Karen_216

i had my wolf den howl like a wolf anytime the word "wolf or "wolves" was used. It kept them paying attention!! I'd through it in at random and if I got no response i'd say "I said Wolves". Since we were the only wolf den this worked.

That's why you were sent to a cardiologist. Better safe than sorry. Also something can show up on one test and not another that's why they do the stres test-- they should administer while we're on the highway opr whent he kids come home with a report card!!!!! I have to avoid caffie or my heart gets and arithmia (sp?). Lots of people do. Good luck to you. I also missed a camp this year-- just cub day camp though-- I really enjoy that. I was very sad (and am since it's going on now). It was due to my collegue being out on maternity leave. At least i'll have resident camp though!!

You could go a few ways with this. There are blank cloth banners that you could decorate on S& S World Wide. (www.ssww.com ?) . You could go to a sign company and have a plastic one printed or if you have soemone in that pack that sews they can help make one. here's an internet I found where you could purchase one: http://redrivertrophy.com/bsapg01.htm I don't know anything about them but they sell pinewood trophies too.

My pack was advised by council we could register Tigers as of June 1st. As soon as a child completes K he is now a first grader and on down the line. however, we don't usually form a Tiger den until the fall.

As a tiger DL use the shared leadership aspect of Tigers. Each family hosts a month of activites and you just act as coach and contact person. you plan out the year which is not too hard and have each family sign on for a month. Everything is in the book and you can also use other resources to help plan.you can also take dirctly from Scouting mag if you use the themes. This way you are not doing all the meetings yourself. Also good is the suggestion of being a ADL. You are still involved but all the burdon is not on you. Ask what roles you are being asked to take over in the pack. I know many people who are den leaders as well as ACM or other pack positions. Ideally everyone has 1 role but the CC should work on recruitng new adults.

Make sure everyone has trainig. Even better idea to take it together if you haven't already. Seems you're really good at organizing camping. If you are not BAlOO trained do it as soon as it comes up again and organize trips for the whole pack. THese are loads of fun. Within your group decide who is leader for what den. You don;'t have to do everything at the same time. Each decide on a role and then carry those out. Prevent stepping on each other's feet. Yes, you may earn points towards your electives all during the year but can't be awarded until rank badge has been awarded. Sometimes you just have to do things that are FUN. Fishing is fun. you can easily combine it with your Living World achievement by discussing the environment and picking up trash and following LNT guidelines and work towards LNT as well. Teach all the fishihg rules and earn the beltloop. Out of everything those the most immediate in recognotion. Just a word of caution. The leaders have to get out of the mindset that everything has to go towards an award of some sort. The kids will pick this up and won't do anything unless they are recognized.

The CC and the COR remove the CM and find the replacement. a CM who is not enthused by the program infects everyone. This lack of motivation has a way of filtering down and soon everyone's attitude suffers. We have a whole Bear den trnasfering from another pack due to lack of motivation from their CM and lack of parental involvement. That whole pack is in lots of trouble. The CM resigned so did half the committee. Anyone can get trained!! My son is now a Bear and I'm CM now. I try to get the pack involved in as much as we can and the CC and I are working on more parental involvement. I have been noticing what families are participating and we are going to approach a few with some little jobs to see how they work and get them into a Committee Position.Getting and training repalcements is on going. You always have to be looking towards the future for replacements.

Another oops. Ware is the Cub Camp. Horseshoe is the Boy Scout camp. Cradle of Liberty council has several in Bucks, pa too.

-- VF hike is 10 miles.

There is also small troop owned camp in Valley forge pa called Jarvis that has it's own Cope course and Tower. you could do the 1- mile valley forge hike to get a medal and patch through Pennsylvania Trails program. Camp jarvis is available for weekend rental. The Chester County Council operates boy socut camp Camp Ware on the Md border. It's on the Octorara resevoir.

Yep. That's the type of thing I'd be interested in. Don't know if rest of pack would. Anyone have experience with any of these??

