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I told my 3 Webelos to wear it on thier shirt in the same spot as the blue shirt for now, but to actually sew them on so they could remove them when it is time to put the Webelos badge on (again, sewn because it'll be coming off soon!)

#1- Just assembling the wallet kits wouldn't fulfill the requirement, IMO. Is there anything else you can do to them, like personalize/ customize with paint or faberic pen? And maybe fill them with slips of paper, and have the boys write down good deeds the've done/ 'coupons' for mom,dad to cash in/ positive words or sentances about the recipient, and give them as gift? #2 sounds good if you are going to have them attatch things to it. #3 sounds perfect! I've seen leather crafts both at council and at the craft store, they would qualify. And start thinking Christmas- there are tons of gifts the kids can make in one den meeting that requires several steps!

WOW, that sounds like a headache-in-the-making. For starters, holding 4-5 seperate den meetings all in one room is nuts. Second, 20 kids and 20 adults plus misc. sibs is to much for a den meeting anyway! I would suggest moving to another room, or another night in the same room for starters. THEN recruit your most willing parent to lead den #2, and tell the SM that a. YOU don't want 20 kids, b. you have dad X willing to take half the den, but he won't take the whole 20. and c. parents are complaining that it's too crowded/noisy/whatever you have heard any of them say, even in passing.

of course you can give them thier pins, they've earned them! Like Alfan said, you NEED those 3 for the Webelos badge, it doesn't mean you can't earn any others as well. Whoever told you that must not be a Webelos leader, lol.

You could decorate it with lots of military/ patriotic pictures and signs- use lots of red-white-n-blue bunting and swag... I bet lots of your boys have dress-up outfits at home for military, fire, police, ect, they can wear them, or maybe tack 'em to a foam core board so they can wear thier uniforms (which are pretty patriotic anyway, IMO)... Do you know any vets or current service men that would like to be the guest of honor on your float? put 'em in a big fancy chair and treat 'em like a king-for-a-day. check online for some 4th of July parades, maybe you'll find some pics of floats!

I think you made the right choice! Personally, I think that if you show up for a meeting dressed like a leader, then other parents naturally assume you are a leader and start asking you questions that, as a parent, you very likely might not be able to answer. besides, it sounds to me like a good way to alienate the leaders at the time- touchy types could totally misunderstand your intent.

Our pack pays. Once. IMO what does a kid need 5 fishing BL's for,lol? SOunds like your pack is having financial issues. You could increase den dues at this point, or if you haven't collected registration yet raise that by $10 or so. Or maybe do some addition fundraisers, or more show-n-sells with your popcorn? Cutting out belt loops altogether doesn't sound like a good idea, though. Remember, these are little boys that like to show off thier cub scout bling! Besides, kids are natural collectors. JMHO...

Actually, "webelo" really ISN'T a word- "WE'll Be LOyal Scouts" if you take of the 'S' at the end, it kinda looses it's meaning, don't you think? Anyways, sure they cubs CAN go right to boys scouts whenever they want! BUT they will miss out on AOL, various troop visits, all the cub stuff where the adults do stuff for them, the pinewood derby, heck even a big crossing over ceremony depending with all the EOY bells and whistles. Regardless, it's up to the parents. Whether we agree with thier choice or not!

Our Web 2 boys will be crossing over in Early February, but will be participating in a pack camp-in at the zoo and the pinewood derby (but not, techincally, as cub scouts, more in a sibling capacity)shortly after they officially cross over. We are also going to use the last few months of Webelos to finish up a few 20-ers and to go on a slew of troop visits and campouts. The boys and parents WILL get burnt out if you continue weekly meetings, though... we will keep ours to 2 a month-ish, plus a pack meeting, plus troop visits 1x a month. And we were thinking of making one of the den meetings optional, and tell the parents/ boys who needs to come to finish what. Honestly, we've run out of stuff to do with them! A sit-in-the-school meeting every week would send 'em all running for the hills at this point, now is when we can have fun without worriing about what requirement we HAVE to do, what they NEED to complete, ect. FWIW, all 6 of our Web 2's are still gung-ho about showing up!

