5yearscouter

peridochas, the link in the 1st post just send you to the merit badge.net location. where 2 links from scouting.org are located. http://www.scouting.org/filestore/healthsafety/pdf/680-028.pdf for the tool non-usage chart, and http://www.scouting.org/filestore/healthsafety/pdf/680-027.pdf for the service project over-analyzer. Our OA chapter is building stove boxes Thursday night to hold stoves that NYLT uses so the stoves don't get so beat up. OA scouts were asked to bring electric drills and if anyone had a circular saw and things like that. I put my hand firmly over my mouth. I can not in good conscience share the info in that bsa scout.org spreadsheet with the troop at circle up time. When council or district pulls this info out and pushes it, then so be it, but I'm not going to be the one to share the craziness. Instead I will do the 2nd half of the definition of obedient. Not the follow the rules part, but to work to change rules you do not agree with part. so I will share it with the adults and suggest they all contact national to complain about the absurdity of it all. I am interested in how a scout can do plumbing, painting, or woodworking if they don't use tools. or are we set at only those over 18 can use power tools? cause that's what it looks like. Scouting is about building, doing, making things. If you look at the hundreds of thousands of service hours, most including tool useage where nobody is seriously harmed the risk ratio to benefit seems to be extremely low.

I'll link this to where I found it, http://meritbadge.net/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=4034 tool use and work at elevations or excavations rules and a planning worksheet for eagle project. just in case your scout needs more planning help I guess. hopefully not required.

Let's see, as UC I would see that you know of this issue from the parent. So I would offer up the advice that the scout could appeal to the district/council for the BOR. I haven't ever had to do that, but it is listed in the guide to Advancement. I would caution the scout/family that this may slam a bunch of doors as the whole troop adult leaders may then start to believe he was a trouble maker. Then I would contact the SM and the CC and suggest a sit down to discuss the issue. I would provide them guidance and point them toward training for how a BOR should progress. I might suggest they involve the COR if they are not in agreement, but I would not contact the COR myself. I would suggest strongly that they review with everyone in their unit who sits on BOR the newest spelled out info in the Guide to advancement and the training for BOR's and suggest that they review whether everything they questioned in the COR for this scout was following those guidelines. And if not that they rethink the decision of the BOR, and go for a redo. I would talk and I would listen and I would make suggestions. But it is not my job to fix the problem for them. If they aren't sure how to proceed next I might help them brainstorm options.

did the boys vote that they wanted the heathered grey neckerchief to match their class B? Or maybe they want something brighter, so they stand out in a crowd, perhaps the color of the printing on the class B or the artwork on there?

Basement what size uniform shirts do you need? Just boy scout or boy scout and cubbies too? Cause if I run across extra shirts anywhere I think I could find postage to send them to you. I might could get you some green scout pants, depends on what size you need. We do tend to have a lot of extra size little green pants being outgrown right after the boys join the troop. I imagine there may be a few other people on these boards that would try to send you stuff if you were to tell us what you need most.

I am not that big of a duct tape fan, but it does have it's uses. Someone mentioned I had an old quality unit patch on, so I took the new one and duct taped it on top of the old one very very carefully. I wore it that way all year and nobody ever noticed, it even went thru the wash that way. finally at a district training we were holding, the SM leans over, looks funny, and then loudly exclaims "you have that patch on with duct tape!!" that was a bit embarrassing, but also, nobody really knew so we went into the discussion of what you do to have a good looking uniform in a pinch and off we wandered for a while. I was going to say that sewing on a button is a tiger elective, so if BSA expects 1st graders to be able to sew on a button, then certainly Boy Scouts can sew on a patch. My boys know how to sew on their patches, but they hate hemming pants. As I watch my oldest walk off wearing his old too short scout pants cause his new ones havent been hemmed yet. I can't complain too loudly, or they'll call me on how my scout pants are hemmed with LARGE safety pins, just a few strategically placed....

I'd honestly rather see the patch held on with duct tape underneath than in one of the plastic patch holders. I'd also suggest an easy fix is to tack the top and bottom of the patch in place with needle and thread, and then hope he gets the next rank before he snags that one on something while playing capture the flag and loses it in the grass somewhere.

