Vigil-Hiker

A max of nine boys is allowed. If a tenth boy wants to join, then the den needs to be split in to two dens. Policy set by National. If you have multiple elementary schools, then ideally, you group them that way if possible - the kids will know one another better. But that is a matter of convenience, not a policy. Kids should not be yanked out of a den they had been in all year, unless that was a major problem between kids within the den that could not be resolved. The only other reason is the meeting time does not work for them in that den but the other den's schedule fits in b

If there was interest in both, look for a local areas to do 3-4 day canoe or backing trip and save bulk of funds to go to the Jamboree. This one is a once in a lifetime - 100 years of Scouting in the US. If there are financial hardships, there are camperships available - even for attending Philmont. Another option to get permission to visit the Jamboree for the day and spend the rest of the trip visiting Yorktown\Williamsburg area or Washing DC area, or head 2-3 hours west from Fort AP Hill and backpack in Shenandoah National Park.

Once I reached a certain proficiency in sewing, I stitched on all my patches on my uniform shirt and even made a couple of cloth backings for temp patches that were odd shaped, like my Gettysburg one. Mom used the sewing machine for the button hole to keep the fabric from ripping and fraying around the hole. As for my sash, I handed that over to mom sew on the merit badges using the sewing machine. We only wore the merit badge sashes at board of review and COH. Less to lose, less to get dirty and need to wash.

The cub master needs to be removed ASAP. He is to be a figurehead at Pack meetings only and act as the leader at Pack events or District/Council events that the Pack attends if you do not have an activity chair. The Committee Chair is the one who is supposed to run all the committee/leader meetings, sets the agenda, and recruits the pack leadership. That is person who is in charge at the Pack level. Leadership issues should go to your COR and Unit Commish first. To feel better, you can simply have a vote about the situation and have the CC carry out the "firing". If he won't go

Awards should never be handed out unless they are earned. So what if only 2 kids earned it. Then only 2 kids should receive it. How is it an award for achieving something extra if you did not do everything for it. Leave No Trace award is based upon a the national guidelines set by the Leave No Trace organization for protecting and respecting the outdoors. Pack committee meetings are not closed meetings. Any parent can attend to bring up any concerns, suggestions, or advice. Part of a meeting may be close for an executive committee meeting dealing with something sensitve - but I

I am a fan of the traditional patrol method. This way at least some of the old guys get to know the new younger scouts and what their skill sets are. This way they will be better equiped to deal with people of different ages and skill sets in life. If your patrols are already organized, keep them the way they are. If their patrol leader/assistant patrol leader is not there, have some one in the patrol fill in temporarily just for summer camp. If need be, assign an older scout to advise the "new" patrol leader during summer if needed. This will help build their leadership. The temporar

All the summer camps I went to in Maryland supplied the old heavy canvas 2 man tents with the roll-up sidewalls on a tent platform. I have visited a camp in Texas, and one in NJ that use the same thing. They use the same tents in base camp at Philmont Scout Ranch. My son and I just moved up to Boy Scouts. This years' camp in upstate NY supplies the same tents I used as youth and ASM while in college. The pictures from the last 3-4 years summer camps they have attended all had the same tent (our council only runs cub scout day camps at our 3 council camps - so we visit different camps e

My son's troop goes to different Summer Camps - little choice since our Council only runs cub scout day camps at 2 our council camps and does cub scout over-night at the third camp. The reason is the dining halls will not meet state regulations for a week long scout camp program. They would need to tear down the working, original 50 year old dining hall and build a new in one of the camps. This one has a lot of history in it. Funds are also a big issue. We are in year two trying to complete the first new cabin in 40 years in camp. This new one is designed to be handicap friendly fo

The new pants appear to be a combo of hit/miss. The new materials for active warm weather seems good, but unhemmed zip-offs of nylon will be hard to sew. I guess that if you need to to convert to shorts while on the trail, need to find a spot to sit and take off the boots to remove the legs. Hope they relent and have pre-defined lengths for the nylon pants or offer the lower zip portion in different lengths for purchase. At least they have gone back to belows pockets on both legs, like my similar, but more brown-toned Columbia zip-offs. I missed those from the 1980's pants - used to tuc

