OneHour

Bob, I agree with all that you have said except we are also here to guide and teach the boys how to be effective leaders. Now, the Patrol Method and Boy Lead ideaology are great if the boy is there to take advantage of it. Without the boys there to take on the responsibilities that he has agreed to take on, then the troop or patrol does not function as well and the boy learns nothing but someone else will do it. What we ended up with adults taking over the troop meetings to move it forward. It's not a way of giving the adults an excuse to say "no". It's a way to allow the boys to govern themselves. "If your goal is to help scouts grow while having fun, follow the programof the BSA, and learn to treat each scout as an individual. " Agree "Units with advanacement concerns do not need more unit rules, they need to use more leadership skills." Leadership skills develop through experience and responsibilities. Experience and responsibilites are developed through participation and teaching. We can teach and they can teach each other, but we can't force them to participate. The expectations that we laid out are merely guidelines for them to understand before they take on the responsibilities. It's not the word "no" that we want to tell the boys. It's the word "responsibilty" that we want to impress upon the boys. Let's take a boy in a dark area as analogy. If we put the boy in a dark room and give him go guidance except "have fun" and "learn," then it would not be very effective. He will wander in the dark until he finds it boring or frustrated and gives up. If we build safe fences or walls and tell him that there are these things to help you if you want to use them and somewhere in this dark area you will find (whatever). We won't tell him how to find it, where to find it, nor what he should to do or not to do to find it. Now, you can add to the task for him to lead a group of friends to the objective. Now, it has turned into a challenge and a fun process and you don't have to say "no" except they are about to do something that would hurt themselves or each other. Cheers, 1Hour

1) Can the boys work on achievements over the summer? As a matter of fact, look into your District Day Camp. That's where the boys will have most fun with Cub Scouting and while work on a few requirements! 2) Can the boys work on electives before earning their Wolf badges? If so, can these also be completed over the summer? As a matter of fact, you should encourage them to take advantage of the summer vacations to work on their electives and achievements, especially the ones that have to do with family outings! 3) Is it preferable that all the boys earn their Wolf badges at the same time or should I encourage them to proceed at their own pace (provided they complete their achievements by the end of Each boy will be at a different pace. Now, having said all of the above, when your Den is back in full swing ... if your Den program has it that you do a large number of advancement at the Den meeting (which is not recommended ... since fun is what the boys want) you will have to arrange your Den program to accommodate the ones who are ahead! Now you might just split the Den into two. If you don't, then you will have some boys who will be bored ... and now you will have to figure out how to: 1) keep them from disturbing the other 2) keep them interested in Cub Scouting. Den meetings can be rearranged to work on the other the achievements or electives as well as having a lot of games! If a boy flew through the Wolf requirements during summer, that Cub will be bored. Cub Scout is not like school where if you have an intelligent young man, he can finish a grade early and skip it to the next or in Boy Scout where the young man can finish all of his requirements for one rank and move up to the next right away ... where a young man can possibly attains his eagle before the age of 13 (that's another debate in another thread). So pace the Cub Scout and let him enjoys the fun of being a Cub Scout, but if he is eager, don't stop him. Have fun, 1Hour 1Hour

"Participation is important in Scouting. Any Scout not attending 50% of scheduled Troop meetings and 50% activities over the past 12 months will be considered inactive and not eligible for advancement. To be considered for a leadership role such as Senior Patrol Leader, Brownsea training, or advancement to Eagle Scout, a higher standard of participation is expected." To be an effective SPL, the boy has to be there to run the troop. To me 50% does not make a leader out of the boy. I would tend to agree with having an expectation (not rule) of attendance for some of the leadership roles. In our troop, in our process and procedure, we have the job description and a minimum attendance EXPECTATION. We go over the responsibities with the Junior Leaders when they accepted the job (for the PL and SPL, we go over these expectations before the election). We explain to them what the job entails and what if they do not live up to the expectation, the PLC may call to them up to question their job performance and removal if the PLC deems it necessary. The boy, however, will earn credit of performing his job up to the time he is relieved of his duties. Most parents and boys agreed with our expectation. The process and procedure pamphlet was just recently adopted. Before that, about 40% of our PLC (including our SPL) were part-timers; as a result, our Patrol Method and boy lead process are slow to develop at best.

At OLST, we called ourselves the Aging Armadilloes. We made patrol patches that have an armadillo on his back with a bottle of Lone Star. Of course, that was only amongst the adult at OLST.

Same with FScouter .. "Beverly Hillsbillies" "Gilligan's Island" "Brady Bunch" etc.

