. Honestly, I know next to nothing about this stuff, buy my mom has one of these machines and done similar projects for my dens. You may check with a local alterations shop to see if they can do it for you.

johnsned;

Let me torture your analogy a bit further. You've got a kosher boy in your unit. One of the non-kosher boys brings a cheeseburger in his sack lunch. Do you make the kid with the cheeseburger eat alone so a not to tempt or offend the kosher Scout?

At some point everyone must be responsible for their own behavior. If someone is precluded from sharing a campsite with female Scouters because of their beliefs -- or because they have such a tenuous grip on their urges and/or marriages -- then maybe they are the ones who should tent elsewhere.

I am sure that sometime in the history of Scouting married men and women have met and become involved. It probably happens in Kiwanis, Rotary and even at church functions, for that matter. I would suggest to you that most of those relationships developed over some time as a result of mutual interests, working together and spending time together, not simply physical proximity.

If two people are predisposed to have an affair, they will find the time and opportunity for it. Scout camp ain't it. It's a half-mile walk to the latrine. Neither have had a shower in 36 hours. And they're going to do it a a tent pitched 30 feet from 12 other people? Sure.

(This message has been edited by Twocubdad)

Yeah, that those couple of electives can be repeated for credit supports my thinking that the rest cannot.

There's nothing that says a boy can complete electives prior to receiving his Bear badge, he just can get the arrow point until then. We frequently have boys who get their rank badge and a couple arrow points at the same time.

A boy may not repeat an advancement he has completed as part of his Bear advancement and use the credit a second time for an arrow point. "Any achievement requirment that you complete to earn your Bear badge cannot be used again to earn Arrow Points." (Bear Book, pg. 159.)

In your example, if he visited the zoo (Achievement 5d) and used that requirement to complete Achivement 5 AND counted Achievement 5 as one of the 12 needed to earn his bear, then visiting a nature park cannot be used for an arrow point.

On the other hand, if 5d was not used toward his Bear (because he completed the other four requirements under #5, or because he didn't use any of #5 towards his Bear) then it may be used for arrow point credit.

I also don't think that it is allowed for Bears to repeat an elective for double credit. Right now, I can't find a specific reference in either the Bear Book or the Leader Book, but I believe that is the case. Tigers are permitted to repeat electives toward earning Tiger disks, but I think that is an exception.

A hundred years ago, in my old Troop, the SPL was a member of the Troop "Staff" and camped with the adult leaders. (I don't recall boys and adults ever sharing tents, even though this was in pre-YP days.) Once you reached Eagle, you became a JASM and also joined the staff patrol.

Our staff patrol isn't exactly the same as your leadership patrol, in that it was more about the Eagles/JASMs that the SPL. We had a large number of Eagles for a troop our size and I think the staff patrol was more about moving them up and out of the way to give the younger boys a chance to lead the patrols.

While the SPL had pretty much the same job as they do now, becoming a JASM was a huge perk and great incentive to reach Eagle. We were exempted from participating in patrol competitions and inspections while on camporees. We did a lot to help the younger kids with skills and advancement, serving somewhat the same function Troop Guides do now.

We also did most of the cooking and camp work for the adult leaders. Looking back on it, it was a lot like Tom Sawyer getting people to whitewash the fence for him.

I always thought it was a good system, but the rules were different then, without the emphasis on the PLC running things.

Pay attention to the parents who are particularlly into different elements of the program. The dad who goes overboard with his son's Pinewood Derby car needs to run the race next year. Recruit people for the outings committee on a camping trip.

There are lots of ideas for recruiting volunteers on boards like this and at leader training. You can take advantage of all that, but one important piece of advice is to pick you battles. If no one wants to take the blue and gold, drop it. Stuck being popcorn chairman again, forget about it and tell the parents dues will be raised to cover the lost income.

You can only do so much yourself. Prioritize those activities that mean the most to the boys (den activities, pack meetings and outings) and can the rest. If something isn't important enough for the parents to support it, move on. Ultimately, the parents must step up carry the program.

This week all the dens in our pack are assembling gift boxes to send to soldiers stationed overseas. Before 9/11 this was a routine program and you could send boxes addressed to "Any Soldier or Sailor" at a given APO address. That program was cancelled last year due to security concerns. We contacted a local reserve unit and made arrangements with the unit Chaplain to send boxes to his people overseas. You may be pushing the envelope to get that set up in time for Christmas.

Some of the requirements should be completed with a parent -- like for Fitness. Some, as a practical matter, are difficult to do over at a den meeting unless you are set up to do it as a den activity -- like the Handyman requirements you mentioned.

For those requirement which should be signed-off by the Webelos leader (that is, most of them), you just need to tell the boy you're sorry, but he has to complete the requirements with you for them to count. Nothing says the boy can't complete an activity pin on his own, but as a rule, most of the requirements need to be completed for the den leader.