Boy scout trail gives a pretty good outline of all the awards for each rank. And the webmaster is pretty good at keeping it up to date. once you know the award name, you can often go find it at the places linked for BSA national website to verify it's correct and hasn't changed. in the last 7 years of cub scouting, I've almost given up on the bsa stuff being easy to find. I've never seen the requirements spelled out anywhere for the attendance award, I believe it's a unit award and should reflect perhaps perfect attendance, which could be in den or pack events or both combined. We just don't give it out in our pack cause it's hard to have anyone with perfect attendance.

While the instability of parents of chartered orgs does exist, there is certainly a lot of instability in other chartered orgs as well. The idea that BSA thinks knowledge and stability is coming from the chartering org is a bit laughable. Since LDS units are a majority in many areas, it seems wonderful that the church will always recharter a unit, except this year we saw many units drop by the wayside in the LDS Wards in our area. And with the leaders being called to service for 6 months in some instances, that certainly doesn't lead to any amount of stability at least not at the point that the scouts will see. I think instead of getting rid of us parents of chartered orgs, BSA could give more guidance and assistance on how to insure leader stability. For instance, we are fairly stable since we became parents of chartered org because we require parents to become leaders and fill out the application. that gives them ownership. There could be more advice on how to pass the torch, with better training available, not just fluffy stuff online for units who self charter. Legalities do need to be addressed. BSA financial sent out a letter a couple years ago, encouraging units to not incorportate and get their own 501c3 because they should be using their CO's stuff and it wasn't necessary. But perhaps that info should have included how to cheaply do your paperwork(with of course variation by state) for those units who do not have a non-profit as a CO.

Groups of citizens 3,782 units 110,248 youth members that's the impact number wise of the "no more parents of" chartered orgs from the numbers at dec 2010. And if you look thru http://www.scouting.org/About/FactSheets/operating_orgs.aspx you might question if they are all "real" organizations holding certificates of insurance to cover the scouting liability. They are certainly not all corporations, with corporate liability instead of personal liability. There are a lot of scouts effected if you look at the athletic booster clubs, playgrounds and rec centers, community centers and settlement houses that may charter units in the US.

Well when I go into a tiger den and find out they signed off stuff but never really did any go see its, I take a deep breathe, bite my tongue, and then plan how to go on at least one of the go see its as an actual outing, plan it, run it, and show up with uniform on and snacks and make it a blast. Then I mention to the parents that if they want to do xyz of the other go see its this is an easy way to do it, and give them the info. and sometimes I remind them twice. But otherwise you can't go back in time and un-sign books. you can only look thru and see if there is any way you have time to do a go see it, and even after tiger badge is done, it would be great fun to go to a spring baseball game as a group, right? and if the local tv or radio station would let your tigers go in and get interviewed for tv/radio, even if they never play on air, that would also be great fun. and so on. and throw in a field trip or two from the electives, to let them know that hey, this is how you do it. I have usually 2 different sets of parents, the ones who think that it's a big chore to go on an outing, usually because they have to work, not because they don't wnat to deal with taking the kids to a location, and the other set of parents who are gung ho and see it as a way to take their kids on field trips, now that schools are soooo wrapped up in testing that many never get to go on field trips in school anymore. so you can't go back, but you can go forward strongly. you may have a couple of parents who say we already did that and don't want to do it again even if it's in a totally different way. tell them that's fine and move on with the rest of the den. can't win over everyone to how much fun scouting can be, but that you actually have to go out of the den meeting/classroom to get the most benefit.