You do not want too may hats to wear. You may provide a good program, but at the same time see your kids less. My dad was Cubmaster and Webelos Den Leader. He had pack commitee meetings to go, attended Round Table, went to training sessions (not just position training but also PowWow's), did popcorn pick up, and help run events at district cub events. I appreciate everything he did, but saw him mostly at den meetings and on the weekends. He later became the unit commish. Four meetings a month, not including pack and den meetings. Try to get all the roles filled with good people so you

Our pack designed a special certificate to present to the over-achievers who earned every Activity Badge. Other than that, it has been up to each Webelos den leader to decide on what to present each one with. I am considering making arrows for each. Use color bands to indicate ranks earned (have not decided on using small strips of colored tape, painting, or using colored thread). Orange for Tiger, Red for Wolf, light blue for bear, etc. Not sure how to do the Coup count for arrow points and any special awards earned (religious award, Leave-no-Trace, World Conservation, etc).

For AOL, it is 2 separate troop activities, not including camping or Hiking with Scout Troop for Outdoors man. it States: "With your Webelos den visit at least one BS Troop meeting and one BS oriented oudoor activity (If you have already done this when you earned Outdoorsman, you may not use the same outing to fulfill requirements for your Arrow of Light Award.)" Then a separate visit with your parents to a scout troop you want to join and have a conference with the ScoutMaster. These should be the easy requirements unless the kid is over-scheduled - scouts, religion classes, sports

Currently, I am a Webelos II den leader. For most meetings I wear uniform shirt, uniform long pants, and web belt (my Philmont belt from when I was 14 just doesn't seem to fit anymore). I sometimes will wear my Philmont bolo or a neckerchief with the collar turned under (grew up on the yoke collar uniforms when you had to wear the necker.) I change slides from one of serveral I have made or my original cubscout slide from the 70's. If I get home just prior to a metting I will grab my shirt and run back out. Cub events, training, district dinners - uniform shirt and pants, web belt, an

We currently have 4-5 Baloo trained leaders, but most of us leave next year. Baloo is offered once a year in our council at the local Girl Scout camp (2 miles from Boy Scout Camp[other side of the mountain], which is always booked). Most of us leave next year and we have not been able to get new parents/leaders Baloo trained for past 2 years. we hope some will get trained next Dec. Our pack has been camping since it started 7 years ago. we justed started having 2 campouts a year. The Fall campout in Oct. we have open to all but the Tigers, they can stay until dinner. We do not want th

Our Pack has decided not to participate in the Pop-corn sales. Our council changed Pop-corn companies and most of our members and ouside buyers did not like the taste last year, so we our doing our own funraising. We do plan on sending something like 20% of the profit to Council. I am sure our CC has heard something from council on our lack of participation. We do charge a bit more for dues($60), but it includes the cost of going to the district and Council cub events and our semi-anual camp outs. (Steak for dinner encourges first-time scout dads to attend). Our pack often does ca

I am not up on the current requirements for Backing MB - I am currently a Bear Den leader for my son's den, so I am not sure it says that this must be a group activity or not. I guess, if they go as a group of friends together to share porting food and safety for injury - they could do it with parents permission. I would personally frown on encouraging it though. I know that if a group of scouts need to do this, my wife would not have issues of losing me for a few days to help them out. One scheduling possibility to not have to use a lot of vacation time is take 3 days off surround

Another place to look is Flea Markets. I have not seen any near me in NY, but I have seen them in parts of PA, DE, MD, VA, the Carolina's and Georgia. I had some friends get a few scouting items, and some camping gear at a flea market in lower Delaware(upstate people call it slower Delaware). I think I saw some scout items at a flea market in Henrico County VA(borders NE City of Richmond)a few years ago. Check out estate sales, if you like the cast-iron skillets and dutch ovens. You may find these and axes/hand-axes on ones at old farms.