As for ideas, we just completed the Engineer pin with our den. One meeting we had the boys do experiments with levers and pulleys. The next meeting, we talked about different types of bridges and let the boys build a bridge out of popsicle sticks. The last meeting we built catapults with plastic spoons and rubberbands (that was a blast!). To complete the five requirements, the boys had to write a list of 10 things engineers do.

Last month, we did a similar program for Scientist, breaking the requirements down into several meetings.

The Webelos Leaders book is a good source plans and activities. It breaks each activity pin down into different meetings with activities for each. Remember that you're not supposed to do all these yourself. Ideally, different parents should take responsibility for different programs. The idea is that the boys should have to react with different adults, not just their den leader, similar to how they will have to work with merit badge counselors as Boy Scouts.

As usual, the devil is in the details. What constitutes a "drug offense"? A 20-year-old misdemeanor conviction?

Anyone see this?

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Boy Scouts of America will require criminal background checks of new adult volunteers beginning next year, it announced Wednesday.

The checks will be based on new application forms in which the applicant gives permission for the checks to be done, spokesman Gregg Shields said. The forms must be filled out by adult volunteers for the organizations varied arms, including Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts and Explorer.

Those who do not get clearance won't be allowed to join, he said.

The organizations's national executive council engaged ChoicePoint, an information management company to handle the program, which will be called VolunteerSelect, Shields said. ChoicePoint will review national and state government databases.

The requirements will take effect April 1, allowing time for the new forms to be distributed and for the policy change to be explained to all volunteers, Shields said.

The backgrounds of current adult volunteers are not being checked. But Shields says that might be required in years to come.

"We have as our highest goal to protect the children involved in Boy Scouting," he said. "To date, it's been difficult to do such a background check because of all of the data is not in one spot."

Membership will be prohibited if the checks turn up convictions for sex crimes, crimes of violence or drug offenses.

Findings in the background checks will be divulged only to the chief executive of a regional council, who would tell local-level officials only that an applicant does not meet the standard, Shields said. Those who are rejected will be given the opportunity to review and challenge any adverse information.

Other youth organizations, such as Little League, already require background checks of adult volunteers.

Here are the bulleted items from the section on religious principles in the Cub Leader Handbook (page 8-3):

"The BSA does not define what constitutes a belief in God or the practice of religion."

"The BSA does not require membership in a religious organization ... but strongly encourages membership or participation...."

"The BSA respects the convictions of those who exercise their constitutional freedom to practice religion as individuals without formal membership in religious organizations."

I think something similar is printed on the adult application.

Maybe I missed the point, but didn't you say that when you got to the bottom of it, they boy hadn't yet earned his totem?

Ultimately, you only get 'em when you earn 'em, but at the Tiger level, I tried to keep the boys on the same track, even if we had to finess a few requirements. You need to have a conversation with the Tiger Den leader. If the den gets to a point that every boy is earning a badge or belt loop but one, the parent needs to know what's about to happen and try to get the boy over the hump. Most Tiger requirements, except go see its, can be met with a 10 minute one-on-one.

As to dues, we have several families who we are helping out. One boy shows up at every meeting very proudly displaying whatever new uniform part he has saved up for and purchased. His second meeting he showed up with a tin box full of change, wanting to buy a handbook. You just want to hug him and give him the shirt off your own back. The other family acts like they are entitled to a free ride. They make it a little more difficult to cheerfully help them.

We are a big pack with a lot of resources and can afford to waive the dues and other fees when necessary. But we ask these families to sell a minimum of $300 in popcorn to cover their fees. That makes is seem like less of a handout to both sides. It is tougher at the Cub Scout level, but at the Boy Scout level, I believe the guideline is that camperships pay only half the cost of summer camp with the boy expected to earn the balance.

I understand a new pack doesn't have much of a bank account to start with, but perhaps there is someone in the pack or community with the wherewithall to help out. Check with your District Exec to see if there are any scholarship programs at the council level.

I understand that Tigers are now being fully folded into Cubs and that the orange backers will no longer be awarded to future Tigers. BUT, there are 20 years worth of Tiger Cubs out there who did earn the right to wear the orange star for the rest of their Scouting lives. As Boy Scouts and adults, the orange star is the only recognition they can wear that they participated in the program.

Is it really that big of a deal for national to continue stocking them? It's not like there is a huge cost associated with carrying them.

Many moons (and pounds) ago, I was a Water Safety Instructor for the Red Cross. Back then, completing the Red Cross lifesaving course for your age level was a free pass to both swimming and lifesaving merit badges. Just show the Red Cross certificate to the merit badge counselor and he signed both blue cards.

