jc2008

I am helping out with getting a new pack in our area started. Its small, so they will be running the Tigers/Wolves/Bears all together in one meeting and the Webelos will have their own meetings. I know there are meeting plans out there for Tiger, Wolf and Bear den meetings, but are there any guides as to which activities go together well to do in a joint meeting of all 3? Like several things the kids could do together that would count for their rank badge and then separate them to do the more specific things? I can read the 3 books and put activities together, but I was hoping someone already invented the wheel. Thanks for any help.

We fell way behind on the tiger beads last year as well. If I had to do it over again, I would have made a Den Doodle, which each kid having a way to display their beads they earned on the doodle, like a strand per child. That way the kids can see their beads grow, but don't have to deal with it being on their uniform and since the leader controls the doodle, its easy enough to add beads there and make sure they don't fall off.

We did this same thing last year. We cooked as a den for our 10 tigers to show the pack that it could be easily done. We did breakfast/lunch/dinner/breakfast for our weekend campout (friday night when people were showing up was free for all since many ate before coming out). We did eggs/sausage/toast for breakfast and had frozen hamburger patties + hotdogs for dinner. Lunch we had bread and lunchmeat. The chips and grapes did double duty for lunch and dinner side items. You just have to look at whats economical and realistic to make for a large group of people. Hot dogs are incredibly easy to start with as you can make a ton of those in a pot of boiling water in no time. Now our pack always does the Saturday dinner meal together at camp, so it works if you can show other people that it does work to cook for everyone.

It seems to me that everyone is going to lose out because of this. If i was the manager/owner of that store I would not want anyone at all to sell popcorn there ever again because of that type of scene in front of my customers. Especialyl if somehow HE becomes the moderator in this dispute which should be taken care of internally in your district/council. We can go sell our popcorn the moment we pick it up.(This message has been edited by jc2008)(This message has been edited by jc2008)

The reason the longer pitch is effective is because you don't mention the B-word (buy). You also don't give the person a question to mentally answer in their mind until that last line of asking them to help you. Its psychology. Its harder to say no when someone is asking you to help them out, than if someone is asking you to buy something. In your pitch, the yes or no answer comes to "buy some popcorn". In the longer pitch , the person must say no they dont want to help the scout out. We did give some of our cubs who were not so good at memorizing an index card with the script on it that they could use to help them. It gave them a bit more confidence with the script and by the end of the sale they didn't need it anymore. (This message has been edited by jc2008)

We have had some pretty amazing results with our show and sells. And by results I mean the boys, not necessarily their sales. I had convinced one mother that her son could do the show and sell, she was unsure since he was so shy, always looking down, hands in pocket. I put her son in the group run by my husband and when her son got there the first thing my husband did was hand him the money bag and say ok now you are in charge of this (the boy is a webelos). His mom looked shocked. But towards the end of the show and sell this kid had his hands out of his pocket, was assisting the tigers and wolves with their sales and speaking to people on his own. His mom freely signed him up for our next round of show and sells in October/Nov. It is beneficial in the self confidence, public speaking, self esteem type of way if the program is done properly. If you just shove kids out next to a store with popcorn and say sell this without any sort of plan, then no, not all of them would gain from winging it. But having a planned presentation for the boys to give to the customer (the standard: Hi my name is Bob. I am with Pack 999. I am here selling popcorn to raise money for my Pack. You can help us by trying some of our delicious popcorn. You will help us won't you?" Really does wonders. And that speech is the proper format for almost any presentation. You have the "who are you, where are you from, what are you doing here, how can I help and close" sections.

We do a flag ceremony at every den meeting and we also sometimes get to do it for the pack meeting if its our turn. We use the Denner to lead the ceremony and the Asst Denner carries the american flag. We promote the Asst Denner to Denner every 3 meetings and pick a new Asst Denner. So eventually all our boys will have been Denner and lead the flag ceremony at least two times.

We did camp cards last year but the offers on them were really weak. The best offer was for a store 2 hours away from us. I am hoping we don't have to do camp cards and popcorn will be all we need this year to cover expenses. If we do need another fundraiser, making our own camp cards would be a very attractive idea since we could get local retailers and the cards would be useful to the people we sell them to then.

Well, it seems that right now its only local type news and people in boy scouts taking an interest in this pack and its policy. can you imagine if they did pull the charter, those poor kicked out scouts front and center on CNN with that sort of story.

