Cubby's Cubmaster

This is going to be an interesting post. I know that we talk (and write here) a lot about leadership and being boy-led. Leadership IS the main reason I have my son in boy scouts and why I encourage him to be in it. As I tell other leaders that prefer adult-led...my son and I don't need to join scouts to go on outings. We do that anyway. A reason I encourage him to be in boy scouts is to learn to lead and work well with others. I firmly believe that Boy Scouting is the best place for training boys to lead. In boy scouts, the crucible for leadership and peer interaction is the patrol.

Not much to add to this post except my own personal experiences with both the Parvuli Dei and the Ad Altare Dei. I earned the AAD as a youth and my son earned PD as a Webelos scout. My AAD was done as a class of 12. The AAD focuses on the sacraments. It was a lot like my CCD preparation for Confirmation. I enjoyed the group discussions in the ADD class and the breakout sessions in small groups. I think it added a lot to my understanding of my faith. I don't think a one-on-one with the AAD counselor would have been as good of a learning experience. This was my experience. As for the PD,

There certainly are a lot of reasons to let him move onto scouts and a lot of reasons to let him stay for his W2 year. My son crossed over last spring. He's have a great time in scouts. He had a great time in cub scouts. All den leaders run things a little different and all boy scout leaders (boys and adults) do things a little bit differently. I think the key is to ask your son what he wants to do. Many boys are in scouts to be with their friends and to have fun. If he 'skips a grade' and his friends don't join boy scouts with him, he might miss them and miss out on the experiences sha

jr56, That is how we did it in cub scouts. We'd bring all scouts of the same rank together to get the award. We'd have the parents behind the scout to hand the rank and get a Mom's pin. I haven't seen that done in boy scouts. But in a large troop it makes sense. I agree that bringing scouts up one at a time when there are 50+ scouts is too time consuming and all get tired quickly. Rank promotion makes a lot of sense. Now for the other awards, in cub scouts we'd put them in a baggy and not talk about them. How would you handle those? Not mention them...or Bring up everyone ear

To answer a few questions... 1. COH is boy-led but not very exciting. It should be thrown back on the PLC how they want to make it more interesting. 2. Scouts getting awards show up and others do not. 3. Like the COHs, attendance at troop meetings is more common for the newer scouts than older scouts...a common trend. 4. We are a large troop so COHs can take a while. Regards, CC

I've noticed that attendance at Courts of Honor is linked to whether the scout got an award or not. Not surprising. So way less than half the troop might show up for any Court of Honor. My question to the forum is this...how to increase attendance at Courts of Honor? Or is unrealistic to expect scouts not getting an award to attend? Regards, CC

My son joined a troop this year and they had a court of honor in June (lots of new scouts reaching Tenderfoot) September (lots of scouts getting Summer Camp merit badges) March (lots of scouts getting Merit Badge Challenge merit badges) Plus, Eagle Courts of Honor occur when the new Eagle wants so they can be scheduled at various times of year. My question to the forum is this...When does your troop have a Court of Honor? Regards, CC

Great responses! Let me focus the question...if you HAD to restrict the number of new scouts entering your troop, how would you do it? Let me take a stab at an answer, accept W2s from my charter organization's pack first. Next, pick whole dens where there is solid adult leadership and commitment in place. Accept single scouts to round out patrols based on already having friends in the troop or another strong tie-in. Of course, I'd recommend to scouts not joining to join other troops. (In my career as cubmaster, I once had to turn a cub scout to another pack as the Bear den he w

Great comments! So Beavah & Stosh (and others that want to chime in)... Would a large troop be more effective using mixed patrols or patrols by school grade? My thoughts are that patrols by school grade would be better as they are have similar interests, similar advancement path and are likely already friends. So when planning outings, it isn't practical to take the whole troop, but there could be a new scout patrol program, middle and older one. So the entire troop meets at a weekly troop program but they are on different outings. I could see such a troop have campouts

Building from my related post..."Can a Troop Be Too Big to Run the Patrol Method?"... If a troop is concerned about becoming too big for it's facilities, gear, resources, adult leadership and ability to maintain a quality program, do such troops restrict the number of new scouts allowed to join? If so, how do they select who is in and who is not? (This is a similar issues as the college fraternity 'Rush' selection process.) Regards, CC

Our troop participated in Peterloon last month. (A bi-annual event since 1930 that brings 5000+ scouts from Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky.) Walking through the 5 sub-camps, I noticed some very large troops (80+ scouts). Assuming a patrol has 8 boys, then a troop of 80 could have 10 patrols. 104 scouts would give 13 patrols. Meaning 13 dining flys, 13 chuck boxes, 2-3 troop trailers, etc. Using the 100 yard rule, we'd need 7 or so football fields to have a troop campout! I can see that using the Troop Method would make this easier as food is cooked in one central place and boys camp in

I introduced ScoutTrack to my pack when I moved from another state. Prior to that the cubmaster keep spreadsheet advancement records. And the pack committee chair kept the email list. Needless to say, it was very difficult to keep accurate records. People were left off of emails or old emails didn't get deleted. Advancement ceremonies would be followed by a line of parents saying "My scout didn't get ______ and ______ but they earned it." I've looked into the other programs and ScoutTrack fit our needs best: cost (used to be $45 per year), accessibility (online so every parent can ac

My 2 nephews ages 14, 12 each earned 9 merit badges at Jambo this year. I was shocked! They decided they'd work their tails off. They got to the merit badge midway when it opened and worked all day every day except the last day they were there. They would have earned 10 each but on the last day they rested and enjoyed the Jambo activities. Go to hand it to them in that they applied themselves...but whew! I attended the 1981 Jambo. I did most of the Jambo activities, earned the 'rocker' patch and never thought about doing the merit badge midway. One reason was I could do merit badges

Hi, Basement Dweller. Our pack has a Move-Up Family Picnic the Thursday before school lets out for the year (usu. the last Thurs of May or first Thurs of June.) The pack provides the grilled meats KNFs,plates & napkins, the pack families brings the sides, desserts, drinks etc. It is one of our most popular events as we play games until past dusk. If the pack runs a surplus we give out neckerchiefs, slides & books. We bring out the pack bridge and have the kids walk across. We also give out leader gifts at this end of the school year event. This year, we advance in rank at th

Hi, MNBob. Our pack's ceremony isn't posted online. We don't have a heavy Native American theme to ours. We recognize the boys and give our the AOL patch and Arrow/Plaques. Of note, this year we changed our BG Banquet to a BG Celebration. We charge nothing for it. We dispensed with the dinner and are having desserts. At the beginning of the year, we got DL buy-in to have scouts advance at the BG and not at monthly pack meetings. Thus we are at 92% of the pack getting their advancement for the March BG. We also moved the BG from Feb to Mar so that it would give more time to finis