Vigil-Hiker

My old troop met on Mondays so, the paperwork got to Council by Thursday and the patches would arrive ~ 1 week later. Our COuncil Office and Scout shop were 2 hours away, so no last minute items for us. We did COH's instead of one of the troop meetings ~ 2 weeks after BOR and 1 month after summer camp. We held 3 BOR's and 4 COH's a year, plus 1-2 Eagle COH's a year. Not sure how the troop I would like to see my son in(2 years from now) does their COR's, but I can tell you that nothing is presented after BOR is completed. The Troop Leaders' sons were up for review, so I sat in to help t

I know the extra space is nice - especially on hot days. My wife prefers to share the tent. She has tent camped twice, once with the cubscouts 2 years ago, and last sumer family camping. I think being that she grew up in the city, she prefers to have some one near who is use to tent camping in the wild(and she was a girl scout). The advantage of car-based camping with the cubs is I get to take a queen size air mattress. My tent is suppose to sleep 5, but with my 2 daughters(under age 5) the tent seem a bit tight on space. My son ended up staying with my parents(in their mini-va

How do they function? No leadership, no money. My Gawd!! Den Leaders are supposed to have Individual Tracking Sheets per boy to track attendance, join date, and progress toward Rank. This is supposed to be taken with you to the new Pack. If have you that, it should make things a little easier for the transfer in order to show what has been completed, in addition to his handbook records. Run, don't walk to the new Pack. They are wide open to personal law suites, have no insurance, and are impersonating an Offical Nationwide Nonprofit Organization since they do have a Charter and re

Some Packs, like mine, go camping a couple time a year. Get BALOO trained (Basic Adult Leader Outdoor Orientation) to take them camping. Become camping commitee chair, or the go to person for hiking(at some point all levels require going on a hike to full their requirements). Run the Webelos outdoor Activities (Outdoorsman, Naturalist, Forester. Run a Pack or den fishing trip to a local lake or river and teach them to fish. There are special awards they can earn, like Cub Scout World Conservation and Leave-No-Trace. We are losing a Cubmaster and Camping committe chair next year.

Scouting is supposed to be family friendly, especially for Cubs. So, why not? There should be times when the troop has events for whole family to attend. So if both parents(non-leaders) went on a campout open to parents staying over, they would then require separate shelters otherwise as well. That would be absurd. But it depends on the shelter they are staying in. If using a tent that will house multiple leaders, she would need a separate tent. Just the married couple then the same tent is fine. For cabins, she would a separate private room or a separate cabin. A leader ca

The car battery and steel works great. Especially if the person who mans the battery is out sight. If you use that method, immediately disconnect the battery from the leads that are on the ground - you want to be able to start your car to get home right? (I know someone who killed their battery on a campout this way) Another option would be to appear that you are using the old fashioned Flint-n-Steel. Use the fire-starter Hot Spark kit to light a bird's nest of twine that will start the fire. Hide a couple of Fire-Starter sticks/blocks in the lay that the twine touches. This worked for

I have the 2006 printing of the Webelos handbook (trying to look ahead for next year so I do not have to repeat something that is an elective this year and is a requirement next year). Either uniform may be worn. I plan to have my son switch shirts after he has earned his Webelos badge. Having been in since Tigers, his shirt is full of patches. He is only has working on electives and Leave-no-Trace available to him now(earned all 4 ranks, Outdoor Activity award, Cub scout Conservation Award, and Religous Knot). At that point he will have been in same shirt for 2 1/2 years. He will be

Rank pin? What is a rank pin? You must be refering to Parent Pins that may be given to the parent that match their son's rank from Scout to Life. They are to show the Prent's pride in the hard work their son is doing and to recognize the support the parents are providing their son. It took me 5 minutes to figure it out, and I am working with Cub Scouts for 2 more years until my son crosses over. My troop, when I became a Boy Scout 20+ years ago, presented the mothers with a Scout parent pin upon their son achieving the Scout rank during a candle-lit ceremony. This was rather