What would be of value to me and perhaps others is a program that could be interactive. I mean that once I update info others in my den could see it and be able to print out themselves. One that the parents could have access to their sons achievemtns and update themselves and perhaps a message could be generated to the den leader that an update has been done. This way if a cub missed a meeting the leadr could still see if he was on track with the others and cater their program to what the whole group needs. I spend much time comparing my records with others to see if they match. I know they are all supposed to bring their books and have them signed off but soietiems they forget and I have to write down all the itmes parents have signed off on and then go back and put on my spreadsheets. Just some suggestions to make this more enticing. Also I know there is a Fast Tracks program in testing that some councils have but I have no idea what it contaons or how similar so ther may be that in competion w/ yuo as well.

Looks like Capri Sun, Honest brand and kool aid are .02 per pouch and others are .01 per pouch. Amy not be a lot but a little goes a long way and it teaches the kids to be environmental. I'm going to mentio to my pack to see if they want to sign up. They can collect at den meetings and bring to pack meetings.

I think it's great to record hours on the good turn site for all the helping you do. Our pack does the scouting for food and an auction for charity. All the dens do "trash" hikes and I told all the den leaders to let me know about all their services so I can record. We had one family clean a stream in their neighborhood- I said let me know. My den gardens in the spring at the elementary school plot I adopted for the pack. We put in several den meetings weeding and planting.

Call the camp director to see if you can find out the leaders they will be with and if you can get their contact info. Contact BEFORE camp if you can- give them your list from the den but don't be pushy. I would not go down on first day or bother the camp staff. Give a list to the parents like suggested as well and leave it at that. They will learn many things and may not do the same items that the den has done but does that matter? They will still make progress.

We have about 50 boys in the pack. Our leaders meetings are the committee meetings. We usually have about 10 people or more attend.(each den is represented along w/ committee positions- treasurer, secretary, CC, Cm, AC, awards, recruiter, etc) We advertise to parents but seems unless they have a position they are not there. These are supposed to be open meetings anyone can attend. We follow an agenda. All dens report, treasurers report, upcoming evetns we discuss and vote on overnights, etc,and make assignements. Anyone is welcome to send an agenda item. We plan pack meetings 1 month or more in advance now -themes we set out in our June planning session. We do have time for other input on other topics- what's working, not working, etc. We also do a RT report and add any info from district.

did you also consider offering your services to the council? Perhaps they know of a pack that needs help or direction. Maybe even an area that could use a pack. There are also other district positions or helping run day and resident camps.

We encourage ours to sell. Some do not do individual sales but do the show-n-sells. If they join after your pack popcorn training then have the popcorn chair go to a den meeting and give them a lesson.

Don't judge an entire prgram or group of people on the actions of one or two persons.(is this not also a lesson in prejudice- judging a whole group (in the case- large donors- by the action/actions of a few).What about all the people who truly worked hard and earned their awards or contributed anynomously or we gracious to recieve the proper recognition? The judgement should not be us. If they are proud of their "purchased" awards then they have justify to themselves the deservedness and a higher authority knows!! No one else truly knows the true situation unless you are they. As a child I won an orientation awrd at camp once and was ashamed. you see, myself and teammate had gotten lost during the orientation course. We were dropped off at the edge of another course and were totally lost. We wondered around and after finding markers that were part of another course we happened to run into another group and compared (copied) answers. We could have returned w/o any answers filled in and admit we had gotten hoplessly lost. (actaully we were the last to finish). While it seemed we had no chance of any award we ended up placing 2nd. While the other girl proudly announced and bragged about winning 2nd, I felt undeserved and guilty and told no one else outside the camping group I had won. I did tell that we had gotten off course and but somehow managed to finish but I went along with the cheating. I asked my teammate how she felt about winning 2nd, although she was surprised as well, she felt she we deserved another award and since were not awarded that, this on made up for it. Again, I felt sad we hadn't won the other but getting one that was not deserved was not justifiable. A difference in moral values??

