flying pig

Thanks for the quick responses. I do believe the leaders from Troop have the training and one is an EMT but it obviously is not an established facility. They do have harnesses and helmets of various sizes including ones for very small boys. I am BALOO trained. I actually went to a training in a different council late last spring when I realized there were no further trainings in our Council until after our scheduled campout in October and we had no one trained at the time. It was an excellent training and I am thinking of taking other leaders to the same training this year. It was put on by a very good district. BTW, what exactly is bouldering? We have a small WebI group and we just crossed over our WebII group so with rappelling ruled out and vertical wall limited to that small group of WebI's, it probably is not wothwhile for this event. We do have a horizontal wall but it has received very little interest in the past. Thanks for all of the feedback.

I am about one year into being Cubmaster and have a question about something that has been a tradition in our Pack. We have a family overnight event in our school's gym with a night full of activities. We've been able to come up with many fun activities but the one centerpiece of the event has me worried. I believe we need to discontinue it based on my understanding of age-appropriate guidelines for scouting activities. The Troop/Crew affiliated with our CO has erected scaffolding with a climbing tower and rappelling equipment. The kids have absolutely loved this in the past but I am 99% sure it is out of line with the guidelines. I have discussed this with some parents. One had indicated that a few years ago there was a Council run event where her children had been able to do some of these activities. Again, I'm just looking for reassurance from the experts here that dropping this part of our event is the correct thing to do.

I am a new cubmaster preparing for my first school night registration. I am trying to prepare a sheet that will give a good view of what costs they should expect initially and then annually. One question I am running into is what is required for registering Tiger Cubs. When my son joined two years ago, each Tiger had to have their adult partner fill out an adult volunteer application with a registration cost of $10. This was the requirement since adult partners had to be present at every meeting. In the current information I have received, there is no mention of this. The adult volunteer applications that I have no longer have a unit position code of Adult Partner which is what I believe the code was. Has the application requirement been eliminated for all adult partners. It seems that may be the case so that just the Tiger Cub Den Leader and Assistant Den Leader would have to fill out the forms. If the adult partners do have to all fill out an application, then my follow-up question has to do with rechartering. Our district recharters in February but our Tiger program ends in May. Do we have to recharter all adult partners. If we do, the registration costs for each adult partner would total $15.10 so the pack would likely end up absorbing the excess. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Well thanks for the advice. Day one is now in the books and it went well. I have a den of eight which was very manageable. It did not get hot until the afternoon when the sun peaked through. I did bring the sack of fun things. I wound up doing a few stories I pulled off of the internet. I wish I had more time to prepare so I could learn the stories and retell them rather than read them. It makes a big difference. Last night I went to the camp to hide a bucket of water baloons in the brush next to a path. Our schedule worked out great. We went to BB Guns and Archery right after lunch. After those events the boys were dragging from the afternoon heat. I had an assistant leader today who led us along the path knowing what was coming. I was in the back and ambushed the boys from behind once I got to the baloons. They had brief puzzled looks on their faces but quickly came running back to get some baloons. Needless to say, I was outnumbered at that point so I wound up drenched. I'll check back tomorrow to let you know how it goes.

I am working at our district Cub Scout day camp next week and was looking for some advice. Last year, I showed up with my son on the first day and his den was the only one without a den leader assigned to it. I had taken off the Monday and Tuesday from work but was not signed up to volunteer at the camp (I chickened out of it). Well, there not being a leader was enough of a sign for me to volunteer at the last minute to lead his den at least the first two days. It was extremely hot and the dens wound up being filled with about 15 boys which was more than I was used to with the 6 boys I had in my Tiger den. The second day was hot as well but ended with an early afternoon thunderstorm. We wound up trying to entertain boys shoulder to shoulder under a picnic shelter for a few hours until the parents showed up to pick them up. Luckily there were a few more experienced leaders there to help with that. I think I was not the best den leader for those boys last year by any stretch of the imagination. I would love to get some ideas of things to do to make the week special for the boys instead of just being their chaperone from station to station. Any advice is appreciated. Anyway,

I am entering my first full year as Cubmaster. We went through a rough planning session last month to schedule pack events for the year. This month we will go over a budget based on the discussions last month. We are going to start emphasizing parts of scouting that we have previously ignored like Sports & Academics. One area I want to look into is the use of patch vests. The cost of $12.25 at council is fairly exorbitant I think for a piece of felt. I think I can probably make them for $3 a piece. My question is how packs use the vests. Does the pack provide them or do families pay for them? I heard from someone at my recent BALOO training that their pack requires Scouts to do a set of three good turns to earn their vest. The good turns had to be one each for three different groups such as family, church and school. I cannot remember the details exactly. The Scout then would have to share their good turns with the Pack at the next event to get the vest. Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

I've been visiting this site for the last few months looking for direction in my new exploits as Cubmaster. I appreciate all of the help from others. I've gone from being a Tiger adult partner to den leader to Cubmaster in two years. Our pack has about 25 members but it had at one time over 100 members. I am the fourth Cubmaster (I believe) in the past 3 years. With my son just becoming a Bear, I plan to stop that turnover. I am sure I will be seeking the advice of many of you over the next few years so thanks in advance.