Uniform pants are lighter for hiking and move easier than jeans do. I give mine a light coat of water repellent before damp outings. For some seasons, I recommend the utility zipoff pants (cool morning/evenings and warm afternoons). My son has those, but I never seem to find right color in adult sizes that aren't expensive. We may pack our neckerchiefs for wear at Flag ceremonies or uniform inspections, but we tend to leave them at home since today's are mostly designed for show and the boys tend to lose the slides. I recommend carrying a bandana for more practical uses: sweat rag

Depends on the events. My troop: (when as a youth) District/Council Camporees - full uniform (minus sash) unless there are extenuating circumstances. Example Indian Lore or Klondike with a dress in theme contest for the day's activities. Troop Winter campout - dress for the weather only - uniform optional. Summer Camp - full uniform to/from camp and for Flag ceremonies, and dress according to activities with a scout activity shirt or scout t-shirt prefered (don't wear a new activity shirt or white-based t-shirt if swamping canoes in a muddy creek). I wear my uniform fo

Bottom line in my den is if work was not done, then do not get the award. Of course there is the possibility of some parents signing off on things that were not done, but that parent is cheating out their son on learning and practicing skills needed in Boy Scouts. Do these boys get their allowance if they do not do their chores at home? I know I did not. Webelos is to gear up and prepare for Boy Scouts. It is a very different system. Skills learned to reach First Class are often signed off by a patrol leader, then reviewed in a Scoutmaster's conference. Don't pass review, no ad

We only occaisonally have dens doing skits. Most of our boys are shy on singing too. Our dens rotate hosting the pack meeting and do the following: flag presentation, skit or skill demo, host 4 activities, and provide refreshments. Some of the activities are games like penny toss, lassoing a boot, balloon relay. Other fullfil requirements/electives like modeling something from clay, starting a family tree, learning about your home state, etc. The activities are based on the monthly themes from National. Every Pack should get at least 1 copy of the Program Helps at the Program Launch

Our pack has a camping chair to oversee 1-2 camping trips per years. He just stepped up to be Cubmaster and will be grooming someone to take over during the planning seesion for our late Spring campout. Usually the camping committe chair will oversee our members going to the Winter Cub Event as well. We usually have different people chair the different outings according to their interests. We had a mom leading the trip to see a pro hockey game and another for a pro basketball game. Usually one of the dads handles a trip to go to a local minor league game. My wife was in charge of orga

At the moment I am with a pack that goes camping 1-2 time a year. We do car camping, but we have camped where we had to carry everything ~1 mile in. Needless to say we had a few wagons on the camp fire road. One of the troops we feed does both. They will do an occaisional overnight backing trip on a section of our state parks with 200 miles of trails. Every 2 years they do a high adventure trip (backpacking and/or canoing) and try to get to Philmont every 3-4 years. They usually have at least a couple of scouts go to Jambo as well. I hope I hold up physically to take my son to P

See if there are historic Trails in your area that may qualify for the Historic Trails patch. You need to camp overnight and put in service hours on the trail or historic site, so this needs to be done in a group. I do not remember the distance requirements. There are a set of requirements for cub scouts and another for Boy Scouts for thi award.

jens3sons, The 50-miler is not for cub scouts. It is to be completed in a single outing over several days. You are to camp over-night during each stop. It is to completed on foot, canoe, or bicycle carrying your gear and food with you. What cub scout is going to carry 40-50 pounds of tent, pots, sleeping bag, clothes, rain gear, food, water, etc. I earned mine hiking 60 miles in the mountains of Philmont Scout Ranch the day after having stitches take out of my knee. Some of my troop did that trek and went on a 50 mile canoe trip during one week of summer camp - all the gear i