Perhaps the benefactor was not so much wanting recognition as the person doing the awarding where it was not due. That person may be looking for something in return for giving out awards where they were not due. If a person is not familiar with what it takes to earn an award and it is offered very rarely will they so no to it being given to them. The person at fault is the one bestowing awards that were not earned. Benefactors are good things. The fact that they choose scouting to bestow a large monetary gift upon shows it is reaching the community and holds value . Individuals that can make large donations could contribute anywhere not just scouts. Look at many organizations and you have rule breakers, unfortunately these are the stories we hear about and everyone talks about. Donors reduce the price for everyone and help councils build bettere prgrams and facilities and reach out to those in need. As far as spending $$$ for formal training, lets look at that. YPT, NLE- Free, NLE- free - LST- 10.00, Cold weather training ever two years- 10.00. TDC- free . Pow-wow- 20.00. safetey afloat- free, BALOO-10.00, Wood badge (250.00 ?)So that is the largest expense. There are many others not mentioned that are nominal fees - mostly for materials or food. Do you have to do all these to get an award or be recognized?? If you are only in it to be recognized then go elsewhere. If you can honestly say you've learned not a thing in every training course you've taken you must pretty amazing or a closed book. As far as people who are trained being less able to deal w/ the kids- it depends on the person. I've met phd's w/no common sense and people who simply graduated hs with loads of knowledge. as far as helping the kids-- trainings real reason is so we are all going in the same direction. (as much as possible). THe majority it will help, there are always those that no amount of training can help?? Also personal enrichment is a good thing. Have you looked at the new centennial quality unit program? YOu set your own goals. FOS is not a requirment. We earned last year and did not increase our numbers or have large FOS contributions.

I'm just w/ cubs right now but joined for my son. They needed a leader so I stepped forward during Tiger year. I'm now Cubmaster. My whole family has benefited. We've done so much together and made made oodles of new friends. The learning takes place all around. My 13 yr old daughter enjoys it so much I'm trying to talk her into Venturing next year when she's done 8th grade. My sister recruited me to join last year. She's very involved w/ her son in a troop. It's done wonders for him. It brings a special connection between us as well a we share news and activities (she's in another district). The leadership skills and interactions w/ youth and adults is priceless. When that Cub said to me "Mrs. M. thanks for beign my leader" it made it all worthwhile!!

Wow. the forums are full of packs doing this type of thing now!! We're participating in a couple already- a flat Stanley from Florida, an ABC postcard project for a blue and Gold next year in Michigan. I'll grab a bunch of postcards on our historic Phila hike this summer and at scoutcamp and also our pack sleepover in the fall. I'll have to start an address book w/ what you want and I'll try to get my dens to send out. I'll email you.

Check the frequency required. Perhaps his has expired. It must be redone every so often (5 yrs or less?) Perhaps there was an issue or complaint against him or someone in the district of which you are not aware and that is why they've adopted this policy. Also when you do the protection training a card prints out so if his is curret he should look for the card. Personally I'd have no problem completing again if I had to.

Back to Lady Leigh's problem which is getting a volunteer to be the popcorn kernal or chair whichever you call it. Same people are doing everything. They need a parent meeting and get a person to be responsible for arranging the show-n-sells and order taking. Maybe a parent from each den and look at numbers from last year for initial orders to put in. One person do the show-n-sell ordering and another see what needs ordered from the sales sheets. Get all money with orders up front and each den can do their own show-n-sells and calculating of orders. You could have a parent vote- someone steps up to take charge or everyone pays 150.00 in pack dues. Some may be ok w/ this fee and those who are not can step up to take charge or live w/ the cost. At least they have the option. There is also the option of just ordering for the show-n-sells and then if anything is left over return it or sell on a pay and take method at den meetings and pack meetings. Someone does nto need to calcualte all the forms jsut keep track of what is sold w/ a tally sheet and maybe put down names of those who took part.

I offered to car pool with anyone. We did have one boy sign up w/o Dad but since I'm one of the camping co-ordinators I was in the loop. I offered to drive to/from but Dad wants to take him. I'm going to ask one of the other families if they want to share a ride- I have a mini van so taking another Dad and boy is no problem (I'm the only Mom going). Our council told us if only 1 leader was going they would pair them up w/ another unit. I always make the effort to be polite and ask. If I'm not answered then I let them make their own arrangements. Tell them you need to know by xyz date if they need to carpool.