On the flip side, our troop has parents who have nothing better to do! Why should I and my fellow compadres use our vacation days to get ready for campouts (the overall logistics ... the boys take care of the details) when there are parents who can assist in this matter? Why should I and the other Scoutmasters in our troop spent time in the troop meetings, the campouts, the trainings, etc. and have to attend the Committee meeting because we don't have enough parents to help? Why should the scoutmasters spend the troop time collect all of the permission slips, health forms, etc. for every campout (I know ... I know ... the boys should be doing this, but we are not that far along with the boy-led idealology yet)? Why should the scoutmasters arrange for the reservation of the campsites, tour permits, etc.? Why should the scoutmasters take on the fundraisers (I had to lead the popcorn drive this past year because no one else wants to do it!) Why should the scoutmasters be the only ones signed up as merit badge counselors in the troop? This is what the scoutmasters in our troop had to do before we required the every parent has to do something for the troop is his/her son is a scout. You know the details of what a parent could do to help the troop. We all know the usual excuses ... "I'm too busy!" "I have to work late!" "I have younger child!" "I don't know anything about scouting!" "I have a long commute!" "They are involved in too many activities!" etc. ... My normal response is "I have 3 boys. On their own choices, they take Tae-kwon-do, piano, swim team, and scouting. I drive 41 miles one way to work. I work 50-60 hours a week. My wife works full time as well. As you are, I don't have the time, but I make the time and it is a very well spent time with my sons and their friends!" I guess that I could have as easily chosen to drop my son off and come back and pick him up. The wealth has to be shared by everyone. Also, I noticed that the boys who have parents actively involved tend to go further in scouting than those who don't. Of the 23 boys who came in with my son a year ago, we have 14 left. Of the 9 who left the troop, only 2 have parents actively involved in our troop, one of whom is one of our ASMs ... a good one, too! We wouldn't go as far as to say, "We tell the parents that if they aren't willing to be involved that they had better find a new troop." But then again, after seeing a couple of these parents, I don't want them to teach my son or the boys! In your case FOG, I empathize with you. Your situation calls for different measure. Sometimes, parents can get in the way! But a troop cannot function well and efficiently with only a handfull of folks ... two handfulls ... yes, but with less than a handfull, the word "burnout" comes to mind! YIS, 1Hour(This message has been edited by OneHour)

TunnelRat, are you referring to Chuckboxes? If you are, here are a few designs: Freebee designs: - www.scoutmaster.org - www.netwoods.com/document2/patrol%20bx.htm - www.troop655.com/cd/Camp%20Gadgets/Patrol%20Chuck%20Box.html - www.scoutmaster.org/ Paid design: - www.blueskykitchen.com/(This message has been edited by OneHour)

This is what I learned and passed on to our Pack when I was the CM. "The Cub Scout colors are blue and gold. The blue stands for truth and spirituality, steadfast loyalty, and the sky above. The gold stands for warm sunlight, good cheer, and happiness. Together, they symbolize what Cub Scouting is all about." ... So gold is for the golden color of sunshine, but if we note that the sun is not really gold but various shades of yellow!

FOG ... I will be dancing that jig if our patrols meet toghether outside of the troop meeting once a month! ScouterPaul, you are not at all out-of-line, but that is surprising that a Woodbadge trained behaves as such ... that is too bad.

The plan looks great, but be prepare to be flexible. This is great for a graduation campout, but do let the boys do some skits. For regular campout/campfire: You have got to have skits for the boys to do. Either the Dens come up with one or two or you have a bunch on hand and pass them out. Have them pick out the skits a little right before dinner or sometimes during the afternoon. I usually have one master and copies (cut out already into parts). Which ever one they choose, I mark it off the master and hand them their parts. At the campfire, I usually start off with a flag retirement ceremony and then the fun starts with skits, song, some skits, song, lots more skits, and ... The campfire usually lasts about 90 minutes. The cubs usually love silly songs such as "He Jumped 10,000 feet" "God Bless My Underwear" etc. (make sure that it's okay with the parents). 1Hour

LPC_Thumper, "using "semi-four" (how the heck do you spell that?)" semaphore txscoutdad, don't know if you have been down to MikeF's and our neck of the woods yet, but in the SE Texas, camping is interesting in that we can get a flash flood just about any time that the sky decides to open up! Of course, in SE Texas, we can be bonedried at our campsite while a couple of miles down the road, it is blowing and going, or vice versa! Happened last year for us at Huntsville State Park.