ok, so back up a bit. You have a troop that's been around a while, the SM died, and he had been mostly a one man show. so your committee doesn't quite know what to do, the scouts really don't either, and you are trying to plan the calendar and figure out when to do merit badges with the group focusing on eagle required mb? so you need to go to training and read the whole scoutmaster book front to back. take the pages about committee jobs, and take it to committee and have them read it and have them do the online training and if you can find the training in person for everyone, do it, cause in person training is tons better than online. then you can do SOME of the legwork for the calendar, or task committee to also do some leg work, and the scouts too. With a small group to work with, and boys that are almost done and boys that are just starting, the things the boys come up to do for outings may not work so much for all, but do need to fit all cause you really need all to attend all the outings since you seem to be a small unit. So Everyone goes and gets the ideas of where to go camping and hiking in your area, any other ideas they can come up with. check websites of troops in your area for ideas, look thru the program helpers for ideas of outings and then try to find a few different ways to do a few of them. Make sure the boys bring some ideas too. They may want to do paintball or laser tag, or they may want to hike the grand canyon, or go canoeing or rock climbing. Put all the ideas on a big white board, and have everyone take a piece of paper and write down 12-15 of them that they like the most. adults don't vote, SM and ASM don't either. Adults brought the ideas to supplementwhat the boys found for ideas, but they don't get to decide what to do. If they have something the adults REALLY want to do, they can intro it to the scouts and tell them something about it, but they don't get to decide to do it. the boys get to decide. Don't forget to bring info on the local and further away summer camp, week long camp opportunities, including a do your own thing 1 week of camp if you have a suitable location you could do. The items that get the most votes by the boys, get put on the calendar. That's the simple thing. How they get put on the calendar and which months they fit best, I personally think the adults should have a little input into, especially the first year the boys make their own calendar. Adults know when they can get off work, and can focus attention on whether the troop as a whole likes going on campouts and hikes and such on holiday weekends, or do they prefer to have holiday weekends NOT scouting weekends. Adults can help guide away from doing a big huge campout say when there is state testing or SAT tests for the older scouts, and even can help give a voice to where to put events on months where half your scouts have baseball games or whatever the biggest thing that interveres with scouting for your boys. This is where knowing your scout's interests comes in handy. At this point you'd also want the boys to have brought their family and school calendars, and the adults should have their own calendars, plus district and council calendars too. you start plugging things into dates based on usual weather and tring to avoid conflicts with everyone/or most. You may want to talk about things such as when say big backpacking trips aren't in the too cold, too deep of snow unless you are good with snow shoes, or in the heat of the summer in Arizona in the desert with no access to water kind of health and safety issues. And then the troop publishes the calendar. Suggest that the SPL(or all the boys together) pick a theme from the troop program features that closely matches the events on this calendar to give them pre-planned meetings for a few months. Once they have an idea of how to do this, and how to use these features, give them the reins to do more self planning and less following the exact script in the book for meetings. You may want a Scout and a committee person to sort of be in charge of each event on the calendar, with the goal that at first the adult shows the scout what to do, make reservations, tour plans, permission slips, collect fees. But after a while, the adult only does the things that require adults to do--like perhaps make the credit card payment to reserve a campground. Every month at PLC(patrol leaders council) the scouts would normally review last month, this month and next month, perhaps with an occassional 2-3 month out check to see if something new came up that means a big change. Of course with a small troop, you really don't need to have a patrol leaders council, or even an SPL(senior patrol leder) because you don't have multiple patrols. so the patrol leader ends up being the senior patrol leader. He can have mini-plc kind of meeting in conjunction with a troop meeting once a month where he goes over any upcoming events and what is working and what is not. In a small troop, expect that everyone of the boys will end up doing a lot of the jobs with some overlap. that's ok as long as the spl/patrol leader is the one guiding this to happen. The first time I expect SM may choose patrol leader, and patrol leaders chooses his patrol scribe, quartermaster, etc. But after that, it would be best for the boys to choose their own patrol leader, who chooses his slate of helpers. Give the calendar to the troop committee and have them look it over to look for problems, mostly financial. can we afford this and how much do we need to charge. do this occassionally a few more months in advance of what the boys may be looking to, so you know if say the cost of a certain campground has doubled. and then give your spl the notice of these bigger changes with some advice of options --like changing location or doing a fundraiser, and also he may have other options, like just charging each scout a higher amount for the campout. have his discuss the options in his plc and see what the scouts figure out, they may surprise you. now as for this merit badge stuff. you seem worried about boys starting badges and not finishing them, and not starting the eagle required badges willingly. Well not every scout will make eagle, and not every scout wants eagle. as a teacher (I think that's what you said), you'd need to step back and look at the way scouting works as different than the public school system. Think of it this way, the more often you can introduce a cool and neato topic, the more likely a scout will also find it interesting, and will learn something, even if they never finish the badge. If they are truly interested in the badge, they'll finish it. otherwise they still get something out of starting the badge. Giving them a world of knowledge should be the goal of the SM and the MBC(merit badge counselors) but those goals should not come about in the same way. the whole outing that is scouting, exploring the world and doing for yourself, that part of scouting should be the bulk of your meetings and outings. Rank stuff should come naturally-we are going camping, someone has to plan, shop and cook the food; we are going hiking, we should go over the rules of safe hiking. we are going to want a wash stand at camp, so learn the knots to lash together this wood to make a wash stand. naturally occuring learning. Now along the way if you are going hiking, sure you may want to introduce the hiking merit badge and point out how the boys can do stuff on the outing that works for the badge. but if they actually do the stuff and complete the badge is UP TO THE SCOUT, not up to you. You just let it go. It's THEIR Individual merit badge to finish, not for the TROOP or SM to do. Similarly if the troop is doing scouting for food, you could mention how that could fit into the Citizen in the community merit badge. But you should't sign them all up for the badge, and arrange for the community service for each of them. They should choose to dothe badge and choose to do the service and count it for the MB. They may only want to do it to satisfy community service hours for rank, or just cause it's fun, orthey may want to stay home. thats ok too. Take your tracking pages that are driving you nuts because some boys are starting merit badges and not finishing them and throw this out the window. not yours to track. what you should track? not much. you could track how you are doing toward rank as a whole troop. you could track service hours, and you could track nights camping. and attendance and recruiting. those can be signs of a healthy troop. A healthy troop and a good scouting experience doesn't always have to = Eagle.

