tdk101

SSScout is absolutely right about the cheerleader type. Our PD is that cheerleader. She gets the kids going and they love it. Our Waterfront Director is cheerleader #2. There is always a little skit and cheering after the flag ceremony in the morning, a song before lunch. The other thing they do is blast music for the kids at the end of the day to dance - things like the locomotion, cha-cha slide, macarena, cotton-eyed joe. The boys love to get out there and dance while they are waiting for all the dens to arrive for closing ceremonies. It takes a while to get there if you had archery last! She also picks a couple of dens each afternoon to do their den cheers for all of camp. On the last day, every den does it, one right after the other. After lunch in the dining hall there is also some silly song singing. Some of the boys don't like that becasue they are still trying to eat. Some kids just eat a little slower. On Friday, we have a family picnic. Each family brings their own dinner. They get ice cream donated and watermelon too. For dessert, it's make your own sundaes. That takes place from 530 to 630. At 630, they hand out program awards to each den from each of the areas. Then each den puts on a little skit. Skits must be approved ahead of time by the PD to make sure they are appropriate. I guess one year they didn't and some people found it a little offensive. Not sure because we weren't there. Each den learns how to fold a flag and gets to participate in either the opening flag ceremony of the closing flag ceremony. Sports are run by the Boy scouts - 2 or 3 of them. The Cubs respond very well to that. Scout Skills are run by a couple of boys that just earned their Eagle last year. The lady that does nature is AMAZING!!!!!!!! I wish everyone could have a person like that - she is nicknamed the Nature Nut. She is awesome with the kids. They took a little hike and look at all kinds of creatures, trees, fungus, etc. She shows them different kinds of bugs. They learned to identify leaves. They love her and the program. The one thing I would highly recommend is to keep the size of your dens small - like 10 or so. My Tiger/Wolf den was 8 boys and a sibling Tag-a-long. It was great. MY Webelos 2 son's den was 18. I thought -no big deal, those kids can handle it but everything takes so much longer to do when there are that many. Changing after swimming takes forever. We have an early bird registration cut off. But they do allow scouts to sign up on Monday morning. Can be problematic. Last year they had lots of kids sign up on Monday and it threw off den sizes. This year that was not a problem. They offer a $50 reduction in cost if a parent attends camp for one day. If a parent is on staff for the whole week, there is a $100 reduction in cost.

At our day camp, each program area has a typed list of possible advancement ideas to do over the week. Our Webelos earned belt loops for archery, fishing, and swimming. I know my Tiger did not earn those belt loops. In nature, the Webelos earned the Naturalist and Forester pins. Usually in September, we get a list of the individual requirements that were completed. In sports, they do some of the physical fitness requirements, in crafts they did things that could count toward artist, etc but everything centered around our theme of Space this year. Scout Skills did flag folding, knot tying, first aid, and they made space pudding and identified constellations using an indoor planetarium. My youngest is a Tiger and I haven't really looked at the book to see what he did. He did earn his Bobcat badge though - they play a special bead game and have to find the special people in camp and say the motto, promise, etc. So if they collect all the beads, they pretty much have earned the Bobcat. Our camp goes from 830 to 530. Each session is about 40 minutes with 10 minutes to walk. We also have den time for practicing skits and just some down time. We always go in the same order but times are rotated so they aren't always doing the same thing at the same time. They stock the trading post with inexpensive little toys that center around the theme and stuff that is Scout related - all relatively inexpensive. A lot of stuff comes from Oriental Trading I believe just looking at the stuff they had. I hope this helps a little.

We used a den doodle this year for our Webelos since they didn't get beads to track their progress toward rank. We took a child's t-shirt and traced it on plywood. Painted the shirt blue and outlined the collar and sleeves in yellow. Printed a Webelos badge in a relatively big size and decoupaged it to the center. We then used little hooks all over the shirt. We used square blocks about 2 inches by 2 inches painted yellow. We put an eye hook on top and hung a leather string from the bottom for the beads. The boys decorated them with markers and hang them up at almost every meeting. We took a coffee can and filled it with plaster of paris and then placed a pvc pipe in it. The pvc pipe was then attached to the shirt by pipe straps. This gave it some stability to stand on the table or the stage, wherever we were using it. We bought colored beads and give them beads for completing a Webelos requirement(blue), earning badges(yellow), earning belt loops and/or pins(athletic-green, academic - red), and then for special things we bought "special" beads - sports themed ones, silver ones, etc. The boys are very proud to track their progress. If they were getting a lot of beads, I had dixie cups filled with their beads ahead of time. We had 13 boys in our den at one time and it just took too long to hand them out any other way. We lost a couple along the way due to other committments. Hope this helps. The boys really like this - no other den uses it and they like to get beads and put them on their doodle. The boys that have been to day camp are used to getting beads at every activity to put on thier totems.