Our troop has a troop Policy and Procedure manual that we give to the new scouting family. It explains pretty much everything from the Troop's revenue to the Troop's discipline policy to merit badge process. We also hold a parents' orientation day where we conduct our brief scouting 101 to the new parents as well as introduce the junior leaders and the adult leaders. We also take the opportunity and get all paperworks fill out (Class 1 Health forms, Talent Survey, Merit Badge Counseling, Internet release form, adult health forms and application, etc.). We have different leaders manned the different sign up stations. 1Hour

Beautifully done! But make sure that there is an user-friendly way to update it. That way there will more than one person updates it. Also, great graphics, but are your users in the Pack have broadband or dial up? One of the pitfall that our Pack experienced before on website is that the simpler and the more up-to-date the website is, the more people will visit and make good use out of it. We created a website for our pack 3 years ago. This is before the proliferation of cable modem and DSL. Not knowing any better, I put on alot of great graphics. About 70% of our Pack had dial up modem (running around 56k) and so visiting to the website was a slow and painful experience for them. Soon only a handful of broadband users (mostly from company T1) visited the site. The website died a quiet death. I created a second one, but by then, the folks in the Pack didn't want anything to do with the Internet and cubscouting. So that went the wayside as well! About 6 months ago, I created a website for the Troop and followed through with what I saw as the problems with the Pack's websites (simplicity, regular updates, plenty of resources, etc.). To date, the site gets about 10-11 visits a day and averages about 80-90 a week. We don't send out permission slip via email any more. They simply go to the website to download it. So it goes to prove that Internet and Scouting can benefit one another ... so far. One other tip, use pdf format to distribute your documents. As for updating, keep it interesting by update something new at least every week (if not more) and publicize the time that you are going to update it. People tend to give up after seeing the same thing over and over again. I used to say, "Cub Scout and the Internet has some way to go before they can benefit one another." I think that the environment has changed or at least changing! Your website is awesome! I'm envious. Very well thought out and great use of php! Good luck.

We set the Pack dues at $35 including rechartering fees and Boy's Life. We have two fund raisers Popcorn and Scout Fair Tickets. These two fund raisers supplement a lot of the Pack's expenditure (awards, campouts, fun activities, B&G, PWD, etc). If a scout can't afford it, then we use some of our fund raiser fund to provide. If we do not have the fund, we ask the District and then the Council. We have not had any need for it, yet. We collect the dues in Sept for new cubs (prorated until Jan) and recharter in Jan. for the whole Pack for a whole year. If a parent doesn't want to pay, we kindly ask him/her to reconsider because after his/her son's membership expires, we cannot allow the boy to participate in cub scouting due to insurance and liability issue. Usually, the parent pays for it if the boy enjoys scouting. 1Hour

acco40, I sit corrected. I learn something new every day. Thanks. 1Hour

It's a common mistake. Tenderfoot has been commonly confused as the first scout rank! A lot of people tend to forget the Scout badge. "how and would you respond to it." I would say something along the line, "Congratulations, Webelos 2s. I'm impressed with the energy and the enthusiasms of the eight. Tenderfoot is a great rank to go after, but don't forget the Scout rank and all the fun of starting out your scouting trail like your first summer camp!"

Eamonn, You have been spammed big time. One thing that you shouldn't do is to reply to the spams. Apparently, you have sent or posted your email address on a website that seemingly sent out its email database to spammers and they proliferate from there. The spammers nowaday are getting fairly good at getting around filters. They use spaces, characters, and miscellaneous techniques to get their email through the filter, for example (V*1A*GRA). You can ask your ISP to perform additional filtering and of course, you can shell out more money for some decent spam filtering software. You have tried to ask your DC and OA to take you off their mass mailing list for jokes and cutsies, have you? A phone call or two reminding of the "a scout is courteous" law will do the trick. It worked for me. Many people assume that you would appreciate what they are sending and just need some remindings. By the way, just be thankful all that you get is spam. I'm fighting daily diluge of worm infested emails in my home email-box. I, too, hate those chained-emails! 1Hour(This message has been edited by OneHour)

What we have done in the past is to pre-cut all of the flags to be retired, except for one representative one. With a ceremony that involved 13 boys, each read his piece as the ASMs cut each strip. After his piece is read, the boy took the same strip from the pre-cut flags and the ceremonial strip, handed to the SM, saluted, and returned to his position. The SM then placed them onto the fire. We then folded the fields of blue and placed it onto the fire and sang various patriotic songs until the fields of blue were completed gone and which time we sang TAPS. I would have to agree with FOG. To date, I have not found an official US sanctioned ceremony; however, there are a lot of great ceremonies out there on the web and this is the intro that I borrowed: "Scoutmaster: The flag of the United States of America is an honored symbol of our nation's unity, its hopes, its achievements, its glory and its high resolve. When the flag is in such condition, through wear or damage, that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display, it shall be retired in a dignified manner befitting such a symbol. SPL: The traditional way is to cut the flag into pieces and burn it in a modest but blazing fire. A flag ceases to be a flag when it is cut into pieces. We cut this flag and rest of the flags into their respective colors, 7 red stripes, 6 white stripes, and the blue field. We leave the blue field intact because no one should ever let or allow the Union to be broken. As we perform this respected duty, let us reflect on the design, meaning of our flag, our country. Please remain in complete and absolute silence throughout the ceremony." ... and of course we performed the ceremony on a different fire than the campfire. After the campfire (or next morning), we gathered the gromets (to be returned to the flag's owner if known) and we buried the ashes. I would have to admit ... I have never seen tears from grown men at similar ceremony until we performed the ceremony not long after 9/11 and it still draws emotion from me and those who witness it for the first time (especially in the Pack). The usual response that I get is ... "I never knew that there is a way to retire our flag!" 1Hour

