meyerc13

Our Council hands out leftover patches at Cub Scout recruiting events. Kids love getting old Scouting for Food or Camporee patches even though they weren't present at the events.

Be careful here... according to Youth Protection guidelines, you shouldn't have 11 year olds tenting with 17 year olds:

Phrogger, you've gotten some great replies from the Boy Scout leaders here, I'll throw one in from the Cub Scout perspective. My son just crossed over two weeks ago. He is an interesting case, his birthday is 1 week after the cutoff, so he initially started Kindergarten at age 5, but turned six a few days after school started. To make a long story short, he ended up skipping a grade, so he didn't turn 10 until a week after fifth grade started. However, in Wisconsin where I live, it's quite possible for a boy to start the first grade having just turned 6 over the summer. That means he w

The more I learn about this the more I see that this is pretty much the Tiger Cub program circa 1982 when it started, except 1 year younger. Back then Tiger Dens were registered as part of a Pack but ran independently. They wore T-shirts for uniforms. They had a separate motto. They only came together with the Pack for two events: Blue and Gold Banquet, and a Tiger to Cub Scout crossover. They used a combination of outings along with family and den activities... There are definitely a lot of similarities, too many to be coincidence. I suspect when this idea came up, an 'experienced'

That's the same thing we are hearing in our District. The challenge now is deciding on how to filter out the 'troubled' Packs. The District staff doesn't want to 'judge' units, even though the volunteer Commissioners and the District staff all know which Packs are really struggling. For one of those Packs to go out and recruit Lions, they may increase the size of their Pack in the short term, but it will likely only be a temporary bump if they then lose those kids forever because they don't have a good program. It would be a poor idea for a Pack without a healthy Committee and without enou

Old program. The compass was for earning four additional activity badges after the three required for Webelos in the old program. Now, the minimum to earn Webelos is seven, plus seven more for Arrow of Light, so there is less liklihood of a boy earning four more beyond the minimum.

Thanks, this is helpful information!

Hi, thanks for sharing. I have so many questions I don't know where to start... Might as well start at the beginning: Recruiting - does your unit recruit for Lions in the fall only? If not, how do you do spring recruiting for Lions when the kids are pre-kindergarten and possibly not in the schools that feed the Packs yet? I've heard that the Lion Den should start with an experienced Scouter as the Den Leader. Is that how your unit does it? If so, at what point do they hand the den over to one of the parents, Middle of the year, or as they become a Tiger den? How often are den meetings?

I think it is the cumulative impact, not any one specific decision. Being in the upper midwest, we have a good chunk of the year when the weather isn't conducive to outdoor activities with Cub Scouts. When the wind chil is 30 below, it isn't safe to take Scouts outside to have them run around. Running around the gymn at the school gets old after a while, and once you've gone through the dozens of different versions of tag, simon says, and red light - green light, you tend to run out of things to do to keep it interesting. Our Pack has done a post-popcorn sale night out at a local arcade th

I read your post, and wonder if you are from my town. That sounds like some of the troops I visited as my son was getting ready to crossover this past year. In the end, he picked the troop he liked the best. Since I'm wrapping up my tenure as Cubmaster (and fill-in den leader), I haven't been able to visit one of their meetings yet (same day/time as our Den Meetings and Pack meetings) although I did attend a camp-out. A number of experienced volunteers are associated with the troop, so I'm hoping that is a good sign that they know the right way to run things. Yet I saw other troops in the

I happen to work in the Information Security field, and while I don't know the specifics of this case I have heard similar stories. One which has public details happened a number of years ago, but makes for interesting reading: http://www.infoworld.com/article/2642021/security/phishers--almost--scam-grocery-giant-out-of--10-million.html In that case, the funds were recovered because the destination account was at a US Bank, and the funds were still in the account. Needless to say, scammers have gotten smarter, and there often isn't a happy ending. My bet on what happened is some type o

Our Pack is really excited about this. Every year when we do recruiting, we get asked by the Kindergarten parents if their boys can join (the girls can join Girl Scouts at that age). Every year I have to turn people away and tell them to catch us the next year. Now I can accept those boys into our Pack. I know it is going to be a lot of extra work, the recommendation is to use experienced leaders, not just one of the parents who has no Scouting experience. Hopefully we'll be able to identify a couple of the new parents as candidates to be Tiger Den Leaders the next year. Let me put

Outdoors opens a lot of other possibilities. Using some hog pans set on a couple of bricks (I'm assuming they don't have firepits for you), you could do fire building using interesting tinder. Give the visitors a choice of dryer lint, corn chips, etc. and some small kindling and demonstrate how even these unusual types of tinder can be used to start a fire. If you want to make it more interesting, instead of matches use other methods of ignition. You could demonstrate how to build an emergency shelter using sticks and branches, a poncho, etc. This takes a bit more time to do, but with

I have to echo Jackdaws... I wish our Council still did these. I've brought it up with our District Execs, and with two women and a man who wasn't a Scout as a kid, they had no idea what I was even talking about. I remember our Cub Scout Pack having a booth a few times at one, but I don't remember doing it as a Boy Scout so I wonder if that is when they stopped doing them in our Council. That would put it about 30 years ago if I'm right. I think it depends on whether you are indoors or outdoors. If you are outdoors, there are more possibilities. A few that come to mind: Cast Iron pi

