Daped01

Our current pack, as it sits today is very weak at camping. The only camping we do is at our council cub scout resident camp in cabins, and even then its hard to get kids(and parents) to want to go. I would like to see us transition to a pack that does a few overnight campouts a year during the summer (northern minnesota, short season) Do you "experts" have any tips to start a transition to this type of pack. At first i envision us car camping at our local municipal campground. Many of our scout families are Avid Indoorsmen/women so I don't want to do anything too intimidating starting out.

If that works out well, and we start gaining a reputation as a camping pack, perhaps We can move to one of several state parks located in or near a state forest...................so on and so forth.

I guess i'm looking for a way to spin it to make it sound appealing to the parents and those not familiar or comfortable with the outdoors .

And yes, I understand we need someone BALOO trained, weather hazards, and all that stuff before we think about it. This i understand and have covered. That is not the type of info I am looking for.

Question for those of you that have been doing this far longer than I have..... As your kids progress along the program, is it "normal" to see a loss of kids in general as they get older? And if so, what would you consider an "average" attrition rate? I will have to wait a few years to see how it plays out here, but this year here is our make up:

11 Tiger Cubs (mostly all recruited through boy talks last spring)

8 Wolves (4 recruited through boy talks this year, 4 returning)

6 Bears (some recruited at boy talks, some through word of mouth,1 a transfer in from a neighboring council's pack)

4 Webelos (2 Web I's that came around and decided to continue, and 2 Web II's, 1 a transfer (brother of above's transfer), and 1 new scout who's mom contacted me about joining.

I understand why most of our Web I's did not continue, as they had an extremely poor leader last year as bears. It took alot of convincing that the program has improved to get the ones we have to return. Im not sure about how the Web den ran last year, I assumed since our then cubmaster was the den leader that it was going as it should. Perhaps the program was no good in the Web Den as well?

Anyhoo, i'm excited to see how many of the tiger cubs Recruited can stick around!

I have the same issue, I had a mother call me last week saying he has a kid that should be in 3rd grade (bears) but was held back in 2nd grade for a 2nd year. I asked my DE where he should go, and without skipping a beat she told me he needs to be a wolf because of his grade.

Thanks for the support guys, It means alot to me. I had this whole "War and Peace" response to some of your response and unfortunatley, or perhaps fortunatley for your sake, the website crashed on me and I lost it all! So instead of typing it all out I will just say this: I am now looking forward to our October Pack meeting which will be a halloween party. it is also our Popcorn Turn in nights so until then my focus will be on that! If they want to join us great! if they don't, its their loss!

its very disheartening. even though I know I shouldn't let it, its been eating me up inside the past few days. I just need to keep telling myself that our strong tiger cub den, and our wolf and bear dens that have seen increased numbers are the future of our pack! I feel bad for our troop though that were looking forward to having them scouts cross over to join the troop.

well we made contact with most of the parents of the Webelos Den. And the word we heard back was not good. They in fact were not continuing on with scouting, some told us flimsy stories on how they are involved with other activities (activities they have been a part of previously during scouting, and have very little interference with scouting) and others said last years program caused them to lose interest. So.....my focus is on putting on the best pack program I can for the rest of pack. And working with the webelos den leader to try make scouting as positive (fun) as possible for the two new WEB II scouts that have signed up with fall registration. in hopes they will want to cross over into the troop after blue and gold!

We haven't heard any info back yet. We have a committee meeting tonight, I will at least mention it there to gauge their thoughs. Also our first pack meeting is this sunday. If we have a large number of no-shows again we will start investigating further. I have been extremely busy with work projects the last 2 weeks as well and that has eaten into my available time.

Thanks for the input guys!

We started off our year of den meetings last night and for the most part it went off without a hitch. We have an extremely strong Tiger cub den, our Wolf and Bear dens have seen new scouts and appeared to be happily engaged and having fun, as much as you can for the first meeting of the year. However we had 1 boy/parent from our Webelos show up. That includes WI and WII. I cannot figure out why. Communications went out just fine, everybody had notices in plenty of time. Posters have been hanging in the schools, articles in the local newspaper etc.

I don't want to be this cynical, as its not really in my nature, but our Webelos leader from last year (who was also the cubmaster i took over for) stepped down as leader suddenly a couple weeks before school started. It was not a big deal to me as I had anticipated that happening and had a backup leader in place (who would have been an asst den leader had he not stepped down) Could he have told the families something unsavory that made them all want to drop scouts?

Or, is there somewhere else I should start looking first? Should I even be worrying about it after 1 meeting? I hope i'm not making a mountian out of a molehill, it just kind of floored me that 1 out of 8 kids showed up.

bingo, between that and having to travel to pick up the product we said thanks, but no thanks. we will continue to take orders, and then deliver.

no wonder America has become a weak nation. the wussification of America continues.