ok, so back up a bit. You have a troop that's been around a while, the SM died, and he had been mostly a one man show. so your committee doesn't quite know what to do, the scouts really don't either, and you are trying to plan the calendar and figure out when to do merit badges with the group focusing on eagle required mb? so you need to go to training and read the whole scoutmaster book front to back. take the pages about committee jobs, and take it to committee and have them read it and have them do the online training and if you can find the training in person for everyone, do it, cause in person training is tons better than online. then you can do SOME of the legwork for the calendar, or task committee to also do some leg work, and the scouts too. With a small group to work with, and boys that are almost done and boys that are just starting, the things the boys come up to do for outings may not work so much for all, but do need to fit all cause you really need all to attend all the outings since you seem to be a small unit. So Everyone goes and gets the ideas of where to go camping and hiking in your area, any other ideas they can come up with. check websites of troops in your area for ideas, look thru the program helpers for ideas of outings and then try to find a few different ways to do a few of them. Make sure the boys bring some ideas too. They may want to do paintball or laser tag, or they may want to hike the grand canyon, or go canoeing or rock climbing. Put all the ideas on a big white board, and have everyone take a piece of paper and write down 12-15 of them that they like the most. adults don't vote, SM and ASM don't either. Adults brought the ideas to supplementwhat the boys found for ideas, but they don't get to decide what to do. If they have something the adults REALLY want to do, they can intro it to the scouts and tell them something about it, but they don't get to decide to do it. the boys get to decide. Don't forget to bring info on the local and further away summer camp, week long camp opportunities, including a do your own thing 1 week of camp if you have a suitable location you could do. The items that get the most votes by the boys, get put on the calendar. That's the simple thing. How they get put on the calendar and which months they fit best, I personally think the adults should have a little input into, especially the first year the boys make their own calendar. Adults know when they can get off work, and can focus attention on whether the troop as a whole likes going on campouts and hikes and such on holiday weekends, or do they prefer to have holiday weekends NOT scouting weekends. Adults can help guide away from doing a big huge campout say when there is state testing or SAT tests for the older scouts, and even can help give a voice to where to put events on months where half your scouts have baseball games or whatever the biggest thing that interveres with scouting for your boys. This is where knowing your scout's interests comes in handy. At this point you'd also want the boys to have brought their family and school calendars, and the adults should have their own calendars, plus district and council calendars too. you start plugging things into dates based on usual weather and tring to avoid conflicts with everyone/or most. You may want to talk about things such as when say big backpacking trips aren't in the too cold, too deep of snow unless you are good with snow shoes, or in the heat of the summer in Arizona in the desert with no access to water kind of health and safety issues. And then the troop publishes the calendar. Suggest that the SPL(or all the boys together) pick a theme from the troop program features that closely matches the events on this calendar to give them pre-planned meetings for a few months. Once they have an idea of how to do this, and how to use these features, give them the reins to do more self planning and less following the exact script in the book for meetings. You may want a Scout and a committee person to sort of be in charge of each event on the calendar, with the goal that at first the adult shows the scout what to do, make reservations, tour plans, permission slips, collect fees. But after a while, the adult only does the things that require adults to do--like perhaps make the credit