ParkMan

I took it and would take it again. I'd been a scout leader for about a year. I was involved as a youth for about 6-7 years. I've taken numerous leadership development courses outside of scouting, but was fine with listening again - reinforcing those ideas is not a bad thing. I see Wood Badge primarily as: a seminar on leading units, a survey course of the scouting program, an opportunity to interact with some pretty committed scouters from around your council, an opportunity to let go a bit and have fun with adult scouters. Wood Badge is not an outdoor skill building course.

I'm not a DE, but having dealt with DEs and watched district operations, here's my .02: - Ask the field director what his (or her) goals are for you as a DE. Is it FOS, it is membership, district operations, something else? Have a discussion about that with the FD. - Ask what has worked in the past in regard to meeting those goals. For example, if it's membership, what has been done in that district in the past. For example, I never see our DE going to schools and doing boy talks - I can't imagine that happening here. If this is a really successful council, perhaps they already have units that know how to recruit. So, your role in supporting them will be quite different than your role in supporting a district with units that do not recruit. - Ask about additional expectations of the role. i.e., what extra meetings do you need to attend? When are staff meetings, how do they work? - Bring some of your own ideas to those goals & expectations. Again, if it's membership, be prepared with some thought out ideas of how you could add to what they do.

I am referring to all Cub leaders - that includes pack committee members, Cubmasters, Asst. Cubmasters, as well as Den leaders. Many packs I know are 40+, if not 60+ boys & families. Organizing a pack is a lot of work. However, since you mention den leaders, let's look at that. One of my den leaders plans our B&G banquet. It's a feast for 200 people with catered food, program, activities, etc. It requires coordinating amongst numerous adults, leaders, and dens. Several other den leaders plan portions of our campouts for 150 people. The Webelos den leaders coordinate joint activities across 4 different dens. They are planning several Webelos campouts and other activities a year. Let's think about the den leaders in their own dens. For example, they need to sit down and figure out how to complete the 12 different requirements of the Bear rank across 25 meetings. That's 25 different meetings, activities, field trips, etc. You could just throw that together or you could sit down and come up with a cohesive plan for the year. Being a den leader isn't just about then hour you're sitting with the boys. There's a lot of behind the scenes activity to make that hour seamless. The project planning section of WB is just an hour or two. That's an appropriate level of background for these events. Having den leaders go through an hour on project planning is a good thing in my book. There's many different ways to look at the Wood Badge program. If you look at the individual courses, most of them have some relevance to Cub leaders. I've mentioned project planning, but there are others too. However, you could just as easily look at Wood Bdage as a course designed to get leaders focused on building a vision and executing it. That's a great thing for den leaders to do. Reducing Wood Badge to a course on the stages of team development is too simplistic.

It's going to be hard to find a single sentence description. Scouting really is many different things. Probably the closest you'll get is: "The purpose of this corporation shall be to promote, through organization and cooperation with other agencies, the ability of boys to do things for themselves and others, to train them in Scoutcraft, and to teach them patriotism, courage, self-reliance, and kindred virtues, using methods which are now in common use by the Boy Scouts."

Cub leaders should definitely attend Wood Badge. Leading a Cub Pack has different dynamics than a Boy Scout Troop, but it's no less difficult. It requires trained leaders too. Many of the skills you learn in Wood Badge are directly applicable to the Cub experience. Leading a team of adult, planning large events, developing an annual program - these are all the things that den & pack leaders do all the time.

Sounds like someone on the staff misunderstood the curriculum. I can see someone saying that it's up to you to make a difference, but not that Wood Badge is all about you. As both a participant and staffer, the message I saw was one of service to the scouts and take what you learn here and make a difference in your units,

Hi Bill, That sounds great. What's a backdater? Is that an assessment/writeup on the event?

Hey Smmortgat - Yes - sorry if I went a bit off the path from your earlier comments. I definitly remember you started this looking for a new troop. I think we're on pretty much the same page - you basically have a choice - stay & see if you can "fix it" or go find a new troop. I won't try to convince you to stay - sometimes it's better just to find a new home with folks who may be thinking similar things. Sorry if you've already mentioned this... Have you had a one-on-one coffee with the primary leader. Maybe she has similar goals to yours, but isn't sure where to start. Or maybe she's overwhelmed and would welcome some help. If she just really likes what they do now, then that's a sign that affecting change will be difficult.

Seems someone's fixed the problem. Interesting though that now there is a duplicate of a topic. Wonder if that was the issue.

