wahoonfp

To all, Thanks so much for your input. My son LOVED the basketball intro motif idea, and is emailing his patrol parents to gather information on the boys. He is very excited, and the boys thought it was cool when he mentioned it at the last meeting. Karen

As someone who has spent a lot of this year working as a counselor for Boy Scouts in the Catholic Ad Altare Dei program, and also in the past with my four sons on the Catholic Cub Scout awards, Light of Christ, and Parvuli Dei, a few observations. I admire that you're trying to work with your boys on this. I've encouraged my den (I'm a Bear DL) to try to work on these in their faith--other than my sons, none have done so, despite seeing a very nice presentation of the religious emblem knots at a pack meeting (that I thought would have gotten some kids moving on it.) The Cub Scout awards for Catholics are very clear in that they want it to be done as a family, not as a den. The Boy Scout award, on the other hand, is done as a group--we had 9 scouts from our parish from 5 different troops go through it. I will admit I know nothing about details of the Protestant programs. But as my group moves up to Webelos, I will work harder to encourage it--we have three Catholics, one Protestant, and one of the Jewish faith in our den. I like your final solution--encourage it strongly and give the families the info they need to get started. It is a great program that has really deepened my sons' understanding of "A Scout is Reverent." Go for it, and good luck!

Hi! I'm a CS den leader, but my oldest son is a Star Scout, and just became a patrol leader for a group of newly bridged scouts. Their court of honor is in late May, and he'd like to find a skit to help introduce all these scouts to the rest of the troop and their families. He and I have been to a number of sites on the net, and cannot find anything. Has anyone done something like this or have an item to share?

Our Bear den just received their Bear awards at our Blue and Gold, so I'm looking at planning ideas for the spring as far as electives to keep the boys engaged. Someone has suggested the Crime Prevention award. What have people on the list done with Bears for an appropriate project for this award? Thanks.

Thanks to both of you! I had searched the NCCS website, but I wasn't on the right page, I guess, and had an old order number.

Hi. I'm counseling a group of Boy Scouts finishing their Ad Altare Dei medal. A mom showed me a book of prayers, etc for Catholic Boy Scouts that I think would be a neat gift for each of them, and I'm wondering if it's still in print. She got it for her son about 8 years ago, when it was still fairly recently printed. The info: A Scout is Reverent: A Sourcebook for Scouts of the Catholic Faith, copyright 1982, 1995 by NCCS. Has Nihil Obstat & Imprimatur. BSA Catatlogue # 3075. There's a bar code w/number 7 30176 33075 4 on back cover. Four x 6 inch paperback, blue paper cover, saddle stitched (that means staped) binding, 74 pp. Does anyone know about this book? Thanks!

I'm leading a group of 10 scouts through the Ad Altare Dei program at our church--from 5 different troops. Some of you may remember my question before about devices and purple knots. My new question--how does this emblem get recognized at different levels? I know the knot (or devices for boys who have already earned the knot at a prior level) are considered troop awards and would be received at a Court of Honor. The medal is traditionally presented at a diocesan Mass with the bishop. However, our parish has an annual Scout Mass in early February before the diocesan one. What could be presented there? I would like some recognition to be available there for all their hard work, but don't know what's appropriate. I've read about a Duty to God patch on the NCCS website--is that an option? Or other suggestions? Thanks!

To SWScouter, I did give advance notice (about 3 months notice that we were doing it, and 6 weeks advance order and payment for the medals) to our diocese that my sons were doing Light of Christ last year (because we wanted the medals presentation on a weekend that the grandparents could be in town) but it didn't help--at all. Discussion with other Catholic parents around shows I'm not alone. I just keep hoping maybe it'll fix soon. I do intend next week to notify the diocese that we have 10 boys working on this--to make sure that medals will be available for the bishop to present in February. Does five months notice seem like enough? :-) Given the fact that the AAD application includes a BOR at the end, I don't think I can send paperwork in sooner than that, can I? I'm going to see if our church or Knights of Columbus is willing to pay for the medals for the boys. We have an unusual situation here as far as CO--our program is strictly parish based, and we ran ads in the bulletin and attracted ten scouts from five different troops! Half of the boys are from the troop who's CO is another Catholic parish (but belong to ours), but the others are scattered to other CO's, both nonCatholic and non-religious. As I said, I'm a CS DL, and have talked (and will continue to) with the other parents in my den to make sure they know that emblems are available for their faiths as well--but I haven't had any try for it yet. How can we promote this as a pack? Our pack's CO is the public school PTO where my sons attend. When my sons got their knots last year at the pack meeting, the Cubmaster and Committee chair did a VERY nice presentation, so the boys and parents there knew that scouting considered earning your religious emblem a big deal. I'm enjoying this thread! Thanks.