There was more to survival swimming than just inflating your jeans. The idea was that most drowning victims never planned to get in the water. Not only did you learn to inflate your pants and shirt (long-sleeve, collared shirts are easier to inflate and provide better flotation), but the kids practiced taking wet clothes off in the water and we taught bobbing or survival swimming. It was a whole unit on what to do if unexpectedly tossed into to water. I don't recall anyone ever having a particularly difficult time with it and it was usually a part of the course we had a lot of fun with.

But I think the origin of this thread related to the BSA's maddening habit of changing things in mid course. Guide to Safe Scouting is even worse. I took the Health & Safety class in September and was told not to rely on the printed G2SS, but to check the Internet for current regs. What?!?!?

National needs to have enough forsight that when a new edition of the Scout handbook, G2SS or other major program element is published, it can be relied upon until the next printing.

Acco40's right, there is not official policy one way or the other. The Den Leader's Handbook isn't much help, but suggests that some "Graduation Into A Boy Scout Troop" take place. It does reference the Cub Scout Ceremonies book which lists three Webelos to Boy Scout "graduation" ceremonies. All three emphasize the Cub Scout trail, with only a cursory mention of joining a Scout troop.

KC, you make my point for me. If you try to distinguish between AOL, graduation, and crossover, it gets to be a long, convoluted mess. And frankly, 80 or 90% of the boys are going through all three.

One thing the Leader Book says is that because the AOL is the highest award earned in Cub Scouting, it should have a separate, meaningful ceremony of it's own. Amen to that.

I tend to agree with Sctmom and look at it more as a graduation. But then in the two years I've been coordinating the ceremonies, I don't know that we've had a boy who has flat-out said he wasn't joining a troop. Whether or not they showed up for the Troop meeting the following week is another story.

In my opinion, if the crossover is an induction to the troop, it needs to be a troop function. Although we include the same swapping of epaulets, etc., I consider it a graduation from Cub Scouts and everyone participates.

One thing to consider is logistics. Out of a Webelos graduating class of, say, 16 boys, 13 get their AOL and go through that ceremony. Twelve are going on to Boy Scouts and go through the cross over. Then they all go through a graduation ceremony. By this time, we're playing to an empty room and most of my Tigers have been home in their jammies for two hours.

We start by calling the names of the boys who have earned the AOL and present it to them. We then call the names of all the boys crossing over, and do that ceremony. I suppose if someone was adamant that they were not going to join a troop, we would just leave them out of that second group.

Frankly, if I were going to emphasize one or the other, I would make a much bigger deal out of the AOL presentation than the crossover.

Oh by the way, we cross boys over into two troops which are very competitive and the leaders of which don't get along particularly well. We have representatives of both troops on hand to welcome their boys. As Pack chairman, I meet with the troops to prepare for the ceremony. One point I make is that the Pack has invited the troops to participate in OUR pack meeting. I hand them all a script, tell them to read their parts and be nice. (See my post earlier this evening about setting behavior expections at den meetings.)

I'm not a big fan of the behavior candle, but I do like having the boys write their own rules of behavior. The trick is, you need to have your own list of rules in advance, and the boys' rules need to wind up looking a whole lot like yours. You steer the discussion to make it work.

The thing that I notice from the original post is the crowd of parents hanging out, doing nothing to help the sitation. If they're sitting there, doing nothing while their sons act up, they are tacitly approving the bad behavior. They need to lead, follow, or get out of the way.

Having parents around is a two-edged sword. If they help control the boys (or at least their own), great. But if they don't, they're making the situation worse. It is difficult to correct a boy with their parent sitting there. I find it uncomfortable to do so (I always feel like I'm stepping on the parent's toes) and secondly, the boy thinks if his parent approves, then what ever he does is okay.

Ultimately, the Den Leader has to take control of the den and the key to that is setting expectations for how the boys should behave. At camp this summer, one of the moms was on a bullhorn going, "Boys, boys, please be quiet. We can't get started until you settle down. Boys, please be quiet, boys, boys...." etc. One of the Cubmasters stepped to the center and gave one, deep, baritone, "Hey!"

Immediate silence.

I don't mean this to be a sexist comment -- it could have easily been two men. But that Cubmaster had set the expectation that when he wanted your attention, he better get it. If the boys think the worse thing that happens if they disrespect or disobey you is that the candle gets blown out, well......

Next den meeting, have the boys create their behavior rules, but then have a very stern conversation about what happens if they violate the rules. Be a little menacing. We tell our boys that if they're disruptive, they go home. It usually takes only one boy being asked to leave the meeting to keep the rest in line. And if their's is one of the do-nothing parents in the back of the room, even better.

But make sure they understand they're not being kicked out of the den and that they are welcome back the next week. I'd even call a few days later to make sure they are coming back -- as long as they can behave themselves.

I have a hunch that many Webelos are intimidated by joining a Troop with a lot of much older Scouts. All through cubs, they've been with boys their own age. With all the other changes between the programs, it can be intimidating.

