Community Event

[RookieScouter 3]

We have a community event coming up in our local town and would like to participate in the fun. What are some ideas our scouts could do? I'm thinking about face painting, temporary tattoos, and maybe a carnival like game winner gets to pie face a leader. What would you suggest? 

[SSScout 1615]

Cubs or ScoutsBSA?   Demonstration camp,  offer to lead a flag opening ceremony,  check if your Council has a portable climbing wall ("Scouter Horn"), they make a really neat Scout activity, but you must be trained to operate it safely!  Pioneering demo (build a short signal tower),  Monkey Bridge (rope bridge) for folks to cross "The Mighty Piranha Enfested Amazon !".   Charcoal fire, Dutch oven brownies.... 

[RookieScouter 3]

This would be for Cubs and spaces are very small that are provided. I believe spaces are 10x10. 

[yknot 1338]

You can do a ton of fun table top things. Frankly, I don't like the pie in the face of an adult. I think it's disrespectful. But there are a lot of cheap sources of temporary paw print tattoos. You could also do raingutter regatta races. They sell cheap blow up tracks. Or a Hot Wheels pinewood derby. If you're in a somewhat suburban area, send them off on a nature scavenger hunt and they can return for prizes once they've ticked everything off. Marble rodeo. Paper air planes. Table top craft, like beading a claw necklace... have fun

[qwazse 4342]

Call your council HQ. They might have supplies for recruiting events, fliers, other literature, and sometimes even spare patches that you could use for prizes.

Do whatever your scouts do best. That could be mixing trail mixes, playing rope games, carving (for community days use bars of soap and butter knives!), or fire starting.

[mrkstvns 486]

Science is cool, and there are SOOOO many fun things you can do that bring science to life.

Take a look through the NOVA program guidebook, or just read through the requirements for the Cub Scouting NOVA program:
https://www.scouting.org/stem-nova-awards/awards/cub-scout/ 

In almost every award, I can see ideas for doing things that Cub-age kids would get into, and that could make for a very fun activity that would fit within a 10x10 booth.  You could....

• Do an animal tracking activity (maybe plaster casts?)
• Make a fog machine
• Make an erupting volcano model
• Build a simple bird feeder (or bird house)
• Do a fake archaeological dig
• Build a mock wind tunnel and "test" paper airplanes (or models)
• ...

[qwazse 4342]

Ummm,, I'm pretty sure those activities were in my and in my boys' Cub Scout handbooks. (In addition to model rockets, boats, rock collections, etc ...)

[mrkstvns 486]

3 hours ago, qwazse said:

Ummm,, I'm pretty sure those activities were in my and in my boys' Cub Scout handbooks. (In addition to model rockets, boats, rock collections, etc ...)

Could be.  And that is exactly why they make good subjects for a community booth --- they are things that scouts DO and things that are fun and interesting.  (Not so sure I'd do a 10x10 booth around rockets or boats, but if more space were available....

[qwazse 4342]

If someone donates the materials, having the scouts build bird houses/feeders could be fun.

But remembering the fun things from the handbook ...

Another idea would be puppet making. Half of the booth could be the puppet "factory" with the crafts needed to assemble a variety of puppets. The other half of the booth could be a stage where the puppets could perform. If you have a power supply, you could video the plays and have scouts post their favorites online. (I'm pretty sure you don't need release forms for puppets.)

[mrkstvns 486]

On 9/5/2019 at 9:56 AM, qwazse said:

If someone donates the materials, having the scouts build bird houses/feeders could be fun.

That's a good idea!

Building bird houses is fun, and it can be cheaper and easier than you might think.

Last summer, I did an all-day Nature merit badge workshop. For requirement 4a, we built birdhouses.  The materials cost me about $1 per birdhouse. I used the following design, based around a fence picket. I could make 2 birdhouses out of a single 6-foot high picket.