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Webelos Activity Pin Presentations


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Does anyone have any ideas for sprucing up the presentation of WAPs? We were talking in our committee meeting that we need some way of differentiating between, say, Citizenship beltloop and Citizen Webelos Activity Pin as the latter involves a heck of a lot more work.

 

Our Cubmaster typically asks the boys questions and tries to get them to talk about what they did to earn the pins. Surprisingly, "I dunno" is apparently a requirement for most all the pins.

 

What do any of the rest of you do to give the WAPs more weight?

 

 

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I present rank, arrow points, activity pins, belt loops, activity badges, etc. at the Pack meetings. I have the whole den come up at once and stand in a row facing the crowd. I stand behind the boys and read what each boy has earned and shake their hand. My asst. den leader, she actually has the awards and passes them out to the boys.

 

I do this for a couple of reasons. Bringing up each boy individually takes time and bores the audience. Nobody want to see me fumbling around through a paper bag or a bunch of baggies looking for awards. With a medium to large Pack (40 boys or above) giving out individual awards should be QUICK and not take up more than a quarter of the meeting at best (15 minutes, so no more than about 30 sec./scout). When I give out awards that we may have worked on as a den (all attended a Readyman session at the fire station, worked on Readyman all month for example) I may give a brief synopsis of the den activities to the Pack.

 

Remember, there are a bunch of Tiger scouts in the audience and they get restless very easily!

 

Pack meetings should be a time that the dens supply entertainment and fun to the pack. Not a time to bring in outside entertainment only, not a time to lecture, not a time to sit through endless award ceremonies.(This message has been edited by acco40)

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Our Pack was very big, so we only recognize Rank, arrow points, Activity badges, Tiger paws and religious awards at pack meetings. Everything else was presented by the Den Leaders at their Den meetings. We also put the scouts name with a list of all his awards in the monthly Pack newsletter.

 

However in trade, our awards presentations were usually very exciting and fun for the scouts and families. I tried to create a new ceremony for each pack meeting so the scouts and parents never saw the same one twice. I learned the best way to keep everyones interest was involve the whole audience in the awards. Sometimes I would tell a story and every time I mentioned Wolf, Bear, Webelos or what ever the award was, the audience had to yell something like CRY OF THE WOLF, or ROAR OF THE BEAR!. Or they may have to yell the name of the scout who was receiving the award. There is nothing like watching the face of a boy hearing his name yelled out in honor by 150 people. For me, the two objectives were keep the ceremonies fun, and make the awarded scout smile from ear to ear. Sometimes I would spread the different ranks through the meeting. Start the meeting with a ceremony for the wolves, do the bears in the middle of the meeting and finish with Webelos and Tigers. Once a dad who was an Eskimo Indian lead everyone in a tribal dance when I was recognizing Wolves and Bears. Once in a while I gave all the brothers and sisters bells to ring when they heard a scouts name. Another time I gave them feathers to wear. It was great fun.

 

While I was a Webelos leader, I wanted my scouts to get use to the way most troops present awards at the end of meetings, so I presented Activity Badges at the end of each Den Meeting with the parents watching. The scouts loved this because they didnt have to wait a month for the pins, and they could show them off at the pack meeting. The CM presented the cards to the Webelos so they were still recognized in front of the whole pack for their accomplishments. Those were fun days.

 

I love this Scouting Stuff

 

Barry

 

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Acco -- that's pretty much the way we handle it. We segregate rank awards and do a fancier ceremony for them. Then each den leader brings their den forward and presents all the beltloops, pins, etc., to the den, reading off a list of what each boy earned. Unfortunately, we lump the Webelos pins into that quickie presentation. What I'm looking for is some way to highlight the importance of Webelos pins equal to the work they require.

 

We've talked about presenting beltloops at den meetings, to make more time to present the Webelos pins. But I'm not sure that's fair to the younger boys who don't earn anything but beltloops for the better part of the year.

 

In my opinion, the primary purpose of the Pack meeting is to recognize the boys for the work they've completed. It's a challenge to keep it interesting for the audience, but one way to do that is to make sure most every boy is advancing and earning awards.

 

 

 

 

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I am currently a Webelos den leader, and have volunteered to be Cubmaster next year. This is one of the problems in our pack. To date, we have had four pack meetings, and there is no "real" meeting in January (PWD)or February (B&G).

So far, only six Scouts (out of 55 scouts in the pack)have gotten an award - Bobcat. No other Scouts have been given awards, except our den of Webelos I. They have gotten loops, patches, pins and Activity Badges, at almost every meeting. The current CM doesn't like to give out awards because they take up too much time.

Pack meetings are usually: uniform inspection, announcements, guest speaker,and then game.

No skits, no songs, and only rarely awards.

The other Webelos den leader and I make it a point to give out something to the boys at each pack meeting, and put on a skit related to the monthly theme when we do it (one month, we dressed as cowboys and gave out huge sheriff badges with the awards taped on, the next month we dressed as Eskimos and had their awards on oversized snowflakes - being a Cub Scout leader means being unafraid to look silly). But we are a distinct minority.

Shouldn't Wolves, Bears and Tigers be earning something during the early month's?

How does one change a pack's "culture"? Any thoughts?

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