Like I said, just a hunch. Maybe something to consider.

Two years ago my Wolf den earned their Whittlin Chip. By Christmas, most of the boys had Scout knives. I polled the parents and most felt that since the boys had knives, it was better they learn to use them safely.

Eisley, that's probably not a bad idea. I am planning to distribute a layout of the area, but simply assigning each pack a block is probably much more practical that trying to create a grid. Maybe we leave one big walkway down the center of the area. Invariably, someone will show up with an 18-person canvas Hilton that will foul up whatever we do.

I'm not as much concerned about having enough space as the safety issue of having a million guylines in every direction if "all we do is just set up the tents." (duh, yourself). Cub Scouts are going to want to run wild, and I'm afraid after dark we're going to have a mess if there is no organization.

Maybe we let each unit manage the layout within their own block of space, but remind them to consider safe walking areas -- and to keep the boys under control after dark.

Does anyone have a suggested layout for a "tent city"? We're expecting a large number of Cubs for a district overnighter and need to layoff an athletic field to accommodate all the tents.

Are there standard dimensions for how much room to leave for a row of tents? How wide to make the aisles, etc.? With non-standard tents, we're going to have to SWAG it, but I'm interested in input from anyone who has done this before.

I was a Tiger den leader last year, using the new program book. Generally, I think the program is a little below the level of most first graders, but with very little effort, you can beef up most of the achievements into a decent den meeting. "Go outside and look at the weather" is a prime example. It's easy to turn that into a lesson on weather, the seasons, types of clouds, even a game to "see" pictures in the clouds. Admittedly, the book doesn't give you much help in that direction.

As there are only five required den activities for the Tiger badge, use ideas from the electives for some of the others. Also, don't be afraid to go outside the program for den activities. One den meeting, we let the boys play on the church play ground for 45 minutes. The boys had a ball, the parents got to relax and visit and I got a pass on planning a den meeting. And no one asked for their money back.

One of the best meetings we had was based on the Food Pyramid achievement and several of the related electives. I spent 5-10 minutes explaining the food pyramid and then had the boys cut pictures of food out of magazines and paste them in the right spot on a large pyramid poster. Meanwhile, I had an assortment of ingredients for snacks -- crackers, celery sticks, apple wedges, cheese, cream cheese, peanut butter, rasins, chocolate chips, etc. The boys had to assemble a "balanced" snack for themselves. Next I told them to make a snack with foods that don't "go" together, like apple, cream cheese and chocolate chips. Most were suprised that what they came up with was actually pretty good.

To drink, I had a quart each of skim milk, 2%milk and whole milk. We talked about the difference, and I told the boys to try some kind of milk different from what their family usually used and tell me how they liked it.

By the end of the meeting, we had completed one achievement and I think three electives -- not to mention that snacks were automatically covered. And the kids loved it. What better activity than eating?

As to beltloops -- I think they are important for the Tigers to work on, otherwise they will go most of the year and never receive anything at a Pack meeting. We have a big Pack and advancements take a lot of time at Pack meetings -- even longer if you're not getting anything. I do, however, tell parents to "ration" the beltloops their boy earn so as not to burn through them all too soon. This is true for Wolves and Bears, too.

Tigerleader is right about many of the electives being "Go See It"-type activities. But don't assume they have to be done as den activities. Many can be done individually. For example, one day while at the bank, we asked if my son could see the vault. The tellers had a blast showing him the vault and behind the counter -- they even showed him where the bank robber buttons are. That was fun as a spur-of-the-moment thing, but a five-minute tour would be lousy as a den activity, not to mention the scheduling problem for dens that meet in the evenings.

Stick to one Go See It a month with the den. If you do the five required for the Tiger badge, you only have a handful more for the balance of the year.

Seems to me some merit badges lend themselves to MBUs and others don't. Citizenship MBs can't be earned in one day, for example, but there are many MB that can be. I don't think their is a huge difference between a well-run MBU and summer camp.

Our Council advancement committee recently outlawed MBUs, for all practical purpose. I frankly think that's a bit heavy-handed. A well-run MBU can be a very positive Scout experience, bringing in experts and resources that aren't available on a one-on-one basis. Not to mention the chance to interact with Scouts from other units.

These kids learn and are tested in classroom settings everyday. There's no reason merit badges should be different.

I don't object to the size of the increase, only the timing. The first mention I heard of it was about a month ago -- well after we set our budget and dues levels and after we had already begun collecting dues. In otherwords, after we were too far along to make any adjustment to accommodate the increase. We'll just have to eat the increase out of the general Pack funds.

The increase had to be in the works for months and months. Would it have been too much for them to announce it in the spring? I'm sure the bureaucrats in Irving thinking a September announcement is well in advance of the beginning of recharter in January, but in the real world most units are doing their budgeting and planning in the summer.