catdaddyxx

It's interesting that the Age-Appropriate Guidelines say Webelos and above but in the Wolf book Achievement 8e is to help prepare and "cook" and outdoor meal and clearly shows a wolf cub (yellow shirt)cooking over a grill. Another reason to update the books I guess. lol

I'll be wrestling with this, this year. We have always cooked as a pack, but we were a tiny pack. We trippled our size this year. So, I have some learning to do and soon.

I sort of agree. I've read the fieldbook and the handbook cover to cover. I'm still a little in the dark on a lot of common practices and traditions having no personal scout experience past cubs. (no troop near me and unsuportive family). I've seen a lot of info scattered on different sights throughout the net though that have helped.

I didn't want to overwhelm the adults right off the bat. I did have a few that signed up as volunteers on the spot. Even a couple with past leader experience that have seen the drastic changes in our pack and returned.

This pack had been misused for a while and quite a few people had left from boredom. A walking talking example of "kids vote with their feet" so to speak.

Anyway, Tuesday is a pack meeting and I'm planning a big adult talk for volunteers. Focusing on family and the short amount of time parents have to truly influence the development of their boys.

Also planning a camping trip and a council Halloween thing in the next month to get them out there, active, and hooked. Including BB Guns, Archery, and slingshots of course.

Just finished up what I thought was a very successful cub roundup.

Our public schools dont let us in for boy talks. They do allow for fliers however. So, our only option was for a flier driven cub roundup at a local park. We put yard signs all over town and sent home fliers. We have also been doing some very high visibility activities like color guard for all the home H.S. football games.

We set up a pinewood derby, hotdogs, signs, and a half dozen or so tents. Along with a registration table with a ton of last years pictures, trophies, and books.

When I joined as a tiger leader last year we had a total of 5 active kids in the pack and three months later I was the Cub Master. I was able to recruit till the pack had hit 11 kids by this month.

Today we had 21 new boys sign up nearly tripling our packs size in four hours. Im stoked and a little apprehensive about handling that many kids. Im gonna need some more help for sure! Still excited to have 32 kids in the pack! So, given the right application and effort fliers can work.

That's what concealment holsters are for.

I'd never go door to door unarmed. Go Texas.

Though we do have safe neighborhoods and if I feel iffy, we skip it.

Totally social skills door to door.

I see a huge leap of confidence in dealing with adults after I walk my son through an effective door to door sales pitch.

I'm glad it hit the media. We have seen growth because of it.

Evidently there is a group of wiccans in our little town that are demanding to come into the school to push their religion. If they let anyone in to talk to the student population, religious or not, they will sue the school for discrimination. So, instead of chancing a law suit they just dont allow anyone to talk to the kids unless its a school funded organization.

I read a lot and rarely post. But, I just couldn't help but brag on my kiddos a little this time. This year even though we're not allowed to go into the local schools for boy talks, we were allowed to perform a presentation of the colors at the home football games. It took a whole lot of guts for these little guys (mostly new wolf cubs) to go out on the field in front of well over a thousand people and perform so well. No, it's not perfect but for mostly 7-8 year old boys I thought they did a great job.

(clicky)

http://youtu.be/SNKb7hILUvY(This message has been edited by catdaddyxx)

Get it if you can. I was excited to have that particular knot, since I feel it stands out for being able to be successful with the little ones. Something a lot of leaders can't and/or won't do. My council I guess is proactive in the change. I put in for my TCDL knot last spring. Much to my suprise, when I went to the roundtable, they presented me with the blue and gold Den Leader's Knot not the TCDL knot. Even though they have the TCDL knot in stock at the coucil store.

Enjoy yourself and don't take anything you get to experience for granted. I've been looking forward to woodbadge for a year only to find out 30 days before weekend one that the entire course wasn't going to make.

As an educator:

Do not contact the coach directly. It will do nothing but give him something to laugh and chat with the other coaches about.

Do call the building principal and calmly explain the statements that he is accused of making concerning community youth organizations. Bug squashing like this is the principal's job. If the principal is an ex-coach you may need to move up the chain with a call to the superintendent. Keep it non-accusatorial. Express a concern that a faculty member is being accused of making these kinds of statements. This will get the point across and will get back to the coach as at least a disciplinary butt chewing.

Also wanted to add that the summer activities are 75% requested by the pack's parents. I sat them down and asked them what and how much "they" wanted to do. I let them know that I wanted to give them everything they wanted to do this summer but not so much as they burn out. So, I made it thier choice.

