WonderBoy

I'll admit that following these forums sometimes reminds me of spending too much time on social media or the news outlets. It's easy to fall into the trap of spending so much time on what's wrong that we forget about all that's going right in our world.

Welcome!

Be careful what you wish for. You may end up drowning in information. 😁

Welcome. I have a Lions Den, officially of three, but now, practically , of only two. It seems like a lot of games I see for Den activities cease to be practical when you drop from three to two Scouts. But I'm hoping these will be nucleus of a stronger, bigger Den next year when they hit first grade. 

You're in good company here. Many fellow Scouters, like myself, who returned wondering (hense my "WonderBoy" screen name) how to put on a good program. But more importantly, many, many Scouters with plenty of good experiences (and some bad ones to learn from!) to share. 

As a Pack sponsored by the PTO of our local elementary school, and with a diverse (as we can get in my area) group of backgrounds, I avoid the use of the word "Lord" altogether.

And I wouldn't use the term "father" either so as not to offend the goddesses.

@prof- We might have been at camp at the same time! (I was there in '77 & '78)

Camp Ransburg- Crossroads of America Council (Bloomington, IN)

Kishwaukee Scout Reservation- Calumet Council (Kirkland, IL)

My argument against year-round schooling is my fond memory of the summer month I spent less than 24 hours at home (time to do laundry!). Family vacation, home for laundry, troop high adventure trip (w/the older Scouts), and on the way home from that I was dropped off at summer camp (w/ the younger Scouts).

I wish I had an answer to help you, but my Pack has run into a similar problem.

We wanted to sign-up to accept cedit cards for popcorn sales and Pack registration fees. Well... you need a EIN for that. OK, we're sponsored by a local PTO group so we use their's right? But the PTO never registered as a 501(c)3... They just use the school district's number when they need one. Which would be inappropriate and wrong for our Pack to use. So what's the PTO's actual EIN? We haven't been able to dig it up and any paperwork from the last decade only has the last four numbers for security. So I check with our banking institution. What number was used to set up our account? Well our account predates our Chartered Organization's current account by at least eight years and was probably set up using someone's personal Social Security Number. (WAY before the post 9/11 banking changes.)

We want to get things straightened out, but it's not really on our C.O.'s front burner, so to speak, as they have no pressing need to do anything about it. Until then... "Cash or check only, please."

Oh, the joys of being at the bottom of the pecking order...

16 hours ago, Eagle1993 said:

ILL...

16 hours ago, Summitdog said:

 . . . INI

Ha! I used to dislike that because they'd kicked us off our training lot to park campers for home game tailgating.

Welcome! There's quite a few of us here who lurked for years before before joining the conversations.

2 hours ago, FireStone said:

Now that I think about it more, I would suggest (strongly encourage even) that you talk to parents before giving anything to your scouts. Some parents might prefer to be the ones to give their son/daughter their first pocketknife. I rehabbed my old Swiss Army knife to almost like-new condition and I've held on to it for longer than my son has been on this earth, with the intention of handing it to him next year as his first knife. And if someone else came along at a den meeting and handed my son his first knife before that, I'd be kind of annoyed.

This can't be stressed enough. I wasn't going to pass on one of my old pocketknives until my son earned his Totin' Chip and had told him so. Off he goes to summer camp, dutifully earns his Totin' Chip, and proceeds to purchase his own knife from the camp trading post. I was (am) super disappointed. But I had never told him he couldn't buy his own. Mostly because I didn't think or know it was an option. So I was mad, with no one to be mad at... sigh.

4 hours ago, Scoutmaster Teddy said:

Mot scouts still recite the Pledge of Allegiance wrong. it's "One Nation Under God" not 'One Nation (pause) under God." It's peeve of mine.

(Light chuckle) To my ears, saying it as currently written without the pause sounds funny. Maybe I'm old enough to have originally learned it from people who had not yet retrained themselves to the addition of the "under God" line...

I'm curious if any Veterans confound their Scouts by saluting in civilian clothing?

Sailors don't salute unless covered, and they're not covered indoors unless standing watch (or at Quarters), so this is what I continue to do. And I've yet to be outdoors around my Cubs, in civvies, during a flag ceremony, so I've never had to think about it.

The goal of Cub Scouts is not Boy Scouts (Scouts, BSA after February '19)...

7 hours ago, Eagledad said:

Policy change over the last few years tend to pull the Cubs away from the outdoor program. I believe much of the trend is to prevent litigation. So, it will be interesting.

Barry

I couldn't agree more. Last year I had a parent who wasn't happy with our Pack's programming. So I asked for her suggestions on how we could improve things more to her liking. And one by one I had to shoot down her ideas because they didn't pass muster with the Guide to Safe Scouting as applied to Cub Scouts. While it was personally satisfying to not be the unimaginative idiot she thought I was, it made me sad to say, "no", to activities that I'm sure our boys would have loved.

