drmbear

One of our parents came up with an idea for a Fear Factor Father-Son Event. My thoughts are to connect the event to Spring Recruiting - Join Scouting Night activities. We were going to do food - hotdogs with blood and puss (ketchup and mustard), chips, drinks, a t-shirt for the boy(recruiting tool itself, with pack info, etc. for the event), and a number of gross, slimy, yucky things for the event. Our thoughts are to make it an event with tickets purchased, certainly enough to cover the expenses, but possibly enough to make it a fundraiser as well. The idea is to make it the talk of the s

It may be taboo to mention this in Scouting nowadays, but I believe that women should not be in the line leadership of Scout Troops. This has absolutely nothing to do with their abilities in Scout skills, leadership, or anything else, because I know without a doubt that there are women that can do these things every bit as well as or even better than men. The critical point, though, is that they cannot be a man, cannot be that "decent male role model," and really cannot be what these boys growing into men really need at this point in their life, no matter how hard they try. This is a case w

Probably the most important thing I learned about raising kids, particularly in getting them to do what you want them to do, I learned from training dogs. Any good doog training guide will explain to you that you NEVER tell a dog what you DON'T want it to do. For example, "don't sit" just causes the dog to sit. I think kids are the same way, and most of the language I hear from parents to their kids is "no" or "don't do that" rather than just telling them what you want them to be doing. Cub Scout aged boys are actually very much like the dogs I trained, eager to please and do the things y

My dad used to tell stories about some of the most fun he had as a kid, playing hide and seek in the cemetary, particularly near dusk and early evening. My dad lived in the city, and one of the only outdoor spaces available for play was the cemetary, so it makes good sense. Although the circumstance may not have been appropriate, or the occasion, so long as they were not being destructive I see no reason for anyone to be uptight about this kind of play.

I've seen a lot of folks on this thread referring to the use of previous versions of training materials, but not mentioning where to get these materials. I ran my council's week long Troop Leadership Training Course for three years in a row (as a youth) back in the late seventies, and I agree that the new NYLT leaves a lot to be desired compared to the integration of leadership skills and Scout skills into the program. This past spring I went through Woodbadge for the 21st Century, and overall found it useless by comparison to what I learned and taught as a teen. It seems some corporate wee

I too am a Cubmaster starting out this year, and my son came in so late in the Tiger year to a den with only one other boy, that I missed the whole concept of how the Tiger year is supposed to work. I was Den Leader for the Wolf Den, and am now also a Bear Den Leader. I've also been talking about all this with my Eagle Scout Brother, Tiger Cub Den Leader and adult partner. Anyway, since we know how this should be working as a shared leadership situation, this is what I've decided needs to be done with the Tiger Den. Even if you have people that have volunteered to be Tiger Den Leader,

If you take a look at the adult requirements for the Year Of Celebration Award, in the section for service are some wonderful ideas. I was amazed at the volunteer opportunities at state and national parks, for example. I just registered at several of the area parks, and I can look into opportunities. Some of the parks even send me notices of opportunities that are appropriate for Cub Scout aged kids. It is not unreasonable to hike a couple of miles on a trail and pick up trash. The "Nothing but Nets" project is a more world oriented project. Anyway, right in line with things connected in

You talked about "announcement" type things at the Pack Meeting, and the conflict between what you are responsible for and what the CC is responsible for. I heard something about this that sticks with me: "If it is not for the boys, it is for the birds." Our Pack Events (we got rid of meetings, since meetings are usually boring) are really more of a show and involving program from beginning to end. Besides letting the boys know about the exciting things that we'll be doing together in the coming weeks, there are no detailed announcements - all details are covered through Pack Communication

I know that http://www.boyscouttrail.com/songs.asp includes a little gizmo to play the tune for lots of the songs at that site. I've gone there to get the tune for some of the songs I've found. Sometimes you can just put the title in the search engine and find the tune somewhere - I've done that as well.

A very long time ago, as a youth, I ran our council's Troop Leader Training course (like NYLT now) for three years in a row. I spent months training the staff, building a great leardership team, and then running the course during the week that 50 or so participants were there. I learned something about this singing we do all those years ago that is the main reason I do it now as a Cubmaster - breaking down those barriers that create resistance from getting out of comfort zones is where leadership is developed. We trained the Leadership Corps (staff) to be model Scouts - perfect uniforms

What we came up with for the dens is to make the den number the last digit of the year they start at Tiger (or would have if joining later). They keep their den number until they graduate out of the pack. So far we've only had one den per grade/rank, so that has worked fine, but I could see us working with other options if we needed to split a den.

It really is a change of culture. It's not really the Pack Committee Chair trying to be in charge, because even that would be better than this. In the two years I've been here, I was never once invited to a Pack Committee meeting, because there wasn't any. There really wasn't a Pack Committee. There were no planning meetings for the Pack meetings, the former cubmaster did it all himself, I suppose. All last year, there were a total of four or five people that were doing everything. Late last year, about April, I started taking over and set up a meeting to plan the JSN - it was amazing.

I am wondering whether anyone here thinks it is a mistake or a problem putting out a contact list (names, phone, email, etc.) to MEMBERS of the Pack. My church publishes a directory of both members and friends, my son's t-ball, soccer, and basketball teams all put out rosters, etc. It seems reasonable that if I am working to develop more shared leadership in the Pack, asking parents to be actively involved in putting on Pinewood Derby, Blue & Gold banquet, and more, that they should be able to get in touch with each other. It seems unreasonable to me to have someone agree to coordinate