Blue & Gold

[cs4wc 10]

I would like for my Tiger Cubs to receive their Tiger Cub Patch during the BLue and Gold. A Cubmaster told me that because the pack was so small they couldn't participate in the Blue and Gold. I thought the whole idea behind the B & G was to celebrate scouting and award the boys that have advanced or earned any patches,loops, etc.and to bring everyone together?

[Twocubdad 665]

Huh? That doesn't even make sense. If the pack is so small, I would think they would want the Tigers to to participate. Could it be that he meant that because the meeting space is too small?

 

I'd go to the Cubmaster and pack committee and remind them that the Tigers are fully member of the pack and need to be included. Take an extra parent or two with you. Ask what you need to do to make it happen. Be positive, not confrontational and offer solutions.

[acco40 95]

A few years ago, that answer may have been technically correct. The Tiger program was more of an auxilliary of the Pack.

 

Now, the Tiger program is every bit as much a part of the Pack as Wolf, Bear and Webelos. There may be some remaining bias toward the Tigers due to history, maturity/age factors etc. but the CM has no power to exclude the Tigers.

[cs4wc 10]

Thanks for the info. I will have to pursue this further. I will get with the Cubmaster and see if maybe we both misunderstood each other. I think it would be great for the boys to be recognized during the B & G. Also, is there a site where I could find out more about the Blue and Gold- what you should and shouldn't do, what you can and can't do---you know?

[kthoman 10]

Our Pack always has dinner, entertainment, and advancements. We start with the lowest rank and end with the crossover of Webelos to Boy Scouts. Sometimes we have potluck, sometimes catered (depends on how wealthy we are). We started a tradition of a Father Son Cake Bake with awards and the cakes serve as desert. There are usually ideas in Baloo's Bugle for award ceremonies.

[cs4wc 10]

ok now I am even more confused. My original pack was dissolved (to few boys, they said) and we joined another pack. In my original pack they have been having cross overs for the past 3 weeks. Last week the last of the Webelos crossed over to Boy Scouts. So you are saying that during the Blue & GOld they do the cross overs? Also, does the entire Tiger den have to be ready to advance or can only a few that are ready?

[molscouter 10]

The boys should be recognized as soon as possible after they earn their rank i.e., the first pack meeting. Admittedly, if they finish on Thursday and the Pack meeting is Monday, it may have to wait a month, but like I said, as soon as possible. I know that there are some packs that do everything at once so as to not hurt anyone's feelings, but the go-getters should be recognized. You would also be surprised how fast the others get into gear once they have seen their buddies get a badge, especially at the lower ranks.

[ScoutNut 147]

The Blue & Gold is the name of a Cub Scout celebration honoring the birthday of Cub Scouting in the USA. It is normally held in February, the month of BSA's birthday, and takes the place of that month's Pack meeting. Everything that you usually do at your monthly Pack meetings (recognizing boy's achievements/advancements, songs, skits, etc) should be done at Blue & Gold as well. A meal of some sort is usually held along with some kind of special entertainment.

 

A boy is eligible to join Boy Scouts when he is 11 years old - OR - has completed the 5th grade - OR - has earned the Arrow of Light. Whenever one of these requirements has been met the boy can "crossover" to Boy Scouts.

 

Traditionally, the 5th grade Webelos Den is either awarded their AOL award, crossed over to Boy Scouts, or both at the February Blue & Gold celebration. The Blue and Gold is also the time when, traditionally, each Cub Den receives their rank badges in an appropriate ceremony. But this is not written in stone. Boys should receive their recognitions and rank badges as soon as possible after earning them. This means that it is possible to have rank advancements at every monthly Pack meeting. It all depends on the boys!

 

Question - How can your old Pack be holding crossover ceremonies if the Pack has been dissolved?

[acco40 95]

Rules, schmules. The Blue and Gold Banquet is a birthday party! What are the rules in your house for a birthday party? Do you have to have cake? Do you have to have ice cream? When do you open presents? That's right, you can do what YOU want!! Most Packs traditionally do SOMETHING, be it crossover for Webelos, advancement, etc. No right or wrong answer but for some tradition is strong.

(There is a good reasons for Webelos to cross over into Boy Scouts in the February-March time frame and not later but that is the topic for another thread altogether.)