Isn't there an old rule that says "never do for a DE what a DE wants to do himself"

I see this a bit differently. My son is in a large CS pack. My daughter in a large multi-level GS Troop. In both units, you see some families into camping, but many others that are not. For many families in the pack, CS might as well be a arts & crafts/field trip/fun activity. There are many for whom CS is not a "lets all get out in the woods" program. In my daughter's GS troop, you see exactly the same thing. smoortgat's posts sound like there is a little bit of "look, I know how scouting should work - you all just need to do what I say". You may be 100% correct technically - however, you are in a group with a different culture. You've gotten a lot of good advice here on how a GS Troop can run, but the reality is that the Troop may not want it to run that way. If the families are generally happy as is, why should they try to go spend a bunch of energy changing it. This is not a uniquely GS problem. My son's CS pack has exactly the same problem too. My general advice is that unless you see a real desire in the families for the program you describe, then decide to either go along as is, or go to another Troop. If you stay, don't expect grand changes, but do try to broaden their views from time to time. In my daughter's GS troop, there were folks who said "this is how it should run". But then as the unit grew, there were probably 20 different leaders involved. They all had different goals & desires for the program. SN was spot on - those parents worked together and found a good common ground.

I'm noticing that I can't see anything in the Cub Scout forum now. If I look at page 1, I get "Invalid data requested". If I look at page 2, there are entries. Almost seems to me as if there was something in a record on page 1 that is causing a problem. BTW - I notice if I reverse the sort order, the problem now occurs on the last page, not the first page.

I'd recommend making slides. It's great fun, they're memorable, and the boys like them more anyways.

The GS program has the flexibility to allow for what you are describing you want. I've seen it in action. In fact, I think the GS program done well can challenge young girls as much as, if not more, than the CS program can. My suggestion, find a couple of female adults and start a troop together. In the GS system, you need at least a female co-leader. Once you get that Troop running, follow the GS program, just operate it similar to a CS pack or BS troop. You'll wear different uniforms, have different badges, etc..., but the fundamental goals can be pretty much the same. The interaction of girls vs. boys will be a bit different (girls like to sing more), but beyond that it doesn't need to be all that different.

As I wrote that, I had that thought too. Perhaps I'm thinking about all this too hard and trying to solve issues one-by-one instead of just dealing with a bunch at once. I don't know.

If you haven't already, talk with the CM more one-on-one. Perhaps buy him/her an adult beverage and have a chat. Make a few specific recommendations. If those recommendations require more effort, be prepared to help. Were I the CM of your pack, I'd welcome it.

My son's the same way. He grumbles about putting his uniform on (though less now with the tan uniform), he grumbles about having to go to meetings, he grumbles about having to eat dinner too In my house, scouting is important and my son sees that. So, as he's matured, he's taking more and more pride in scouting. When he needs a nudge to get active in Scouting, I give it to him and over time that's worked. In a lot of houses, that's not the case though. I know many parents who don't see the bigger picture and for whom scouting is just another activity. When their son grumbles a few times about going to meetings or putting on their uniforms, the parents start to give up. For us, right or wrong, we've not been fighting the battle. Do I think it would help if we were better uniformed - yes. However, I think before we do that, we need to get better participation at pack meetings, have better programs, etc... So, for now I make the uniforming as painless as possible - hence the t-shirt.

This is us a year ago. The only difference is that we had some activity in there as well - some activities were better than others. I tried the sit on the floor in a circle thing and it sorta worked, but it can get chaotic. As a CM, one suggestion. Pick an area of the pack meeting you'd like to see improved and volunteer to the CM to take that on. If I had a leader that came to me and said, "I'd like to make awards" more meaningful, I'd be most appreciative! What interested me in the den activities is that I have a gut feel we need to move beyond the pack meeting as entertainment + awards, and towards something more. I'm also thinking that we need to find a way to be more than just 50 boys in a room all together. Put slightly differently... Right now, I think our general approach to the year is that boys go to den meetings and do den & rank stuff. Boys go to pack meetings to get awards & play. There is little relationship between the two. Also, there is little meaning from going to the pack meetings. That doesn't seem right.