We are the only den with a den doodle. We took a child's t-shirt and drew the outline on some plywood. Cut it out, sanded it and painted it blue. Took the Webelos emblem and decoupaged it on there. Cut squares out of wood and painted yellow. Attached some cording to it for the beads. Boys decorated it with their name and whatever else they wanted on it. Have it attached to a pole and stuck in a coffee can filled with plaster of paris. Kids love it. Each den has a flag with the emblem of the den on it. We gave each kid white ribbon and fabric markers and they decorated their ribbon however they wanted. All ribbons hang from the top of the stick.

Our pack did a Family Game NIght in the fall as a recruitment tool. Each den built some type of game to play: miniature golf, Polish horseshoes, etc. We had our Pinewood Derby track set up and the kids brought their cars to race. It was pretty successful I think. We gained 7 scouts in the Webelos I den - 2 were transfers from another pack as their pack folded. 2 of the 7 have since left Scouting due to conflicts with other activities. I think we have about 15 Tigers from that event and a few wolves and bears also. The Webelos 2 den is the only one that did not gain any new scouts. In 2 weeks we will try to do the same thing to recruit scouts for the following year so they can participate in our summer activities. We have never done a spring recruitment before so we are not sure how well that will work. Good luck with your recruitment.

We are doing this right now with our den. Only 2 or 3 of the 11 could do a pull up. We found a chart online for the exercises and we put the dates on the top and are having the boys track their progress over the month. We did the initial stuff together as a den. We are fortunate to have a Phys Ed teacher as one of our moms so she took care of all of this. We will finish the month at the HS track to find the ending results, weather permitting of course. We have decided that if they really tried, then we are happy with that. My own son has a hard time with some of the activities(pull ups) and he is fairly athletic.

Thank you all for your advice. There were many great suggestions that we will take into consideration. Especially the one about having them register as a committee member. The situation is complicated. I do believe that we have the situation resolved for the remainder of the year. Thank you all again for your assistance.

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Does anyone know if there is a specific rule for Adult participation in a Pack and/or Den activity if their child is not present at the event? I have seen where many Pinewood Derby rules state that the scout must be present to race but is that up to individual Packs? Ex. Pack goes on an overnight campout, child is not there but the adult is there and is not a leader or any other role in the Pack. Thanks for your help. We are working on some guidelines for the Pack next year and this situation has come up several times.

Thanks for all of the great info. I have been searching the Internet for additional info. We will be scouring the city for a gentle slope but we are a city of hills - steep hills so it's either flat or steep. The ramps I have seen in photos are large - we would not have room to store something like that. One pack I saw did the push starts and had a line where the pushers could not cross and there was an adult stationed there to be sure they didn't cross. We will be working on the details over the next few weeks - our Pinewood Derby is in a week and a half so that takes priority. We will post what we come up with. Thanks again for all of the great information. Dave

We are setting up a Cub Mobile Race for May. This is the first time we are doing this for the whole Pack. Last year our den (Bears at the time) raced the Web 1 Den (current Web 2 den) and it was a lot of fun but not really organized. We each built one car for the den. The boys took turns racing, had some watermelon and we went home. We learned that they must wear long pants. We made them wear helmets and suggested long pants but it was a hot day and they wore shorts and we had some skinned legs. What suggestions do you have to do this on a pack level? How do you recommend setting up a course? We will be holding it in a parking lot. We are thinking of having one boy push the cubmobile to a set point to start and then the boy driving takes over. There isn't any hill there. Do you have each boy build a cubmobile or do you build it on a den level? We have 10 boys that are active, if we built it in the den, should we split them in half and build 2 cars? Thanks in advance for any help you can give us. Dave

We just had our's this past Saturday. Anyone that wants to come is welcome. Our's is also potluck. We don't do a theme - it's a birthday party for us. This year we did Cub Scout Idol - kids did a talent show and we had 3 parents to be judges. The kids loved it and they did a GREAT job. We had grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, etc. There is always way too much food at these things too!

We hold ours at the CO where we hold our meetings. It's and Elk's Lodge. Our B&G is a pot luck dinner. The CO and pack supply the drinks and paper goods. Last year our den made centerpieces - clay pots painted blue & gold and my wife made blue & gold candy lollipops to put inside. Each scout and sibling got a lollipop and then we raffled the pots off. This year my wife and sons will make cookies and paint them blue & yellow for all of the kids. We have a cake decorating contest and that takes care of desert. We are having a talent show for the 1st time at the B&G. Looking fowrward to seeing the kids perform. The boys last year each got a movie pass in a little Cub Scout backpack made out of cardstock. There was also a patch included. Not sure what they will get this year. The pack provides the little gifts to the boys.