card payment to reserve a campground. Every month at PLC(patrol leaders council) the scouts would normally review last month, this month and next month, perhaps with an occassional 2-3 month out check to see if something new came up that means a big change. Of course with a small troop, you really don't need to have a patrol leaders council, or even an SPL(senior patrol leder) because you don't have multiple patrols. so the patrol leader ends up being the senior patrol leader. He can have mini-plc kind of meeting in conjunction with a troop meeting once a month where he goes over any upcoming events and what is working and what is not. In a small troop, expect that everyone of the boys will end up doing a lot of the jobs with some overlap. that's ok as long as the spl/patrol leader is the one guiding this to happen. The first time I expect SM may choose patrol leader, and patrol leaders chooses his patrol scribe, quartermaster, etc. But after that, it would be best for the boys to choose their own patrol leader, who chooses his slate of helpers. Give the calendar to the troop committee and have them look it over to look for problems, mostly financial. can we afford this and how much do we need to charge. do this occassionally a few more months in advance of what the boys may be looking to, so you know if say the cost of a certain campground has doubled. and then give your spl the notice of these bigger changes with some advice of options --like changing location or doing a fundraiser, and also he may have other options, like just charging each scout a higher amount for the campout. have his discuss the options in his plc and see what the scouts figure out, they may surprise you. now as for this merit badge stuff. you seem worried about boys starting badges and not finishing them, and not starting the eagle required badges willingly. Well not every scout will make eagle, and not every scout wants eagle. as a teacher (I think that's what you said), you'd need to step back and look at the way scouting works as different than the public school system. Think of it this way, the more often you can introduce a cool and neato topic, the more likely a scout will also find it interesting, and will learn something, even if they never finish the badge. If they are truly interested in the badge, they'll finish it. otherwise they still get something out of starting the badge. Giving them a world of knowledge should be the goal of the SM and the MBC(merit badge counselors) but those goals should not come about in the same way. the whole outing that is scouting, exploring the world and doing for yourself, that part of scouting should be the bulk of your meetings and outings. Rank stuff should come naturally-we are going camping, someone has to plan, shop and cook the food; we are going hiking, we should go over the rules of safe hiking. we are going to want a wash stand at camp, so learn the knots to lash together this wood to make a wash stand. naturally occuring learning. Now along the way if you are going hiking, sure you may want to introduce the hiking merit badge and point out how the boys can do stuff on the outing that works for the badge. but if they actually do the stuff and complete the badge is UP TO THE SCOUT, not up to you. You just let it go. It's THEIR Individual merit badge to finish, not for the TROOP or SM to do. Similarly if the troop is doing scouting for food, you could mention how that could fit into the Citizen in the community merit badge. But you should't sign them all up for the badge, and arrange for the community service for each of them. They should choose to dothe badge and choose to do the service and count it for the MB. They may only want to do it to satisfy community service hours for rank, or just cause it's fun, orthey may want to stay home. thats ok too. Take your tracking pages that are driving you nuts because some boys are starting merit badges and not finishing them and throw this out the window. not yours to track. what you should track? not much. you could track how you are doing toward rank as a whole troop. you could track service hours, and you could track nights camping. and attendance and recruiting. those can be signs of a healthy troop. A healthy troop and a good scouting experience doesn't always have to = Eagle.