My wife checks the local thrift shop every two weeks during the week (I usually have my son at Saturday morning football practice/Scout event/hike/baseball game - so she checks for me). We got a youth med. Boy Scout shirt for $1. He is a Bear, but will be needing a tan shirt sometime next winter. It had a couple of ink stains, but a little stain/ink remover and serveral washes later, it was stain free. Worst-case senario, it would have been used for camping/hiking to preserve a "clean" shirt for uniform inspections/BOR's, etc. We also check ebay. Got his cub scout shirt for $12 a

Gettysburg was great fun as a youth. One year ~90% decided they wanted to go at same time. We split up by Patrols and Leadership Corps split among the patrols for guidance. We then, started at different areas, so as to not swamp an area or the museum with 30 Scouts. As it was, my patrol was on the fleet-footed side and caught up to another that was moving from Devil's Den to Little Round Top. We "charged" up Little Round Top to take the summit from them. We have a fun day. It does get a bit muddy if you go on a rainy weekend, but it is less crowded then. It can get a bit interesting cro

I will be in the same boat next year as my Bears move up. Yes, they do need to re-earn the belt loop using current activities. In some cases the belt loop is one of the choices for the requirement - opt for some other choice if possible to explore other areas of the Activity pin. We only award one belt loop in my pack. As for the new belt for Webelos - depends on what uniform they wear. Remember that Cub Scout Sport and Academic belt loops do not fit on a olive Boy Scout belt. National does have a picture of a Webelos Scout in the Tan/Olive uniform wearing a blue Cub Scout be

My first scout experience was before I was a Scout. I remember geting up early out of a tent on a cool morning and eating bacon and eggs cooked over a fire with my dad's troop when I was 4(he was ASM for his troop thru college and grad school). Philmont in 1984. Every day was great despite having 2 days of rain twice there on the trail. Trips to Gettysburg - can't wait to get my son there. OA - was Sakima for Ordeal team. Squeaking by a day to finish last merit badge to make Eagle. Now as an adult, Running son's den (Tigers to Bears and counting). Sewing eac

My troop(a few years or so[almost 20!! where did the time go?])usually preferred Star scouts for SPL. We had term limits of one year for any position unless someone was unable to continue then another election was held for that position. You could be re-elected, or you could refuse the nomination if you did not want a second year at it. We had a SPL who decided not to accept a nomination for a second year. He mentored the new SPL for the first couple of months and became a JASM. We usually had the second closest in votes be the ASPL.

I am willing to bet that if you applied earlier, they would have taken time to backpack at a high adventure base. I would. There is Ten Mile River in NY(backpacking and canoeing). There is a new base near Philmont, forgot the name - sorry. By no means should there be any youth backpacking without adults along. From the GSS: Safety rule of four: No fewer than four individuals (always with the minimum of two adults) go on any backcountry expedition or campout. Backpacking should be in the backcountry - it is in the Spirit of the badge and as it say campout... Two registered adult l

A pavillion would be a good idea, as it would keep everyone together. You could make it a big Pack event. Have a wiffleball, flag football, or frisbee baseball game either before or after it. Perhaps in June make it a BBQ Pack meeting. Have a scavenger hunt, and have each den present their most unusual find. Have a campfire at one. Each den does a skit, tells jokes,or sings a song. Have each boy add a line to a story. CM starts the story, and the boys help weave the tale (unless you have large Pack, then it may take too long). Do a raingutter Regatta. Fishing(not s

kraut-60, We also tended to get up early at Philmont, especially for Bear Canyon, it was sweltering at 9:00 am in mid-June when I went in '84. We had to go throught there to go to (I think) Vista Grande. We only wore short-sleeve shirts. We took the Jac-Shirts or zip sweatshirts for the cool morn/eve. I was one of the few wearing long pants, but I had stitches pulled out of my 1 day before hitting the trail - so tried to keep it clean to finish healing. Most days on the trail we wore scouting T-shirts. Less worry on snagging a nice uniform shirt on something. Wore uniform to bac