 

As to advancement, remember that it should be done ASAP. If a kid earns Bobcat, Tiger, Wolf, Bear, or Webelos (or AOL), arrow points or anything else recognize him as soon as he earns it. Recognize him again as soon as the award is "purchased"/presented. Then recognize him again at a more formal Pack meeting. For goodness sake, don't keep an award from a child who earned it in October just so he can be presented at the B&G.

 

Now when I was heavily involved with Cub Scouts, we (Pack Committee) decided that the parents of the second year Webelos would be in charge of the planning for the B&G. The younger dens presented awards as they saw fit. We had a sit down dinner. The highlight was the AOL presentations to the boys and the cross over ceremony for the Webelos. We had our arrow made by the adults (ornated accordingly to recognize their full Cub Scout history - look it up), a scrapbook presentation (beautiful work) that was five years in the making, a great cross over ceremony with a wooden bridge (both AOL and crossover ceremonies involved the OA) and presentation to some wonderful volunteers. For in our Pack, the B&G was the last official meeting that the Webelos II attend. But the bottom line is, your B&G should be YOUR B&G and you do what you want!

[Wallace 10]

Remember that at its core, the purpose of the Blue and Gold Banquet and its placement in February is to celebrate the birthday of the BSA.

We always have a birthday cake and use this event to show (or re-explain) the purposes, mission, etc of the entire BSA program.

The other aspects (awards, skits, songs, fun, etc.)of the B and G are held within this context.

 

[cs4wc 10]

Thanks for all the info---

As for the question about the dissolved pack and the crossovers---we were told the pack was being dissolved and another pack had been approached about us joining them. We were told we could either start with that pack right away or wait until all the crossovers were done, it was our choice.

[NJCubScouter 1389]

There is probably something in the Cub Scout Leader Book and perhaps in Program Helps about the Blue and Gold Dinner (known by some as Blue and Gold Banquet, but it's the same thing), but here is what I know, and believe:

 

(Now that I have finished this, I see it has become a small pamphlet.)

 

The mandatory ingredients of a Blue and Gold Dinner are very few, and they are:

 

People -- at the very least, that would be the Cubs -- ALL the Cubs, including the Tigers; their families; and all leaders (including the Charter org. rep.) Beyond that, it is up to the pack. It's not a bad idea to invite the head of the Charter Organization; anyone else who has rendered substantial assistance to the pack in the past year, even if not a registered leader; and other people who might be considered to be part of the "pack family," an example off the top of my head might be the Scoutmaster of a troop chartered to the same organization as the pack. Perhaps a member of the clergy to do an invocation and/or benediction (though those were done by Webelos in my son's former pack.) I seem to recall that when I was a Cub Scout the pack really went all out with this, and had people like the Mayor there as well. In my son's former pack we usually had our District Executive there, but his actual role was primarily as a Friends of Scouting presenter. I am sure we would have fed him even without the presentation which was never a big hit with the boys (or the parents for that matter), but it was the best time to do it.

 

Food -- Of whatever type and mode of acquisition that suits the people in the pack and the funds available. Catered, potluck, what I call "organized potluck" which I guess is an oxymoron but I think you know what I mean, or prepared by the parents as a group, or quite often some combination of some or all of these, or whatever way you can think of. In my son's pack, traditionally a group of parents would prepare a large amount of something to be the main course (usually involving pasta and some sort of chicken or sausage or whatever), and the rest (salads, side dishes, deserts, etc.) were potluck or "organized potluck." Sometimes the soda etc. was bought in bulk by the pack, sometimes parents brought a bottle or two. There would be a charge to cover whatever the pack was buying (whatever food, plus paper plates, cups, plastic utensils, napkins, etc.) Then, after a couple of years of record-breaking popcorn sales, the pack was rolling in dough so we decided to go "fancy," keep the fee the same (actually I think we lowered it) but had the dinner catered, with the caterer proving a "theme" and cheap promotional items to go along with it (like Spirit of the West with cowboy hats, Spirit of America with a lot of red white and blue all over the place, etc. Sometimes I wonder whether Cub packs in Wyoming or Utah celebrate the Spirit of New Jersey at their dinners. (A little humor there.) And if you want to guess which year in recent years we had Spirit of America, you'd be right, it seemed a fairly obvious choice.)