Anyone else reading this and thinking, "Good thing they weren't at summer camp last year watching the Scouts do ____________..." and afraid to post it here with that blank filled, knowing that if we do it will show up in the next Guide to Safe Scouting? I can think of one popular game last summer where overly enthusiastic Scouts were walking away with bumps, bruises, and probably a few sprains as well... yet good luck trying to stop the boys from playing. I'll guarantee you that the activity I'm thinking of will undoubtedly result in some broken bones at some point (if it hasn't already), ye

My son just crossed over to Boy Scouts last night. I'm not sure exactly when I started to become more aware of 'country of origin' on products I buy, but I know for a fact that one of the key moments was buying him his first Cub Scout pocket knife. It was somehow just so wrong that I couldn't find a 'Boy Scouts of America' knife that wasn't made in China. Eventually I had to settle for second best, and buy him one of the BSA branded knives made in Switzerland (by Victorinox), so at least I could get quality if not American made. Since then, I've discovered just how hard it is to buy any kn

Wow, I wish I was in your den, it sounds like you are having a lot of fun! Don't worry about losing a few, it happens every year. Also, just because you started small doesn't mean you will stay that way. My son's Tiger den was two boys. Those two boys talked it up to some friends at school, and the next year we added a few more. Each year we've added a few boys to the den, lost a couple along the way, but a solid core of 3-4 boys with 1-2 added per year can result in a very healthy den. The key is to actively recruit... put together a flyer or poster with pictures showing all of the fun

I think it would be too much to take on both roles. My son is crossing over next week, and I started as a Tiger Den Leader for a dying Pack. Within a few months of joining Cub Scouts, I found myself 'promoted' to Cubmaster for that Pack. I am an Eagle Scout. My mom was my Wolf Den Leader. My dad was my Webelos Den Leader and Cubmaster. I knew a lot about Scouting and had some idea of what I was getting myself into. With all of that said, I almost burned myself out in that first year because we didn't have a real committee (there was one on paper, but I never saw nor heard a thing from t

Sorry for joining the discussion late, but having gone through the whole Cub Scout program I felt I could add a bit to the conversation. I don't think the Scouts stress this in their leader training as much as they used to, but a key principle has always been "Keep it Simple, Make it Fun." At the Tiger age, I see boys who like to wear the uniform, want to go to camp and shoot BB Guns and Archery, and beyond that mostly want to have fun with their friends. I think most of these driving factors stick around throughout Cub Scouts, although wearing the uniform (properly) seems to be left behind

I think this sums up my thoughts on this issue nicely. Let me give you an example from my personal life. My grandpa and my dad both worked in a die casting factory. My brother went to work for that same factory. Would I ever work there? Heck no. Can I understand why my brother went to work there? Yes: By not going to college, he didn't accumulate student loans. If he put in more than 40 hours per week, he got paid overtime. I work in IT, and only once did I work somewhere where I was paid overtime (although that employer reclassified my position after a year and the overtime dried up

No, that is not a valid answer. It isn't saying "Explain why this profession does interest you," but rather why it "might." In other words, why do some people choose this profession? If someone gave me that answer, I would probably also ask them to explain why they wouldn't choose that profession. It really comes down to a discussion of the pros and cons of the profession.

In Wisconsin, the State has a nice PDF that explains whether a non-profit (such as a Scouting unit) needs to collect sales tax on their fundraising activities: https://www.revenue.wi.gov/pubs/pb206.pdf I am not a Lawyer, but basically as I read it, if you are a non-profit in Wisconsin selling for 20 or less days per year, or collecting $25,000 or less per year, then you aren't engaged in a trade or business and aren't required to collect sales tax. If you exceed both of those standards, then you might owe sales tax on your sales.

Coming from a formerly dysfunctional pack, it sounds like your Pack needs a lot of help. As others have stated, most of those things shouldn't be the Cubmaster's job. In my Pack, when I became Cubmaster, I was stuck doing many of those things but gladly would have handed them off to others. Over 3 years, I recruited and coached a Committee and have slowly but surely shed those non-CM jobs that I was doing. In your Pack, it sounds like not only is the CM doing a lot of things he shouldn't be doing, but he doesn't want to give them up, yet isn't doing them well. I can understand that last p

Just a point of clarification in regard to shelter building, someone above said "says sleep in it. No sleep, then it's a cheat." Actually, nowhere in the handbook does it say that you *must* sleep in it, just that it should be a shelter that would protect you if you did sleep in it. Having slept outdoors without a tent as a Boy Scout on several occasions, I'm not sure that they want to scare away Scouts at the Webelos age. More often than not, between temperature and bugs, sleeping in an emergency shelter is something you do because you have to, not because you want to.

I would agree that it is a non-Scout function, so it is okay. With that said, there was just a case in the national news of a pedophile who was a Scout Leader, involved with Youth Ministry, offering swimming lessons, and had no children at home. We had another case locally where a pedophile was hosting movie nights at his house for neighborhood children (thankfully this guy wasn't a Scout leader). As a parent, would I let my son or daughter sleep over at a friend's house? In most cases the answer is yes, and that includes one of my Den Leaders and my Pack's Committee Chair. If a Cub Sc