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 chec

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

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.

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.

(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)...

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". Sin

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 wate

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. Th

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