Any recommendations on where to get some patches done up for an upcoming pack event we are holding? I have looked at stadriemblems.com and they seem to have decent prices, around 1.55 a patch for 100 with the button loop. But its really hard to find exact pricing on other websites

Basementdweller I would definitely make those calls to remind the boys of the meeting. You could make it a reminder call and just checking in to see if they had any questions you could help answer regarding the program. Calling them makes them feel more connected and that someone actually cares if they are there or not which can make all the difference. I had the same reaction with Cub Scout parents who didn't show up to our recruitment night but filled out an interest form. I didn't get the interest forms until the recruitment night from the school so I couldn't call beforehand. I called afterwards to the 11 parents who filled it out but didn't show and i got 3-4 more out of that group to join our Packs.

I try to make every craft project we do have a purpose. IE, the rock craft project I wrote about above was done on a December pack meeting date and it was suppose to be a christmas gift for their father. We also made bracelets that day out of foam and pony beads with a pipe cleaner as a gift for mom. (all of our cubs were in two parent households). So we didn't just craft for crafting's sake Oh a fun food Thanksgiving craft we did was : http://hostedmedia.reimanpub.com/TOH/Images/Photos/37/exps9412_QC10014C41C.jpg Those turkeys are 'glued' together with chocolate icing. I just made the rice krispie balls ahead of time and the kids took the Oreos/candy corn/rice krispie ball and glues it together with the icing. We had them work on paper plates and use popsicle sticks as their icing spreader. Just remember to get candy corn during/right after Halloween. I had a time trying to find some candy corn at thanksgiving lol. For Christmas we also made rainmakers and i got some dowel sticks and we drilled holes in them and attached pipe cleaners with bells to them. We then sang jingle bells at the pack meeting using the rainmaker for the "Dashing through the snow...." and the bell stick for the "jingle bells chorus". (music belt loop) And of course I made salt-dough ornaments for the kids to paint with my fleur de lis cookie cutter (This message has been edited by jc2008)(This message has been edited by jc2008)(This message has been edited by jc2008)

Ok, i am an artsy female and den mother and arranged several craft projects for Tigers last year. This one was a big hit with the boys: Rock Painting (we did this one at my house, hence the oven) materials: Paper Plate, bag of River Rocks from Dollar tree, hot glue gun, round magnets from Hobby Lobby (I use strength 8), old crayons + oven Preparation: Put river rocks on a cookie sheet and stick into the oven at around 350degrees for 10 minutes. Directions: Give each child a paper plate and using an oven mitt place a hot rock on their plate. Warn them and their parents not to touch the rock with their hands, only the paper plate. Then give them the crayons and watch them 'paint' the rocks. The crayons melt when they touch the rock and it truly is mess free painting. Let the rocks dry then hot glue a magnet onto the back of the rock. The kids have their own painted rock to hang on the refrigerator for their schoolwork/pictures then. Even the adults were fascinated by this project and were marveled at watching the crayons melt onto the rocks. It was Tigers so we had parent partners there to help each child and make sure they didn't touch the hot rock.

We do almost exactly what Fauxc is doing. We have a start time, flag ceremony, introduce scouting. Then we send the kids to the gym to play with at least 2 adult leaders while the adults get more information. Then we go ahead and form dens or get them into existing dens and collect paperwork/fees. We do have pictures, but we dont have any kinds of derby cars etc in the room (remember that parents will be trying to listen and 3 year old brothers might be running lose until you put the children out to play). Its definitely important that you have your leaders at the door to greet people coming in. Make them all feel special/welcome, especially remember to address the kids specifically. At the open houses/meet and greet we advertise our Roundup night only.

DEFINITELY attend the round tables. The leaders who attend the round tables are generally the most active/enthusiastic. We have gotten help/aid from other packs/troops in our district by going to the round tables and making connections with these other leaders. If we need boy scouts to help with an event we have several troop leaders we know we can call who will be excited and happy to send his boys over. If we want to do an activity with another Pack in the area, there are several cubmasters who are always looking to get their pack involved in things. Even if you are just a Den Leader, making these connections can definitely help you out and give you a network of people for advice/help during the year.

I think we seriously need t-shirts with the thread title on them Was my first day camp this last summer and I enthusiastically volunteered for the entire week Running around in the hot weather with 10 kids for 7 hours a day was exciting. I am just glad I had a bathtub to soak in at night. Next year my husband will be taking the week off to attend all week too. He only took one day off this year to come help out, and while I am out there sweating chasing kids, his job was to sit in the one air conditioned building on the property and teach the kids camping skills/first aid. So he had a great time and couldn't understand why I was exhausted everyday lol.