Our PWD is in March with District Races in April. The boys are very excited to race. Last year we invited all of the the local packs to participate as well as Girl Scouts (all levels) to build a car and we had them race in their own heats. They loved it. We added a sibling class and an adult class. We intend to do the same thing this year. We set up on Friday and have pizza and a movie. Weigh ins begin Saturday morning 45 minutes before race time. We have about 50 cubs this year. The other packs in town kind of folded and joined ours. Dave

In our Pack, all dens meets at the same time and night in the same room. The meetings are held at our CO. We get a Pack calendar that announces the dates for all Pack and Council events that we know of. If things change, we put those changes in our newsletter and also each DL lets their den know. I am the DL for my sons Web 1 den and we try to plan a month in advance. Just a rough idea of what we want to do. We don't necessarily pass all that on to the den unless we are meeting at a different location and/or time. All 12 boys in our den have e-mail, so we use that extensively. In case of last minute cancellations, we use the phone. We also have a blog that we use to keep our den informed. My wife usually sends out an e-mail on Sunday or Monday telling them what is going on for Wednesday's meeting. She updates the blog then as well. In the event that I can't be there and my wife can't do it, we have great parents who can step in or they have gone to the Web 2 den. For example, the 2 dens worked on their knot tying together. When the Web 2 leader couldn't be there we worked on Traveler with them. Our pack also has a rule that if school is closed on a meeting night, there is no Scouts. If after school activities are cancelled due to weather then so is scouts. It works well for us because everyone is on the same page. We do not schedule make ups.

Tonight I learned that the our Pack will no longer pay for beltloops earned by the boys. This decision is based on the pack's limited finances. My son likes to earn beltloops and takes a great deal of pride earning (and wearing) awards that not everyone else has. I believe this feeling is shared by a number of the boys in the den and feel strongly that anything helps motitivate the boys to stay in scouting should be encouraged. That leaves me with 2 options either use our den dues to to pay for the beltloops or ask the parents to pay for their son's beltloops. Just out of curiosity does your Pack pay for beltloops or do the parents?

We had our Family Fun Night/Recruiting Night and it was very successful. We had 23 new kids sign up and more took applications. Our Webelos 1 den was 6 last year and could be at 15 if they all return. We made cool flyers, had yard signs around the city, the kids wore uniforms to school this week depending on what day they were coming to do the talk. At the recruitment night we had our Pinewood Derby track set up and lots of cars to race(huge hit) and then each den had made a game. The Wolves made a dice type game, the Bears made a ball toss where two tennis balls were connected by a string and you toss it to get it on the stick, our Web 1 den made a marble game, and the Web 2 den made a horeshoe type of game with washers and coffee cans. The other pack made 3 minature golf holes and a ring toss. The kids were running around playing and the parents were filling out papers. There were snacks and lots of fun. I am disappointed that we were unable to get the pictures put together for the night because I think that would have added to the experience. I believe we will do something similar in the spring to recruit for Tigers especially. My son will be a Tiger next year and can not wait - he will be the first one signed up!!!! He could earn his Bobcat right now if they would let him. Big brother is an excellent teacher.

We are doing a city wide Family Game Night/Open House to recruit boys. All of the packs will be available at the Open House. Each den built a game to be used for the Open House. We will set up the Pinewood Derby Track, bring our Cubmobile, have a slide show of all the stuff we did, snacks, etc. We are really excited about this joint effort. There were 3 packs in our city but one of them is folding and we are getting their boys. We are up to 9 Web 1's from 6 last year and have at least 2 more thinking of coming back to scouts. They stopped after the Tiger year. They see the pictures of all the things that we do and they want to be part of the fun. I am hoping the den doesn't get to big that it should be split into 2. Dave

In our Pack we require all Scouts to have a parent present at all trips. We also encourage family attendance in all Pack events and generally our outings are well attended. An added benefit to the "family" approach is that it helps with recruiting as younger siblings get to experience scouting at an early age. Even for Den meetings, most of our parents stay during the meeting which helps keep them connected to the Pack. I was a new Den leader last year and tried to come up with a variety of "fun" events that were designed to give our Scouts lots of chances to participate. Some of the Den events we held last year were: * Baseball Hall of Fame (they offer a scavenger hunt w/ a patch for scouts) * Another Pack's Snowbox Derby (Our kids built a giant cardboard tank they could all ride down the hill and had a blast) *Bike ride/Family Picnic at local bike path. On the Pack level we also offer a variety of events with the goal of giving the Scouts as many chances to participate as possible. For the camping events the Pack generally pays for the Scout with a small fee for Family members. Some of the Pack trips we took last year were: * Fall camping trip * AHL Hockey Game * NYCBL Baseball game with campout on the field after the game * Herkimer Diamond Mines * Summer campout on "Scout Island" Not everyone can participate in every event. If you offer a number of events each family can choose to participate in events they can afford or are interested in. Some of the most fun events for the kids are also the least expensive.

Our day camp just had Knights of the Round Table theme. The boys learned how to juggle, they used an oversized t-shirt to make tunics, they made cardboard shields with a family crest and used colored masking tape to decorate, they made noodle swords, cardboard knights helmet, marshmallow catapaults. I wasn't sure the boys would enjoy the theme but I was wrong. We had re-enactors in all week doing demonstrations on jousting, they learned about family crests, etc.