I guess BSA would have to check to be sure you are a "real" organization which I guess would mean being your own 501c3 or incorporated as a separate entity. But more importantly, if they are worried about being sued, and wanting to be able to share that liability with the CO, then they need to make sure each CO has enough insurance to cover any possible lawsuits arising from chartering a unit. I would think if BSA starts to ask each CO how much insurance they carry that would cover their packs and troops in case of lawsuit, that insurance question might run off quite a few CO's who start to wonder about the potential cost that could arise in case of a lawsuit. Where before they thought they were just lendin their name and a place to meet to the scout units. A LOT of CO's really don't realize they OWN the units, and thus are liable for them and their actions. What if a "parents of" goes out and incorporates and gets a 501c3 non-profit status, but doesn't buy insurance? Buying insurance would be the smart thing to do of course, but what coverage amount is enough for a scout unit? I think the scout lodge preservation CO that charters 3 units in our area isn't insured at least not fully--they expect each of their members to be BSA leader registered specifically in order to have that measure of insurance, but not sure how helpful that would be if they were sued. seems convoluted logic and of course the council insurance we have only covers a specific things.(This message has been edited by 5yearscouter)(This message has been edited by 5yearscouter)

Today local scout shop included uniform parts in the 25% off if it would fit in the bag, even when asked for one of the boys in our unit. so ask, you never know. online sales won't give you the discount on uniform parts.

If no more parents of, then also no more concerned parents or parents group of, or friends of, etc.... unless an actual organization, then you can't be a chartered org. We just are in a waste land of not many choices without goin to businesses, and Fry's grocery store, Walgreens and circle K aren't likely, neither is the dentist or the tire store. churches are either LDS, and they have their own and they don't really want us, or church uninterested in chartering a pack, especially if we want to use their facilities. Guess I'll go ask the PTA, but they previously showed no interest at all. Who else to ask, eh? That would leave over 14 schools without a traditional/non-LDS pack.

It would be nice as IH of a Parents group chartering org, to be notified in person of this sort of policy change. Our pack has been chartered to the parents of for um about 7 of our 20 years when every other org in the area pulled out of their support. so there really isn't any other options in our area without going to local businesses, which has shown NO interest.

We register 1 parent with each scout. It's about the only way a self chartering unit can ensure they always have enough registered leaders to choose from, and once they fill out that leader application and do youth protection training, it's pretty easy to get them to do the next step, which is to actually volunteer to take care of something the pack needs help with. It also gives some parents a bit of a better feeling since it gets a background check on the parent that usually brings the scout to meetings and stays. They are committee members by default. We register most of them in August when we do roundup, which costs $6.75 with insurance. That's pretty cheap for a background check, and it gives us til recharter in December to get them trained and find their actual position in the pack, or to move them to scout parent.

I'll just wait for InfoScouter to post the new stuff here since he's so connected. From here I know there is a new online Tour Plan coming out in May. I found out about the new Guide to Advancement which a lot of people still don't know about cause it's not on the wiki/merit badge.org pages. I usually get a notice thru here that there is yet another change to the GSS.

so is a paint ball cross bow a simulated firearm or not?

At your next campfire program, start the fire small, then call up each den and they each get a piece of firewood to add to the first to make it larger, talking about how each scout makes the pack go. Be sure to give make a big deal about how the new scouts who have just joined us are really the key to helping the pack go, and give them a piece of wood that you know is going to catch fire well--maybe put in a bit of the stuff that makes the campfire a different color(if you can figure out how to do it safely) pausing long enough for their piece of wood to catch fire and make the sparkling new color. Or do it as part of the bobcat ceremony, you call them up and they add a piece of wood to the fire and give them their card and their bobcat badge to show they've joined the cub scout pack officially. Annually you could at the pack meeting when they get their membership cards, call each boy on stage and thank them individually for being a part of your pack for another year, or reprint the cards when it's time to give them their 1 year service pin and make a big deal on stage of thanking them for a year of service to scouting.

