92hatchattack

From what I was told you dont need OWLS at at. Thats just a bit of a bonus course. Just BALOO is needed I think.

^^^ All of our leaders try and work together to find new leadership by gently twisting the arms of parents we think are already highly involved in the program. Usually out CC will take in the new applications and assign boy to dens or creat new Dens. We tend to not need a single position to take care of this, But we do have a "Pack Trainer" who is in charge of making sure we all are current with out trainings needed to comply with the rules. I suppose you could also use this pack trainer position to help recruit new leaders?

^^^ They are Bear scouts though no? Bear is their "rank" They just havent eaned their bear badge yet right? I personaly hate when the BSA is unclear about so many things.

Very excited about our recruitment this year. We have 27 new scouts paid in full! Now its just a matter of getting them all into dens!

Im going to thread jack a little. My question is which rank pin do you award the boys? Per BSA you rank up in their computers come June 1st right? So at family camping my Wolfs Ranked up to Bears. So they completed thr majority of the summertime award as Bears. Yet my son was awarded the Red Wolf pin tonight. This makes no sense to me. Arent they color coded now so that they can wear the pin the matches their slides? My son earned this award as bear, shouldnt he get the bear one? Some will argue that this means that since most Tigers dont join till september they will never earn the Tiger one. I say oh well....They are technicaly able to joine June 1st. We had one boy that did join june 1st and he was awarded the Tiger one. So what, he is going to earn the same one next year? It makes no sence.

To make maters worse these two sites seem to agree with the way my pack handled it tonight, although it seems no official word can me found on the scouting.org webpage.

http://www.boyscouttrail.com/content/award/award-1584.asp

http://meritbadge.org/wiki/index.php/National_Summertime_Award

I dont agree with those two links at all. When the pins are made color matched with the slides why would my son wear the green/blue slide as a bear and be awarded the Red Wolf pin. Someone make that logical to me.

One thing I started doing this year as ACM for our camping outings is to invite parents/scouts that do not wish to actualy campout over night to attend the activities durring the day. We have gotten a handful of scouts that otherwise wouldnt have attended the event now comming for the day which is much better than them not coming at all. This way they get to show up and get a feel for the campout, and maybe next year they will decide they wish to stay overnight.

Very often misunderstood age restriction on earning the chip. Wolf cubs can earn however as many have said before' date=' it depends on the scout. We overcome this by ensuring that a parent takes the class with the scout. No parent, no chip. We have found that a terrific knife for the younger scouts is the cub scout lock blade knife with the blue rubber handle. it is small and easy to use by the cubs. Using non-lock blade knifes and multi function knives is asking for a scout to get cut [/quote']

 

I have yet to see anywhere in print where it says a scout younger than a bear scout may use a knife or earn his whittling chip. The Age-Appropriate Guidelines for Scouting Activities specifies "Bears Only". http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/34416_Insert_Web.pdf

I dont seem to be authorized to start a new topic today. Any idea why?

^^^ I Dont think that its going to go over well in my pack either. It may not be worth the effort. What I will make sure of though is that if the scout have finished the achievements for his rank badge he will be allowed to start earning and wearing arrow points, even if the actual badge isnt handed out till B&G.

My main and first focus will to be to change the program so that everything done during the summer counts towards that new program year. I have the information here, and then had it verified by an email to scouting.org, so they have no excuse to not accept this fact and adopt it.

Baby steps...

Question. What if I would like to earn one of these Leaders knots, but my pack is not actively participating in the square knot program? Should I encourage that the pack start participating in the program? I feel as though many of the leaders may find this laughable.

^^^ Thanks for the answer.

And yes I understand what you mean and I am trying to "Do My Best". The hardest part of the whole scout program for me right now is being the assistant. I'm not used to not being able to take full charge of something. This is more of a problem in my Den where I feel it is lacking some structure. I keep trying to really get the kids involved while the leadership is more like just do enough to get by. This is killing me inside. But the new Cubmaster and I really seem to see eye to eye. I think we will make a nice 1-2 punch.

Thanks again and sorry for the thread jack!

---Joe

Not to thread jack, but since I am only an assistant den leader and assistant cubmaster it doesnt look like I'll be earning any knots. I did however earn my AOL as a scout back in the day. Do i need to jump through hoops with council to be awarded this knot or can I just purchase it and throw it on the uniform? Not really sure how the whole adult award program works.

Thanks everyone. Just to let you know I am already an assistant Den leader and have completed all the needer training online over the summer.

So I did get my main questions answered. Anything after June first does in fact count to that up and coming scouting year( my pack has not been doing this correctly), and a boy can earn his badge of rank at any time.

Let me ask though. Is it discouraged to have a boy and parent that are very eager to earn that patch early go and say complete all the acheivements over the summer? Do most of you break for the summer? As you may be able to tell I am a little concerned as a parent of a scout myself. As a first year assistant leader I have kept my mouth shut when it came to a few things. But stepping up as assistant cubmaster with a new cubmaster that is pretty much on the same page as I am we want to fix a few of these systematic errors.

I am excited about the oppotunity though. I started a pack hiking club in the fall and even through the dead of winter I've been getting at least 10 kids a hike....which should go up come nice weather time. I've got tons of fun and educational ideas that I am looking forward to doing!

Ok, we seem to move around the same time fram. Early June we have Family camping and move the boys up, giving them their new slide and neckercheif.

But heres the questions. When are they able to start working on Bear acheivements?(My Den are currently Wolfs) Can they start working toward their Badge right after the June ceremony? Or does nothing count towards the new rank until things get back into swing in September? I've heard so many conflicting arguments on this and everyone always thinks their right.

So heres what bothers me about the whole setup. Kids dont start working on bear acheivements till September. They work on arrow points at the same time. Currently they dont get their arrow points till they get their rank badge at the B&G. So, if your a Bear and you get your arrow points that you've worked hard for at the B&G at the end of February and get to wear them for about a whole 3 months till you cross over to Webelos. This seems wrong and really has essentialy cut the bulk of the program down to about 6 months. So its a little conflicting it seems.

As far as the rank towards progress thing I think what really bothers me is it just seems like a part of the uniform is missing on that right hand pocket.

Yes we do the belt loops and such. I agree the spring and summer are the times in scouting that the grind loosens and there is time for more fun things. But if the kids could start working on their next badge after June it would take a bit more of the pressure off of the grind durring the fall and winter leaving a little time for fun their too.

What does SM I and BOR stand for?

Thanks for the replies everyone!

Hello everyone, this is my first post here. I have now officially become an assistant Cubmaster and I have some question of a few things that are going on in my pack that seem different from when I was a scout myself, and I'd like to get them straightened out.

For starters, when exactly can a scout earn his rank badge? From what I remember a scout would simply earn his badge at the next pack meeting after completing the nessasary acheivements. But for some reason it seems my pack is waiting till the late February B&G to award these. Does this sounds off to anyone? That means that both our Wolfs and Bears have to wait until then to start being awarded aroow points.

Also, when technically does the program year end? When techniaclly does say a Wolf scout become a Bear scout..... at what point in the year? There seems to be some real confusion about some of these things and I really aim to get them straightened out.

One other thing.. The progress towards rank beads. Are the majority of the packs out there using these? Mine is not and I found it disturbing to see a piece of the uniform missing on all of these boys as I was a scout myself way back in the day.

The new Cubmaster and I are really looking to get a few things straightened out and to organize a little bit. But for a change we need some definite answers on some of these things.

Thank you all for your help!

---Joe