This is just my opinion... I put our new Web 2 with my Web 1's. Now, I'm the ADL for my sons' Web 2's, and the DL for the Web 1's, and we often meet together. The boy is learning and earning right along with the other new Webelos kids, but he will cross over with the 5th graders. If you can give him plenty of exposure to the Web 2's he'll cross with, then keep him with the other new kids. It'll make the DL's life soooo much easier, lol. No, he won't earn AOL, but he will earn his Weblos badge and cross over at the 'age appropriate' time. I certainly wouldn't hold him back from crossing over, regardless of which den you put him in. If he's with the Web 2's you will be doing an awful lot of backtracking and playing 'catch up'. With the Web 1's, when they are working on a non'essential' badge, you can have him in with the 2's. Unless his 'rents are really gung-ho and willing to take him to BOTH meetings, lol. Of course, this would require an awful lot of communication and flexibility on both DL's parts, so make sure they can do it first! I guess in your case I'd ask the DL's FIRST if one or the other would be willing to do the extra or communicate with the other, then ask the parents if they want den A, Den B, or a combination of the two. But like someone said, a lot does depend on the relationship between the brothers, the best thing you could do for everyone might be to split them up!

thanks for all the feedback! Re: the CO, they are non-existent. Actually in 4 years I've never seen any of 'em at anything we've had. They pretty much give us carte blanche to do whatever we feel is right, and up 'till now it's never, ever been a problem! I honestly don't think THEY would know what to do if we went to them. Oh, and did I mention that up till last year, the CO rep was a guy not even remotly affilliated with the CO? Oh, and one other thing... our CC was kicked out of the CO because they couldn't deal with her. I don't know the dirty details, but I DO know she isn't welcome at any of thier meetings when she was not too long ago one of the heads. Ours makes orginization #4 that she has joined in the past few years, and the only one she actually still belongs too. She doesn't have any close friends in the pack... the only one she was friendly with is the popcorn kernal!! So it seems like it's fallen upon me (everyone else is brand new or not able to be calm, lol). We do have a committee meeting soon to discuss alllll of this... but you all think I should pull her aside first? And no, nobody has told her until now that she's talking down to us, we mostly just nodd and ignore her. because isn't that the 'adult' thing to do when dealing with a difficult adult? Guess that didn't work, though... ok, i'll try too talk to her before the meeting. And apparently there is an issue with her wigging out on the kids on 'float night', parents DID complain (which cropped up along with all this other stuff). So THAT will definatly have to be adressed first and foremost. ugh. I hate having to have a sit-down with an adult!

thanks, BW, I will definatly have that with us at the meeting. And let me clarify the "hlaf the committee"- everyone but her hubby and her (and I'm still on the fence) want her gone. I suppose it's not WHAT she's doing so much as HOW she's doing it! It all looks good on paper, but when you talk to adults like you talk to your kids, you are going to create hard feelings! The main problem is that it goes beyond divviing up jobs. If it was just, "OK, you handle this" then thats' fine. This is actually what was said to me last week regarding bringing the $$ for a show-n-sell: "What you need to do is write a check out to CASH, take it to the bank and ask for the change we will need, a few dollars in quarters, I think $25 in ones..." Besides that being a really convoluted way to make a withdrawl, I'm thinking that maybe I'm capable of taking money out of the bank without precise instructions. I am the treasurer, after all. AND we've been selling popcorn for 4 years now, we managed to get by without her help every other year... We did a float for a parade... she didn't like the way we've been doing it for 4 years, so she did it her way. it fell apart. She wouldn't let the boys help with a lot of it because she had to "do it right". So they got bored and ran around outside playing tag. And she called them all in and hollered at them. Frankly, the rest of us were fine with them playing tag in the empty, lit parking lot, but we didn't know she was going to freak out on the kids when we called them inside to dismiss them. And now this thing with the popcorn- PK said she will do something. she's always come thru before, she's completely on top of things. But CC 'redoes' what the PK did. I really think she's just trying to be helpful, but it's really starting to tick people off! ANY one of us will do something, the CC will 'fix' it. Or do it 'for' us because we went home from a meeting and went to bed instead of doing it right away. I'm really looking for a way to tell her to just chill out! When you give a job to someone, LET THEM DO IT! When someone offers to do something, DON'T try to take it over! ok, end of rant... now I have to figure out something productive to say, lol.