Thanks for the info on the devices. I'm still not sure how they stay on through the knot and shirt if they're so small--but I'll guess we'll learn! Our diocese, I won't say which one specifically, is struggling a lot with organization for its scouting program, especially where we live. My biggest challenge of running AAD is going to be actually GETTING the medals at the end. Took months to get our twins Light of Christ last year, and there were communications breakdowns all over the place. Is this a problem for anyone else around? I'm not a trained RE counselor due to this lack of organization--trainings are few and far between and far away geographically. However I've become the parish "go-to" person for such items because I've done the prior emblems with my sons. I've done the Rosary Patch here for 2 years and we're doing year 3 in October. We have about 30 kids and Scouters earn that one each year, and for two years our diocesan paper has run a picture of the group. We did about 20 this summer for the Year of the Eucharist patch, which was very cool. Haven't done Intl Awareness yet. What does one do for Duty to God--it seems a little vague?

Thanks for the information. Our Scout Store has never had anyone request devices, but she is going to order some for us. And I'm very happy to find out that my son was not wearing his knot on his Boy Scout uniform all year in error! Are the devices like the Web activity pins or arrowpoints? I hope they stay on well and that the backs don't try to fall off like other pins.

Hi. We just started an Ad Altare Dei program in our parish. I'm a registered CS den leader, but have a BS son and am doing the program with him and others. About half of the boys have already earned the purple knot as Cub Scouts. My questions: 1) I had been told that Boy Scouts could wear the purple knot if they had earned it as Cubs--even before they would get an emblem as Boy Scouts. Another mom told me only the Arrow of Light moves up to the BS uniform. Can someone clarify? 2) Does anyone use device pins? I read that the boys who already earned the knot can wear a BS device pin (along with a CS or Web device pin depending on what they had earned before. Do boys who are earning their first emblem (and knot) get a BS device pin also? Thanks for any help you can provide.

The patches did not come off the blue shirt, I took them off, as mentioned in the other post--that if he wants to wear the oval Webelos patch, the others need to come off first. And I didn't use glue to hold the tiger patch to the shirt. The tiger diamonds have adhesive on the back so they will stick to the plastic tiger totem, then that patch comes off the totem and went onto the blue shirt in June. I'm just thinking that now was not such a good idea for the patch, as it leaves this mess to be dealt with. Thanks for the advice. goo gone worked with a little patience.

My Web 1 just got his Webelos oval patch, so off came all the patches from the blue shirt--he wants to get the tan one in the summer for Web 2 to BS. However, did anyone realize that the diamond patch, which started out as stuck to their belt totem, and then was moved to their blue shirts when they became Wolves in the spring, comes off leaving all this sticky goo on the pocket? Since they're the first group that did the Tiger patch this way, perhaps we're just finding out! Anyone have any good ideas how to get this goo off the pocket without ruining the shirt? Thanks.

Hi! I need help with the award--my Wolf den has worked very hard to earn the Cub patches for this (complete with our own Jungle Book puppet show and theater), but now I hear they are on backorder, that National was surprised at the demand? They were supposed to get them at Blue and Gold in 2 weeks--now we're not so sure. Anyone out there who's designed a certificate for the 75th patches so I can give them SOMETHING that night?? (I loved the one for the Webelos 20 pin award that was on the list recently.) Otherwise, is it "illegal" for me to design some sort of certificate on my PC that the boys can use until the patches ever come in?

Hi! This is my first post. I'm a Wolf den leader at a pack chartered to our children's elementary school. Don't feel that your pack cannot celebrate Scout Sunday if they're not chartered to a church!! For the past few years, I've coordinated a Scout Sunday celebration at our church--Roman Catholic. Scouts serve as altar servers, help with the collection, etc. This year we have some adult leaders serving as readers. We advertise in the bulletin, and get scouts and leaders from all packs, troops, etc...boys and girls! Lots of fun. Also, for those of you who are Catholic and want something to do fun with your scouts--boys and girls--check out the Rosary Patch program on the NCCS website. We had 34 scouts participate in our second year of this four year program. YIS, Karen