 

Program -- There has to be something, minimally it would include an opening ceremony including a flag salute, and some sort of statement by someone (the Cubmaster or Committee Chair usually) about why we're all here, thanks for coming, enjoy the meal. Obviously the speech(es) can go beyond that, and include sort of a "state of the pack" report, recognition of the leaders and other dignitaries, announcements, or whatever. If the head of the Chartered Org, the mayor or someone from the council or district or other dignitary are there, it might be customary to invite them to say "a few words." But I mean a few words, and everybody who is speaking needs to remember that long speeches and 7-year-olds -- not to mention younger (often much younger) siblings -- do not mix very well. (Not that the older Cubs or many of their parents are going to sit still for a lot of speechifying either.)

 

Everything else is a matter of what you want to do, and that can mean what has been done in your pack for the last 2 or 10 or 50 years, but it does not have to. You can have advancements and recognitions, but you do not have to. If you do, anyone who has earned a badge up to that point and has not received it, should receive it, with their parent called up to stand with them. (I do not want to get into a thing about prompt recognition, advancement as a group, and other such issues here; they are indeed issues raised in cs4wc's post, but since opinions and practices in this area vary so widely I am just not going to get into it. I will say that advancement was a significant part of the B&G in our pack, but it was not the main reason for being there -- it just seemed like a good time to do it.)

 

On the related issue of crossover to Boy Scouts, again, you can do it at B&G. Traditionally my son's pack did not and does not, probably because to do it right, it takes some time and can detract from whatever else is going on. On a practical level, if a Scoutmaster and Scouts are coming to set up a bridge and do a whole ceremony, they shouldn't have to sit through a whole dinner with a bunch of little kids, who sometimes got a bit noisy. The one exception was the year when we had a den that had collapsed over the years to the point where my son was the only one crossing over that year. (And it wasn't my fault, it was already down to three kids when I became the den leader, and both of the other kids got too involved in sports to stay interested.) I suggested, and the other leaders agreed, that since a one-boy crossover would be relatively short, and my son did not really want a full-length crossover focused solely on him anyway, we would do a somewhat expedited version at the dinner.

 

Other things:

 

You can also have presentations of other things such as Pinewood Derby trophies (as my son's pack did.) You can have some sort of entertainment and some sort of participation by the boys, and you probably should. Our pack had a skit by each den (and since our regular pack meetings almost never included skits, the annual B&G skit was a big deal. When we found ourselves with an embarrasingly large balance in our treasury, we brought in paid entertainment (in the low-to-moderate three-figure range), like I remember with the West theme we had a couple of cowboy-entertainers with bullwhips and that sort of thing. Again, I don't even want to guess what the corresponding theme in Montana might be. In other years, maybe we had a clown (other than the Cubmaster), I forget.) But we still had the skits.

 

(That was another joke, the Cubmaster being a clown. Someone once told me that the most important qualification for being a CM is an inability to become embarrassed in front of a group of parents and kids, so I thought of the clown thing.)

 

We also tried to have something for the small kids to do, such as coloring books or placemats or maybe just covering all the tables with rolls of white paper, giving the kids crayons and letting them (and their uniformed brothers) go to town. Table decorations are another issue, and there is no reason for the boys not to make them; usually we had the boys do some sort of craft to be used as centerpieces, etc., at den and/or pack meetings leading up to the dinner.

 

I am sure I have forgotten a few things, but the basic point is that once you have the essential ingredients, the "options" you add are up to the pack. Advancement is one of those options. It should not become the tail that wags the dog.

[CubsRgr8 10]

I can think of only three reasons that the CM would even think Tigers shouldn't come to the B&G. No room (it's always in the church basement) - find a bigger space. No money (cause the pack caters) - charge a nominal fee. Tradition (Tigers are not part of the pack) - time to update the traditions book. Lke 2CD said, come prepared with solutions when you meet with the CM - hey! Wait a minute! Why is this an issue with the CM? Organizing the B&G is a pack committee responsibility and should not fall on the shoulders of the CM, broad and strong as they might be. As a former CM, I know whereof I speak!