Welcome!

To paraphrase some of the wise Scouters on this forum, "There's a lot of information on these forums, some of it's even useful."

😢

Welcome to the virtual campfire!

Welcome! Enjoy the ride...

Let's see... is it better to have a Cubmaster also serve as a Den Leader or have boys not register at all because of the lack of separate leadership?

After failing to get a Lion Den off the ground for the last two years due to lack of leadership (and a "tipping point" of Scouts), I made sure people knew I was going to be the Lion leader and there would be a den this year. (I had selfish reasons; I wanted to make sure my son had a Den to join.) There are two other boys currently in his den. One boy's dad is already a Den Leader for his older brother and his mom is our "Popcorn Kernel". Since I'm the Cubmaster, that leaves the other boy's parents. I was pretty blant and just told this boy's father that he was my Assistant Den Leader, as there was no other option. (And to his credit this new Scouter also stepped up to be our Pack's Advancement Chair.) And maybe New Scouter and I can switch places once things are up and running, but we couldn't risk another year of the Lion Den not happening.

And we're not even a particularly small Pack. 35-45 kids, depending. BSA can HOPE leadership is spread out enough that no one has to double up, but reality is another thing entirely...

My, now "vintage", Mile Swim cards just state, "swam 1600 meters (1 mile) under safe conditions and has qualified for the Mile Swim BSA" on the front.

The back reads, "You have proved yourself to be a strong swimmer and are commended for this fine accomplishment. It means that you are making yourself prepared for a possible emergency in the water and are working toward physical fitness. The emblem show that you have reached a worthwhile goal. Don't stop here. Continue to improve your stamina."

I seem to remember all my "official" mile swims being conducted in a pool (no swimming waterfront at summer camp, just boating) doing circular laps around the circumference of the pool. Which I hated because I remember always bumping into other, mostly slower, swimmers. And it seems like I can make the exact same statements if I have to describe my experience doing the mile swim for the water survival portion of my aircrew training while in the Navy. Circle swim in a (much larger) pool, constantly getting kicked in the face and bumping elbows... Really the biggest difference between the two was for Scouts I wore a swimsuit and for aircrew school I wore a flightsuit.

So if swimming a mile in a pool is good enough for the Navy aircrew training, it's probably good enough for Scouting purposes...

5 hours ago, elitts said:

I think you got it wrong.  The rules as written would mean that TWO adults would need to stand outside monitoring the conversations. 

 

Or would that be two TRAINED, REGISTERED adults? 

Way back in the dark days, when I was but a boy and all transportation consisted of station wagons, our troop had a couple of "Canadian" tents. These monstrosities got brought out only when the travel times were short and the available station wagons were plentiful. Picture a smallish, circular, circus tent with sidewalls. The center (and only) pole broke down into two sections, but still had to be lashed to the roof racks as the halves were too big to fit in the cars. If I remember correctly, one station wagon could carry both canvases, but nothing else besides a front seat passenger.

Three older Scouts could carry the canvas but four made the job easier. It took a real team effort to lay out the canvas, raise the center pole and stake out the "corners". Then the rest of the staking and guy-lines could be handled by a smaller crew. If the weather was nice (it never seemed to be so) the side walls could be rolled up and tied off for comfort. This tent could sleep up to 15, although I never remember more than 7-9 members of the Leadership Corps (remember those?) in there at a time. The tent's greatest asset, aside from sleeping an entire Patrol under one roof, was that, if properly set up, it could take a storm. The wind would just whip around it and blow on by. I remember one storm that blew down every poorly set-up Voyager tent in our campsite and a few of the well-set up ones too. The canvas of that Canadian tent just ruffled in the wind and we stayed snug, warm and dry.

Or, to straddle both sides of the fence, you could do what many of the active Arrowmen of my old Lodge did. One sash for work, another sash for uniforms. (And, of course, over the span of many years it's my "clean" one that I've lost track of.)

For about a buck a piece, our local Scout Shop sells transparent plastic patch holders that fasten to your shirt via the button on the right hand pocket. They're available in a circle shape that fits the "standard" round patch (the size of a position of responsibility patch) and a square shape that fits the less standard square size and some of the odd-ball shaped patches. The holders aren't super tough however, so they're not suitable for all occasions. But I use them to switch out patches about once a month for our Pack meetings since I accumulated a few during my youth. 

All that being said, sewn patches will take a lot more abuse. I recommend sewing with long stiches pulled snug rather than many short stiches pulled really tight. That way the patches can be sewn on quicker, should lay flat and will be easier to use you seem ripper to remove when you're ready to switch patches. 

Good luck!