My troop use to wear them in the early eighties until the shirt change. We had no choice in the old v-neck yoke style shirts. I think I may have a couple of the square neckerchiefs around in scouting box. My troop rarely wore our chosen neckerchief. We usually wore one from one of the camps we went to. The camps in my old council each had their own neckerchief and patch design for the Winter Camping season and another for Summer Camp. They usually had the dates and a different animal on them and varied the basic color. Of course the Philmont crew picked up Philmont ones to show

I try to do the samething for my cub scouts. I am currently a den leader and always wear full unform to Scout events and Pack meetings. For my den meetings I wear at minimum, my shirt since I often end up working late and just make it home in time. For certain things like painting, I tell them to not wear their uniform. More of the Pack leaders are now wearing atleast the shirt, where before they wore street clothes. We suggest to the parents to not buy uniform pants for the boys, but get dockers style ones for less and can be used for every day wear too. All the cubs I know need new pa

At some point for each rank they are suppose to go on a hike with their den or family. On camping electives, there is learning the buddy system and the 10 essentials to go hiking/camping. I know of several cubs who would want to earn such an award. Maybe if they had something for doing a couple of hikes, with some of the camping elective stuff and a little of Leave-No-Trace fundamentals. It may help push the get-out-into-the-outdoors and going camp stuff that seems to be coming from National. We have hiking clubs here and some timed orienteering competitions every fall. One event

When I was a Tiger leader, we went a living history farm and museum in the Fall. During Christmas season, our town Historical Society had a small train show in one of its Historical homes it does events in. It featured memorabilia from the old rail lines that use to be in the county, like the now defunct Erie Railroad. Most went to the first one, and every one went to second one. Trains & boys is a sure to win thing. For things like scrapbooks and collections, they had to bring it to a meeting to show it off. Every boy had questions about each others items in them. They tende

When I was in Boy Scouts, I managed to have a summer job, ran Winter and Spring Track, Marching band(we went to every football game, and performed in 3 competitions per season), concert band, and stage band. Concert band had concerts twice a year, and stage band usually had 3. I also managed getting a seat in County band 2 years in a row. Every time there was a school musical, stage band provided the musical background. Every year went troop camping 3-4 times minimum, attended 3 camporees, and every OA Ordeal Weekend(3 times a year, and was on ceremonies team). I did manage to earn my Eagle

I agree that you should recommend that the boys wear uniform shirts only. Depending on where you live, choose identicle baseball style caps or boonie style hats for sun protection. I don't think my dad could ever afford a full uniform until he was in high school. He grew in an almost similar position you are in. My dad was in cub scouts and Boy scouts from the mid-50's until ~1970 and grew up on a semi-rural farm. My family had a large farm, but never much money. Most everything was grown on contract or sent to markets an hour away. My dad and his little brother and sister decid

Why have to choose? Most coaches will tell them to get at least half of the weekday day practices with Friday and Saturday as mandatory. POP Warner Flag football is for 6-7 year olds and tackle for the rest. My den is made up of all Catholics who attend CCD classes on different days and play football, soccer, or basketball in the Fall and play baseball or lacross in the Spring. Most have stuck with it so far from Tigers and are now Bears. Our village has 2 Packs, 3 Troops. 4 Flag football teams, 3 7-9 year-old tackle teams, 2 9-11 year-old tackle teams, 13 7-9 year-old baseball teams

Tiger\Wolf\Bear Cubs can wear a temporary patch on right shirt pocket or progress towards rank beads. Right pocket is for temporary patch or compass points on Webelos uniform.

I am thinking of re-activating my OA membership. Miss all the camping and right now finishing up with a Cub Scout wolf den. Pack camps 1-2 times a year. If re-activate, then can camp 3-4 times a year with Lodge and help get camps ready for my son's day camp. I had lot of fun on the ceremonies team as a youth. The other time to wear OA Sash is during an event the the Lodge is taking an active roll in. Say there is an camporee and camp or place of the event needs traffic control for entering/parking etc and the Lodge volunteers to handle this. A scout troop may be in charge of the eve