Our pack wears uniforms, but we're not terribly strong in our uniform ethic. There's a sort of we'd like you to wear it, but if not, no big deal. It's rare that we ask for them to be in uniform. Neckerchiefs are almost always optional. We also have a pack t-shirt, which is always an option. This seems to work well enough. Boys that don't want to wear the uniform don't, and because there are options and no-pressure the uniform is never really an issue. I do wish we had a bit more energy behind wearing the uniform, but it's not a battle that's on my radar right now One other note - my own son is a Webelos now. I was always very lax with him about tucking in his shirt, wearing the neckerchief, etc... However. once he went from the blue uniform to the tan, I drew a line in the sand. I told him that if he's going to wear a Boy Scout uniform, I want him to set an example and be fully uniformed (pants, belt, shirt). He's responded with enthusiasm to that one.

I'm really interested in the idea of den activities at a pack meeting. In my time, we've never organized a pack meeting that way, so I'm curious how you'd do it. Would your pumpkin carving by an example of a den activity, or are you thinking of something different?

I'm a cub leader, and so I tend to have a different perspective on this than many. At the Cub level, it's rare to get a long time leader with lots of bling, knots, etc. More of the long timers I meet tend to go the opposite direction - they shun knots, rarely wear WB beads, etc. A temporary patch - what's that? So, the new Cub leaders that I know pick up on that and don't bother either. In my 4 years with my son's pack, I am the only person to ever earn a knot out of probably 30 different leaders. As such, I get questions all the time from the boys - Hey, what's that on your uniform? I'd love to have some around the block guy show up at the pack meeting with more bling than you could imagine. I imagine a lot of kids would love it!

My son's den had that same challenge. We had two den leaders ready to take on dens, but the parents couldn't figure out a split, so we kept it as one large den. With a large den like that, several boys became unhappy with the chaos and decided to leave on their own. Add a little natural attrition to that and by the end of the year, it was 10. A year later, that same group was 8. We ended up starting a second den in the Bear year and guided new boys to that new den instead. My recommendation. Find two good leaders and split the den along some natural lines. i.e., who can make a particular day, where they go to school, etc. Then run the dens seperatly. After a year together the natural inclination of the group will be to stick together. You may need to nudge them to stay separate. Remember, the longer you wait to split the den, the harder it gets.

I have the same question. This year we tried to improve pack meetings. Some are better, some are not. One piece of advice I received early on was to make the meetings more "fun". Some folks want this to mean, make the pack meeting "entertainment". They'd like to have the pack meeting be a show, presentation, or game with the bare minimum of time for awards or announcements. As such, we did away with den skits, cheers, and songs. Pack meetings start at 6:30 and run for about an hour. Right now our meetings go something like: 6:20 - gathering game 6:35 - opening flag ceremony - a den does this monthly. We always start 5-10 minutes late. 6:40 - announcements - CM makes announcments. There may be a special announcement or two. 6:42 - awards - 10 mintues. Usually given by the den leaders who call up boys to the front. Due to the time, there is not a lot of ceremony here. 6:55 - actvity or special ceremony 7:25 - closing At the meeting, we have rows of chairs set up. Boys sit with their parents wherever they want. We don't sit by dens. The meeting is run by the CM, one or more ACMs, and the advancement chair. I'm not sure that focusing just on meetings as entertainment is working so well. I feel like we've lost some of the purpose behind the pack meeting with the boys having no role. Even when the den does the flag ceremony, the leader is sort of scrambling to find out who is there. Den leaders generally come - though not always. We get at most 50% attendance. My gut feel is that a great pack meeting can't be just a fun show/activity/game. It's got to be more. I've just not hit on the right formula yet.

Hi all, sorry for the double post here. I was editing my post and walked away for 5 minutes. I came back and the post had been done. Not sure why. Here's a revised version. Many thanks all for the most excellent advice! If I pull out some of the common themes, I see: Community - Know familes and greet them by name - Get parents involved. Start with small tasks & build up. Get Parents to Buy In - Need to see value in coming to meetings - Need to overcome "nah, I don't want to go this week" Leader/Committee Meetings/Parent Meetings - Invite parents, especially new ones Pack Meetings - make them fun! Have a replacement now These are absolutely fantastic. Let me do some thinking and I'm sure I'll be back shortly with follow up questions. Thank you all so much for taking the time on this!

Many thanks all for the most excellent advice! If I pull out some of the common themes, I see: Community - Get parents involved Get Parents to Buy In - Value in Coming to Meetings - How to overcome "nah, I don't want to go this week" Leader/Committee Meetings/Parent Meetings - Invite parents. - How to overcome folks just talking with each other Pack Meetings - make them fun! Have a replacement now