One of the above people said something interesting, an outdoor flag ceremony does not have to mean that they raise a flag up a pole? We will be having 3 of our Pack meetings outside this year and will be doing the flag ceremony. If our Den was the color guard, that should more than meeting the requirement even if they didn't run the flag up a pole?

Yeah, we are NOT opening boxes. I figured if someone would give us $1 for microwave popcorn, they most likely will just give us that $1 as a donation. After reading everyone's responses, that will be my final decision on the matter. I only ordered one case of microwave popcorn per location anyways (8 boxes per case). I don't really think the cookie fundraiser would be quite as good even at $4 a box. I mean they get 50cents per box of cookies back to the girl scout troop. And they probably don't get a lot of donations. Why give 1-5$ as a donation when you could actually buy a box of cookies for cheap. The higher pricing on the popcorn will end up soliciting a lot more donations since there is nothing in the under $5 range for them to use these donation dollars for. At least that is my theory! And one $10 tin of popcorn = 7 boxes of cookies in terms of what comes back to the Pack/Troop. (This message has been edited by jc2008)

Since I obviously never got around to it earlier this summer: THANK YOU ALL for all the replies. Its been a hectic last few weeks trying to get the final planning. I ran around like a madwoman last week securing us some locations which i think will be very very good. We didnt get Walmart, but high traffic hardware stores here we come! I feel a lot more confident about my plan with the show and sell. Its just all up to my pack meeting last week to get people to sign up. I just hope the rest of the pack shares my enthusiasm Oh, I do have one more question though, how much 'change' money should each location have? We will be doing 4 hours at each location during the weekend and selling the $10, $15, $20, $30 price point items. I should have $50 in 5 dollar bills? or more? I will not be working a location myself, so I will be able to run around if people need more change and hopefully have other parents who can help with that too. But would like to know what to start off with at each location. I am a person who never carries cash myself, I have my creditcards and checkbook.

I had an awards sash as a girl scout? My husband still has his patch blanket from his scouting days. The blanket thing is a great idea as it will last many years.

I found this website and I thought I would share it with you guys. I was going to make appreciation certificates from our Pack to the places we did the show and sells at and for the volunteers who help with the fundraiser as well. They have frames at Dollar Tree to make it look all nice. I know its probably simple to make a certificate in some program on the computer, but this website you just fill in the blanks, pick some backgrounds and voila! http://www.cyberbasetradingpost.com/docs/Create-A-Certificate1.cfm Hope this helps some of you guys this year

Has anyone ever sold outside of an Athletic club? We have a huge club here that has a restaurant for members, swimming pools, etcetc and its very high traffic. I spoke to the owner and he would love to have the cub scouts do their fundraiser outside. He even started talking about doing a fitness presentation at our pack meeting, giving discounts to membership for people in our pack and mentioned getting us set up with cooperate sponsorship. (I was a bit overwhelmed at all this enthusiasm but i smiled and was enthusiastic right back). I dont know how much we can accept of all that 'legally' by BSA, but I am going to talk to my district representative tonight at the roundup. I just think its going to be funny, the people walking out of the health club after a workout being offered some nice Caramel popcorn tins! Maybe I should get some of those 100 calorie packs for in front of there? There is also a discount store within 30 feet of the health club entrance (they are right next to each other in the big strip mall) and the health club owner owns that too and gave us permission to work both doors. S

raisinemright - Awesome, i am glad that I found someone who used his method. Yeah he said not to have too much of the lower products because that is what most people will buy. How did the actual show and sells work out? were you able to get around 100-200 an hour and you did do 4 hour shifts with the boys? I am just getting nervous about how much to order for the show and sells. Our council is NOT carrying any stock this year, so I need to order what we think we will use, and there are no returns. Right now I have 4 locations for Saturday and 3 for Sunday, so a total of 7 4 hour shifts. And I am at a loss of how much to order. I assume the tins sell the best? over the microwave boxes? I would love to find a mentor in this whole popcorn thing! Edit: Also i think its really silly that our council isn't carrying extra stock especially when we are with a new company that actually has tins and they are recommending this heavy show and sell method by bringing in the guy to speak to us.(This message has been edited by jc2008)

Yeah Basementdweller. That is why I made this topic. While it isn't earthshattering and a lot of stuff is common sense and most people do anyways, I was wondering if following it to a "t" made a difference or not. And I was hoping someone here had first hand experience.

Yeah, we just switched this year from Trails End to Campmasters. The thing that really tipped the tables in favor of Campmasters was that they had $10 and $20 tins along with the $30 and $50 dollar ones and the microwave popcorn of course