I had a few hands on things for them to pickup and look at. i.e. compass and such.

That meeting on the 29th that the new tigers are comming to is also going to be a big outdoor pack meeting. With a graduation ceremony (bobcat bones) and campfire/weinie roast, water gun fight, races, and what ever other crazyness I can come up with.

We were limited in what we could do at the booth because of space. However I was glad after the fact that I didnt plan a bunch of activities. Since no one stayed at the booths long. This was a day at the YMCA and full of competitions. So, the kids were already very active and mostly came to the booths when they were resting between events.

Some of the exposure was sending the scouts in class A out to compete. They would have performed better with athletic wear of course but no one would notice another T-shirt. We won a few medals even in scout gear. Lol

The kids we have a so fired up and excited. We may not have a lot of scouts but every single scout we have showed up that day! Every one of them. I was stunned.

I had myself (CM) barking and then had the SM and ASM of our towns troop and the SM of our towns new troop there as well. I put my wife (treasurer) and Den Leaders behind the table with the paperwork.

The biggest draw was the videos and the pictures. I also made sure that it was clear that all of the pictures were from this year. I had two laptops playing 100 years of scouting and the cub scout promo dvd. Then lots and lots of pictures. We were definitely the most eye catching display. Even had some girls that we had to point next door to the girl scouts booth.

On the 8 new signups. 2 are kindergarten and will be joining us on the 29th after school is out, 4 are supposed to show up tomorrow, and 2 that signed applications and paid in full. The group of 4 were mostly in the custody agreement cesspool that I deal with, with my son. So, I totally understood where they were coming from.

We have a bunch set up for the summer and the list we handed out to parents seemed to impress them. As a rual TX town they kids are bored in the summer and dying for something to do.

We are doing two resident camps, Day camp, Twilight Camp, one to two den meetings per month, pack meeting each month, a service project for the elderly, a big parade, raingutter regatta, and some geocaching. So, theyll be as active as they want to be this summer. We wont start the program till school starts, so if they want to miss out on the fun and start in August they can. But, they wont be bored this summer unless they choose to be. =)

Thanks for the input guys/gals.

We are a tiny pack in a small town. But, it was a really good day. We signed up 8 new scouts today.

Here is a picture of our booth. Not much room to work with.

No, I think that's what I put on when I get out of the truck without my cell phone.

My title pretty much says it all.

How much personal camping equipment and uniform am I going to need for woodbadge. I'm signed up for the course and expected an equipment list sent to me soon after paying in full. But, I haven't seen one yet.

My wife recently stepped in as advancement chair (December or so). things were a mess to say the least. She had to start keeping a master list of what was earned and when it was awarded. We are having DL's that give a few awards at pack meeting A, and then forget and want to give it again at pack meeting B. So, though she doesn't ask "how" the boys earned it. She does have to keep very close tabs on who earned what and that it "was" awarded on XX/XX date.

So far for the booth we have:

A bright blue & gold canopy to set up under.

the nice printed posters of the promise, law, etc...

several large collages of activities done "this year".

5 foot banners for the pack.

A laptop showing a larger slide show of current pictures.

Another laptop showing the official bsa recuitment dvd.

1000 fliers to pass out with contact info.

plenty of applications.

stickers to hand out.

possibly a place for the kids to make a bead necklace.

That's an excellent point. We're having a big graduation/pack meeting/weenie roast/play day thing at the park right after school is out.

If I can get them interested enough to show up at that, they will be sold.

Hello,

We are preparing for a local "what's happening for youth in our town" type of fair. We have signed up to have a table, and hope to have a big recuitment push. Scouting in our rural town has been mostly in the shadows in the last few years as many people have been suprised that we still have scouts when I talk to them about it. So, I'm working very hard this year to get us back in the public eye.

Anyone have some ideas on what we can do/have at our booth to really make a splash. They are expecting a few hundred kids in attendance.

To help with ideas: The booths for the event will be indoors (gym), I doubt we will have a lot of room, and we can't get too crazy loud.

thanks!

Our pack graduates after the last day of school. This allows the current tigers to attend resident camp. In addition, new tigers that are current kindergarden kids and brought in during spring recuitment have a tiger camp to go to. So, they have something to do during the summer to keep them interested. The current books elude to them moving up after the school year is over and I verified graduation times with our DE. I like it this way since the kids have already been working on electives since February. Asking them to keep on electives all they way to August is a quick way for them to get bored imho. Our DE gave me a date of June 1st. But around here all of the schools are done for the summer by June 1st.