Faith

Welcome Loomans and Saundramanns!

Hello! I'm in the same boat as you. Current Bear den leader, been with our den since my son was a Tiger. My youngest will be in scouts in two years also. Hope to see you around!

Welcome aboard

That's a challenge for us too. We do day camp in June, a water day in July and a pack meet in August. Then our meetings start back up in September. I believe the Webelos meet up during the Summer but that's it for our group. Sounds like y'all have some great ideas already, I hope you can get a good participation number! Getting the boys to wear their uniform can definitely be a task. We have a lot of low income families who are unable to purchase the full uniform. We do try to help as many of them out but even then, a lot of them come straight form work/school/etc. and don't have on the uniform. I saw in the beltloops thread someone posted about doing a giveaway using tickets each pack meet for those who wear their uniform. Not sure if that would be something our group (or yours) would be interested in but I'm gonna suggest it later on this summer and see if maybe we can try it out.

That is awesome that you were happy with what you've seen so far Around here, we can't 'shop around' much, as we're in such a secluded area with limited options. All the other packs that were semi-local disbanded or merged with ours. Like a lot of packs, we have our issues, but overall I am extremely happy with it and I hope you are with yours as well. To echo what was already said, if you have other options, it does not hurt to check them out (I would have myself if that was a possibility here.) Regardless of which pack you decide to go with, I wish you the best of luck. I hope he enjoys camp and you come to see other good things from this pack to save you some time in the long run

Hello, nice to meet you! My son is also moving up to Bear this year (I'm their den leader and always looking for ideas and suggestions here!) I love the idea of piggy backing off school events. Here my son only had two field trips in 2nd grade and one in 1st, so hopefully there are more this coming year. Looking through the book, it seems we have a lot more to choose from this year which is awesome. We also meet on Mondays (1st and 3rd of each month, the last being our pack meet.) Our meetings are anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half long each time. We have class A & B uniforms. Whenever we go out in public or attend a pack meet, I ask them to wear their class A but for all the other events we normally ask they wear their class B uniform. A lot of the time our den meets are outdoors and they always manage to find some dirt Sorry rattling on, love to meet others who are pretty much in the same position as I am Do y'all do any events over the summer?

^ I wanted to second what Sqyire21 said. This was SO helpful for my husband and I to read. We've had so many questions. The den I am the leader for will be Bears this coming year and Webelos when this all starts so its great to know ahead of time some of what's coming. For y'all who broke it down, it's much appreciated, especially to us who haven't been with the program as long

My son tried wearing his on his hat but they just irritated him up there, so we keep them at home on the yellow C that we'll eventually stick in a shadow box. No one in our pack wears any sashes or red vests (never thought to ask about it.) With the A&S program going out now, I wonder if they'll want the scouts wearing them at all (beltloops/pins.)

Welcome, Matt! Sounds like you'll fit right in here

That's awesome, congrats to him and you as well

Sentinel, is there any way to contact a moderator privately? I was in contact with artyom about something awhile back but then private messages quit working and I never got it resolved. I didn't realize we still had mods here until today (I need to pay more attention to the titles!) Thanks a bunch. (And so sorry for posting off topic, quit rude of me!) Glad to know we can get them removed that way, though

Our B&G is for both, however, we only do part of the Webelos II ceremony there (not the bridging over.) I'll do 'points' to keep it short (not easy for me.) - Arrive, fix your plate. - While eating, everyone mingles, walks around, etc. We have tables set up on the sides of the room for each den to showcase what they did throughout the year. They also are responsible for making something for table decor each year. - Opening flag ceremony. - Our CM kicks off the program. Talks a little about the year/etc. - Our guest speaker comes up and talks to everyone for a few minutes. - The dens perform any songs or skits they've prepared. - The leaders get their awards. - Leaders give out any awards their den's scouts earned in the past month (like at a pack meet.) - The rank ceremony proceeds for each of the groups, along with the face painting, etc. The last to go is Webelos II. - Candle lighting ceremony for them, along with giving out their arrows and awards. - Friends of scouting mention. - Closing flag ceremony. This is always in February for us. Then in March, we do the bridging over ceremony at our pack meet. This year no one in Webelos II or Bears were ready to rank up in February so our B&G was a lot shorter and we'll be doing all of the Webelos II ceremonies at the March pack meet. Don't believe I left anything out. Sounds like a lot but goes pretty fast considering. Everyone enjoys it

Ours here in SC is still on for June. We actually have a meeting tonight to plan more for it

While I absolutely love crafting and Pinterest, I'm not very good at it. I can make some of the best fails you've ever seen. I've been wondering the same for later on down the line for my son(s). My husband is very skilled when it comes to building stuff - I may get him and my son to build a large shadow box to stick everything in. Like Polaris mentioned, you can always buy a shadow box if you don't want to build one. Right now all my son's patches are stuck in his scrapbook with double sided tape. I keep everything else in a box nearby. There are two images of projects I've seen that I adore - maybe they'll help (let's pretend I didn't find them originally on Pinterest, I'm sure Google can find them just as easily ) One has the neckerchiefs, the other one doesn't. But again, just general ideas. Good luck!

I love the idea of a potluck. Going to see if we can do that next year, as our biggest expensive was food for our spaghetti dinner (which our pack has done for a few years now.)

We've seen some of the same, blw2. I had a parent turn in quite a few beltloops in a very short period of time. The ones which required showing something, I asked her to bring to the next meet before we gave out what was requested at the upcoming pack meet. Somehow all the projects/presentations were 'lost' in that time period. She never brought it up again but went on to work on others. I really don't understand the concept of fibbing about what was done for the sake of the 'bling.' I'm a parent and a den leader, I love seeing my son earn something new - the key word being earn (and thankfully he understands that as well.)

I'll say I've never seen a rule against that. Although, wow, that would be insane to wear on their uniform (maybe insane is the wrong word, I try to be PC whenever I can but that's quite excessive in my opinion.) Especially if it was the same thing...480 times? The highest I ever saw was 5 in our group (we had so much going on, doing 50 of the things, even with a couple being duplicates, was a feat.) I have to ask out of pure curiousity, do you have a scout that has earned a very large amount of elective beads?

Oh my goodness. We just had ours last night. It was a very simple affair that lasted a little over two hours total (we also ate.) We spent around $400 for everything. Everyone attending had the option to give a donation at the door for the food cost so we broke even and then some with over 100 attendees by the end of it. I had no idea some packs went all out like that (I guess I'm still naive in a lot of areas of this!) So sorry that happened to you. The bright side is he'll be out of y'all's hair for now and you know one thing not to do in the future. Good luck with it!

That's correct. Last year I was told to encourage all our Tigers to work on different electives but if they duplicate some, they still count. 10 is 10 and you get a bead

Welcome to the forums! This place has been a huge help to many of us den leaders and others alike. I'm a second year den leader (our boys are now Wolves) and currently have 12 active scouts. I am the leader with one assistant den leader. A den split was proposed but in the end it just didn't happen and I'm ok with that, our boys are doing great together and we're finally getting the parents more involved in helping, making decisions, etc. Took a whole year and lots of explaining/questions/seeking out (along the steps SSScout listed above) but it works!

It works wonders

We do I'd read using a silk type fabric but figured that would be too transparent and hard to see (even colored.) The fabric would be a better thought. I love that decoration, I might buy that for my house next Halloween!

haha, yeah, crazy times. I was told we will hand out candy canes (and they are gonna see if council has anything for us to distribute), so that kinda counts!

Thank y'all for the wonderful ideas The parade starts in the day time and will be finishing right as it gets dark. I'm gonna summarize these ideas now and send them in. Thanks again!