We have a great group of committee members, most of whom are leaders (small pack). But our committee chair seems to have a need to control EVERYthing. Most of the time things turn out just fine (they have turned out just fine when the rest of us do things too). Every so often there have been minor issues with the CC's idea that other members' suggestions would have alleviated, but nothing earth shattering. But the rest of the committee (and some of the parents) are starting to get really annoyed at constantly being told what to do. The general consensus is that we are all adults, not 2nd graders. The latest straw was the CC overriding the Popcorn Kernal. Now the P.K. is ready to quit (she's also a DL) because she feels that she isn't trusted, unappriciated, ect. I personally think that this woman is a great CC. She is organized, does what she says she will, is able to keep it all together. But yes, she DOES have this control issue going on, and 1/2 the committee wants her removed. We have a meeting coming up. I want to DEMOCRATICALLY say that she should stay, BUT she needs to stop being so daggone bossy. if an adult that has always come thru before says they will do something, LET them. I'm not looking for a detailed list of the CC's duties, because all of us do a little bit 'o something 'extra', or not our job, whatever. And she definatly does go over and above in areas we need her too. But HOW does one tell an aquaintance that they are treating eveyone else like little kids??????

I'm glad you had a productive den meeting! sounds like it might just workout after all... BUT... it also sounds like you have all your den meetings at the same time, same place? Well that right there could cause all kinds of issues, IMHO. "we need this room" "your kids did this" "you are to loud" ect, ect. If you are still having butthead issues, why not try moving your meetings to a different night, or at least a different location? That way Tigers can be Tigers! And yeah, anytime you throw a few adults together without makin em take a personality test first, you get a few that just can't cooperate. My advice to you is to just roll with it... make the best program you can for your Tigers and try to minimize the damage they do to the rest of the pack!

I'm just gonna throw another opinion into the mix... keep in mind I have no BSA basis, fact, or rule citations, this is just my opinion! although I think Guy has something there! Send him to training. If he does it, then let him be ASM. techincally. He's more of an oversized SPL, but he feels he's the ASM, the nay-sayers are placated because he's still supervised. If he doesn't do the training, he can't be ASM, period. Now, our pack just bridged out a whole special needs den of 12- 7 ranged from mild autism to severe aspergers. Some kids I could see as a future leader, some i couldn't. It had nothing to do with thier disability, (ex. the one kid with no DX was the hardest to deal with!). maybe he, as a person, can do it and maybe he can't. there's only one way to find out! That said, sure he has some past behaviors that raise little red flags. But how long ago are we talking here? Were they basic boys-will-be-boys kinda things (ie snowball fight cum wrestling match), or dos he have a Hx of abbherent behavior? It sounds like he is very high functioning, and able to think rationally and understand on an appropriate level. I personally would sit down with him and discuss previous incidents with him, get a feel for how he would handle the same situation now. What steps has HE taken to behave approrpriatly? Ask dad- any therapy since the poor behavior? was it all at once (the onset of puberty can totally trigger lots of new and unexpected stuff!)? is he now medicated to control the impulsive stuff? Sounds like you ahve faith in this kid- I just wanted to say thanks for trying! I really do hope all is well and he turns out to be an asset (or at least not a liability) to your troop. You certainly are helping the boy- and at minimum if the other adults learn something from this than he did help the troop after all!

gee, Gunny, tell us how you REALLY feel, now! Nancy, it sounds like your leaders are hesitant to tell the SM his kid won't listen. Honestly, maybe dad would be more than happy to deal with the problem- just because he's the SM (or the Cop, or the Preacher...) doesn't mean he won't deal with the problem. Maybe you could bring it up at a committee meeting about "this child who does X,Y,Z, how can we help the SPL?" and THEN mention which kid it is. Or go to the guy directly (and quitely) and ask him how he thinks you should best handle this and hope he offers to do it, lol. Anyway, OGO, short of babysitting the kid, maybe you could 'guide' the SPL to give the kid jobs he has to do where the adults are. Or maybe instruct him to do something uber-important that he is the ONLY one doing, and let the kid slack off. Then when it comes time to light the fire/start dinner/whatever, and the whole troop is stuck because the kid didn't do it, you could point out that maybe the SPL was right. Nothin like falling flat on your face in front of your friends to make you sit up and look around! Or maybe the SPL could give him a job that benefits the SM, then the kid can answer to him... Honestly, you can't often reason with a normal teenager- it's sometimes a lot like dealing with a verbal 3yo. You are fighting a loosing battle if you try to rationalize. But letting the kids experience the outcomes of whatever choices they have made- they learn REAL quick when they are eating cold canned beans because they slacked off on getting the firewood.