Oh man! what an idea! Paintballs shot with catapults as patrol competitions, for accuracy, distance, and add in a game of capture the flag, if you are hit with a paintball in the other team's colors you are out and can't grab the flag. That could be fun!

We have to be careful if we know our district has a lot of weak units, that our program at roundtable helps them to become stronger units, to pre-plan things more in advance than the minimum, to think of recruiting a couple times a year, and get their calendar done far enough in advance to actual plan, rather than to fail to plan and end up with failed events. so it would be nice for roundtable to give those weak units a heads up, spend a bit of time each month telling people of upcoming events and dates to keep in mind or to get on their pack calendars, like those recruitings, as well as asking the roundtable participants, what month do you want us to go over these things more in depth? you have newbies come into roundtable all the time, but you also have people that come regularly, poll those people to see what they need, and what they wish they'd known that month. sometimes you find that what you think people need to know, they already know and they are really struggling in some other area that you haven't covered in a while or ever.

The spreadsheet you speak of is just a trackin sheet. The book works just as well. If the sheet has dates on it(added by troop or other???) ignore the dates and let the scout work at their own pace. If a boy wants to get first class within the first year, let them know that means the best way to do that is to attend all the meetings, go on the campouts, participate and listen, and then when they think they've done something find someone to sign off (may be troop guide or SM/ASM depending on the troop). Make sure they understand they can work on each of those first ranks at the same time or out of order. If they do the above, paying a bit of attention to their books, they should advance just fine. Make sure the parents know that it's normal for the boy to do one of two things, goof off, or go at breakneck speed for a bit. some will push (and parents will push) as if it's a race to get rank first in the patrol or group of new crossovers, or that they are still in cub scout mode spelling out everything for their kid and trying to figure out how to check off all the boxes and count things for more than once achievement and get it done. A lot of kids seem to want to play and goof off and get to know the other guys and did I mention goof off. They have been pencil whipped thru cubbies for so much that they are either waiting for the adults to spoon feed them the stuff (which they shouldnt do) or are sooooo relieved to be out from under the adult's thumbs that they aren't really sure what to do so they goof off. and that is normal. the biggest indicator of 1st class IMHO is the scout has been attending stuff and paying attention enough to realize that in the course of the year they've done everything in that trail to first class just by going and participating.

Let's see.... Summertime activities we already have some ideas, we gotta get them on the calendar for parents ASAP or they'll not be around thru the summer, so we try to have them fleshed out a bit before March, with some filling in of details before May. But a new pack may not have that all figured out yet. be sure to cover the summertime pack award and info if there are any local cub scout day camps that have room (ours has 2 or 3 sessions still open). But not a bad idea to focus on some calendar planning ideas in April and May so packs can do calendar planning over the summertime down time. Help them determine the things that council always has on certain weekends that packs need to know about and find out if the district events are planned for the same dates as well. Then brainstorm all the new and different ideas for outings and field trips each month so the pack leaders go into their own pack calendar plan full of fresh ideas and excitement for a new year. Personally it's too late at August roundtable (2nd thurs of the month for us) to talk about August recruiting. We've usually already done our recruiting the first fri in august when school has restarted already, or we are so far into the planning, because we have to get flyers approved by schools and plans made for exisitng scouts for the month of august that we'd really need recruiting info in May or June (we don't have a July roundtable, but cubbies really need it for the recruitng ideas). August would be good for how to start up new dens, den assignments, permission slips, tour plans, cub trax info, a list of awards available and a bunch of ideas for the first month or so of den meetings for brand new den leaders. Sept for pack committee make sure they all know how internet advancement works and that they've all turned in their summertime pack awards. go over a bunch of bobcat award ceremonies in August or Sept and intro some pack campout stuff for those who do a fall campout, and maybe some location ideas for those who need to make reservations ahead of time for a spring campout.