Mike, the $40 THERM-A-REST PERFORMANCE GUIDELITE is for the 3/4 size only. The cheapest that I found for the full size is at REI outlet.com for $50. So far, I'm happy with my Coleman pad but it weighs in around 3.5+ lbs; for backpacking ... it's great for the back, horizontally, but it hurts the back, vertically! (This message has been edited by OneHour)

Mike, THERM-A-REST PERFORMANCE GUIDELITE PADS or at least that's what is posted. (This message has been edited by OneHour)

Any recommendation on backpacking sleeping pad that weighs less than 2 lbs? I have been eyeing on THERM-A-REST PERFORMANCE GUIDELITE PADS, selling for $40. Thanks. 1Hour

We had the same last year when 23 new Webelos came on board. We found that it is easier to follow what BSA suggested, new scout patrols. We separated them into 3 patrols, according to their affiliation (ie. pack, friends, etc.). The NSPs worked together on the Trail to First Class with two troop guides to each patrol. As you will find out, they will grow up together. As the each boy reaches first class, he has a choice of existing patrol or if the majority of NSP scouts reach 1st class together, he can stay in his patrol. So far, two of the three NSPs stayed in tact and most of them are 1st-classes, working toward stars; as a matter of fact, we are contemplating merging the remnants of the "older patrols" into these two patrols plus a senior troop youth leadership patrol and one NSP. 1Hour

I'm sorry to hear about the bad experience that you and your son had. It breaks my heart to see a boy cries at one of these events (pwd, raingutter regatta, ...). My only advice is for you to actively participate, namely be the chairman for the event and fix what is wrong. That is what I did! It was my oldest son's tiger year. We did not know exactly what to do with a box of wood and four plastic wheels! This is back in the days that not much information about pwd was posted on the Internet. He and I worked on it, carved it, painted it, finished it and felt proud of our accomplishment together. We had no instruction other than what came with the box and the Pack's do's and don'ts. The car weighed 2.5 oz. We didn't know that we could lube the wheels or the car can weigh up to 5 oz. Happily, he took his car to the race. Dejectly, he saw his car not even make it half way down the track each heat (to the point of tearing up). Bravely, he said, "Dad, we'll do better next year." That's when I told myself, not another kid in the Pack will have to see his car not finishing. I got on the pwd committee and created the "pinedwood derby clinic day." We made sure that every kid's car weigh at least 4 oz and provide a tube of lube for those who want to use it. I sent out suggestions and links to various pwd sites. I made sure that the rules were clear and answer any question about it. The results? A fair playing field for everyone including the newbies! To date, we continue the tradition and every car finishes the race whether it's 1st or last, but the important thing is that the kids were satisfied. "Am I overreacting to even discuss this?" No, you reacted as a father would and there is no fault in that. If you were to have intentionly done it, then yes, you are overreacting. "Did the leadership handle this as well as they could have?" No. "How would other leaders here have handled the situation?" If I were the Cubmaster, I would have done it differently. If we, as a Pack, did not explain the rules well enough, then it is the Pack's fault and not the boy's. I would have gotten another trophy for your son and explain the reason why to you and your son as well as to the rest of the Pack. I would see to it that the rules are clearly spelled out to prevent future confusion. All of the adults just need to remember the Cub Scout's motto, "Do Your Best." Now that this episode is over, let the water be under the bridge and move on with having fun with your son and Cub Scouting. Explain to your son (as I did with mine) the reasoning behind the event that just happened why it happened the way it did and most importantly, how much fun y'all had in making the car/boat. 1Hour (This message has been edited by OneHour)

Tamegonit Arrowman, HIja', jIyaj [Tamegonit Arrowman, yes, I understand ... (in Klingon)] By the way Tamegonit Arrowman, Google as a Leet version as well http://www.google.com/intl/xx-hacker/ Uncleguinea, please accept my apologies and take two Aspirins and read the thread again! (This message has been edited by OneHour)

"OneHour, are you saying the older scouts from these "non-spirited" patrols were all off on a high adventure activity?" Yes. Some of these boys belong to a patrol themselves and that patrol has no identity either. These older boys don't like to go on a "regular" camping any more (at least they hardly show up). 1Hour