I don't know, maybe Jersey rules are different? The council gave us the tax id number. We needed it to open the pack checking account! Besides, it's on all the tax-exempt forms I request when we need to go shopping (but I really didn't pull it off of there, lol, I DID call council for it). Our unit is chartered by the local home and school assn. The only people that have ever been signers on the bank accounts have been committee members in our pack- it sounds like this is an anomally???

wow, OK- this is new terretory for me. So that brings me to a question (or three).. What would BSA rules have me do in each of these cases? 1. We have lots of people that believe in the concept of God, but aren't baptized in any religion, don't adhere to one religion, ect, but they conced that God exists. 2. We have a family where dad is nothing, mom is raising the kids Wiccan. One of them took to it, the other kid didn't care for it. 3. My son is being raised Catholic at home. His sort-of-involved father loudly and often proclaims his atheism when the topic comes up, and has said some things at scout meetings to that effect.

I'm not entirely sure why you can't get the check directly? I'm only going on our pack (and maybe in NJ it's different??) But checks written to our pack are signed by me as treasurer and deposited into our pack account- which uses the Council tax-exempt number that everyone uses. If you were to write a check for a fundraiser, or donation, or payment for a campout, do you write it directly to the pack and the pack makes the 'big' check? Could the employer send the check directly to wherever your pack checking account is registered? maybe it's just a case of changing the addy the check is sent too...

Like someone else said, it really depends on the size of your pack! Right now in our small pack I am ADL for my DS's Web2 den, the DL for the Web1's, and treasurer. It's not all that much, as most of the DL's hold multiple positions (and by virtue of the fact that comittee meetings are usually only attended by leaders, we are all comittee memebers.) Do I really WANT to do all of this? no, but until someone else is ready to do any of it, I will do my best! is one adult, multiple positions ideal? no, of course not. but sometimes it's a must! should you try to actively recruit more parents to help in various positions? of course! sometimes all they need is for someone to ask them. It sure sounds, on paper, that your guys is overextending himself. But is he doing a good job, bad job, great job? Should any of his different positions start to suffer, I would definatly consider finding someone else. But as long as he does a better-than-'ok' job, if he's willing to do it until someone else steps up, go for it!

welcome... I just wanted to say that we took our Cubs to your Camp Garrison a few weeks back and it was the best camping trip we've had in 4 years! Thanks to your council for setting up such an awesome place to go!!!!!

That's great!!! I'm glad you were willing to step up and do the nasty parts of the job in order to turn your pack around- kudos to you for being willing to take the initiative!

i have a den of 2 Web 1's, lol. We usually meet with the Web 2's (as that is my son's den and i'm supposed to be the assist. for them, lol). But on occasion, we meet with maybe my son as an extra 3rd boy. We actually have a lot of fun and get a lot more accomplished then at the larger meeting! We meet in a HS classroom, so we have access to the chalkboards- the boys all get to be up there together and sometimes 'race' to get something on the board. I can keep thier attention longer because when they are taking turns, each boy only has 2 kids to wait before it's his turn again (for making up part of a story for showman, writing on the board for Fitness saftey rules, ect). And they tend to do some pretty elaborate projects when 2 or 3 boys are combining efforts! Instead of making small craftsman projects, the boys are eager to tackle a few big ones like building shelves, and maybe even the downhill derby 'launch'. And hey, it's still recruiting time! maybe you will pull in an extra kid or two this fall!

an update: The boys were absolutly enthralled by all the cool pictures, my Webelo son told them aaaalllll about each one, and the parents had a chance to really talk to us, see our stuff, and put pen to paper! lol, even some of the dads were commenting on the slides (ie 'look, Bobby, that's a bb gun!', and 'wow, where is that place at?'). From one out of the 4 small schools we draw from, we got 7 boys. I sure think we've found our 'bait'!

No, techincally you don't have to do the pull-ups. BUT, IMO this badge is a lot more fun to earn at the park, where you can not only do the 50 yard dash (#7), but can find some kind of pull up bar. I can't find my lesson plan for this mtg, but we easily did all these things at the park: sit ups pull ups push ups long jump 1/4 mi high jump 50 yd dash find pulse target HR check in 15 Warm ups Some of them can count toward the belt loop/pin, and since you have to warm up/ cool down anyway, if you discuss WHY you complete Pin #4, if you help them find thier pulse, count it, and check it again after, you get BL #2 and pin #2. AND, if you get them practice 3x a week for 4 weeks, and remember to write down what they did, you will complete BL 3 and Pin #6. Don't forget to discuss the character connection before and after! I did a spreadsheet with all the boys on one side, the skills on the other, and gave each kid 2 lines for the beginning and end of the 30 days. This worked great for both Web. dens I had, AND the boys had more than enough energy to do it all and still want to run around on the playground, lol.