This year is the first year our council has done the show and sell. We are able to purchase up to 50% of last years dollar value. No refunds, no returns. However we have to travel to our council office (4 hours away for our unit) to pick up the product. We will be skipping this and selling our traditional door to door way.

While this is no where near acceptable behavior, this is far from a new fad. This type of thing was going on when I was a kid in scouts 15-20 years ago. Acceptable - NO. Hazing - Not even close

Sounds interesting. I will give that a try.

i like your ideas about outdoorsman Sidney, All of the boys that will be going have already earned it, but giving a chance to review it out in the woods is a great idea. None of these boys attended any summer events this year so it would be doubley (if thats a word) good to review it I feel. I was also looking at Naturalist requirements and trying to incorporate some of those as well.

correct, our pack has not camped much at all. and the camping we do is at our council owned cub camp that has cabins available. The troop does have all the equipment we will need. Many of the ideas given for activities/skills/stuff to do have crossed my mind, which is a good thing as I feel i'm mostly on the same page as the rest of you. I was just looking for ideas that I may not have thought of.

DUCK WARS!Stosh

???

Up here in Northern Minnesota, Winter is a bad time to have a campout where we are trying to "get their feet wet" when it comes to camping, so we are working on following the BSA's Webelos to Scout Transition guide, which reccomends an october camping trip. We have been going through a leadership transition where I'm taking over as cubmaster of a pack that was disfunctional at best last year. Looking back at our advancement records we have Web II's that are 4 requirements and the fitness activity badge away from earning their webelos badge for whatever reason. I have been working with our new Webelos Leader to work on the Fitness badge (pin) in september. I had thought about having the boys from the troop work with them on the remaining requirements on the campout.

in planning with the scoutmaster I would like to mix in a few competetions or games that would be beneficial to both the boys from the troop and the boys from the pack. Perhaps splitting them up into two groups (our troop consists of 5 or 6 boys with a tenderfoot rank or below) with boy scouts and webelos in both groups and have say a lashing contest. who can make the best "whatever" where the boys can show the WEBs a skill, giving them a chance to work on leadership skills, and the WEBs can do some hands on stuff to get them active.

This way it breaks up the day and doesn't seem like a "class" so to speak.

What are some other reccomendation for games that can be fun for both boy scouts, and webelos to play?

We are in the process of organizing a joint WEB/Troop weekend campout (Webelos to scout transition plan related) and have a few questions. How important is it to have a planned out schedule of skills to learn/practice vs having a loosely scheduled weekend where they just experience what camping is all about.

Does anyone have any good ideas of skills appropriate for Webelos that could be taught by the boys in the troop? We want to make this as enjoyable experience as possible for the Webs, as a first time CM, I would appreciate any advice I can get!

Thanks in advance.

 

 

Welcome to forums :-)

lol Touche'!

It appears we have strayed away from the original topic of discussion. Thank you for your responses.

yeah, that is one of the parts i'm not thrilled about either.

Sidney, regarding the Immediate recognition emblems, I must be in the minority about liking the dangles. Perhaps its nostalgia as that's what I wore, that's what I wish my boys could wear. However I don't like them or dislike the new system enough for the changes to be a big issue for me. t

Much of my excitement i feel is from me being a new leader/cubmaster after a year with an extremely poorly ran program that we are trying to turn around. If anything makes running the program "as designed" so to speak becomes simplified, that will go a long way with our current den leaders continuing to lead without burnout.

If i didn't have enough on my plate already, I was recently nominated to sit on the District Committee and I accepted. We had a meeting last night and I asked if they knew anything about when potential rollout of new program training, or if much of anything about it at all. Our DE straight up told us she has heard absolutley nothing yet. But yeah, I'm just trying to gather as much info as I can so I can be prepared when the implementation does begin!

Hey guys, I want to apologize in advance if this has been beaten to death, but i did a search on the subject, and didn't really come up with what I was looking for. So if this needs to be moved somewhere more appropriate feel free to do so.

What i have saw by reading some of the threads I did find seem to be more of the complaints of the new programs. Which I understand, change is a lot of times very unpopular to some folks or difficult to adapt to. However, in my opinion, after the little bit of reading I have done about the subject (the info on the scouting.org program updates page) the way I interpret things are that the changes are going to make things more hands on for the boys. It seems to me that they are trying to engage the boys natural instinct to want to explore things. Also, from an administration standpoint, I think this will be easier for the leaders to implement. Now maybe I am interpreting things with rose colored glasses, or perhaps i'm just niave, But i am inticipating my pack will greatly benefit by these changes.

We can argue all day long about the changes in the immediate recognition changes, and webelos transition issues until we are blue in the face, but when you take a look at the changes as a whole, or at least what has been made public so far seems positive. Am I the only one that feels this way? or am I just missing something?

not looking to judge, just looking for opinions.