Cubby's Cubmaster

I'm presenting at our council's University of Scouting. The topic is Cub Scout Advancement. I'm interested in ideas to encourage advancement for cub scouts and akelas. I'll gather these ideas and include them in my presentation. Thanks in advance for you help! Cubby's Cubmaster

Thanks for the great advice! We ran our raingutter regatta tonight. It went well. Here is what we did. 1. We didn't allow tricked out designed and I strongly encouraged that the kid make the boat. It worked. The boats were like designed from the box. The winners were the kids that kept there boat off the rail and blew steadily. 2. We borrowed gutters this year. The plastic ones are the best especially when mounted on a 10'x6"x1" piece of wood. We raced them on 2 tables with 4 gutters. We had a practice gutter in the pit area. 3. I determined that the double elimination format was too complicated. So we let each kid race 3 times against the clock and took the best time. 4. We did it indoors on a tile floor. We had no leaks. The tables were sturdy and the gutters stayed put. We had shop vacs ready but only needed them to empty the gutters. 5. We gave our trophies and certificates. We awarded by rank with a race-off at the end for pack champion. 6. As an activity, we had them make stands for their boats before the race. Things I'd do different. 1. We published a time table with staggered racing by rank. We had many kids come early and were wondering around. We then ran races with the kids we had. We had issues as some kids came later and some parents came later. Next time, I'd make the staggers every 15 minuutes instead of every 30 minutes. 2. We needed more activities for kids that had finished racing. I'd set up stations for them next time. That's all! Thanks for your advice! Yours, Cubby's Cubmaster

Thanks for the suggestions! Especially for the ice cream idaea. Keep'em coming! Unfortunately, we are going to have the Raingutter Regatta indoors as it gets dark early in November. I guess we'll have a shop vac and mop handy! I'd like more suggestions on the rules. Can you send me links or ideas for the rules? I like to keep the rules close to the "official" rules in the box. I don't want our parents to create catamarans, tri-marans, luxury liners which race against my tigers' simple wooden boats! Regards, Cubby's Cubmaster

Our pack is holding a raingutter regatta in November. We haven't held one before. We are borrowing raingutters from another pack. I'd like your ideas/hints/suggestions/links for holding a raingutter regatta. Thanks in advance! Yours, Cubby's Cubmaster

Nice post, Calico. Just what I was looking for. From your post, I can put together an outline to discuss with our district. It would be a big undertaking but I believe the skills learned to prepare for the first aid-o-ree are very important and I think the first aid-o-ree would help our scouts be prepared when first aid is needed at home, school, work, and in the outdoors. If there are others with experiences with organizing first aid-o-rees, please share those experiences/advice here. I'm sure if there is interest that we'll contact other districts directly for more details. Best to all, CC

I like your idea of tying the first aid scenarios to each level using the material each is expected to master. However, I've checked out several websites and see many districts hold annual first aid-o-rees. (I participated in another district when I was a boy scout--many years ago.) I was hoping to hear from those scouters with experience about how they organize these first aid-o-rees (e.g. materials, scenarios, training, agenda/schedule/plan, recruiting volunteers, organizing committee, getting donations of $$$ and time from local hospitals/doctors/EMTs, etc). Our district hasn't done one as far as I can tell so we would be working from scratch. Best regards, CC

I'm interested in details on how to run a district first-aid-o-ree. We would have one with 3 levels: Webelos, Boy Scouts & Venturers. Please share your experiences with organizing these. Any web links for resources would be greatly appreciated. (If there is already a thread on this, please let me know.)

We ran into this issue last year. Our pack recharters in December and pays BSA & Boy's Life dues for the next calendar year. However, we collect dues in Sept for returning scouts knowing that it takes months to get this money so we'll have it for recharter. Essentially we are collecting BSA & Boy's life dues for the next calendar year and pack dues for the school year. So last year we didn't charge a different dues amount for the new scouts. The problem was that the pack "ate" those BSA & Boy's Life dues due from Sept to Dec for the current calendar year. This year we are prorating BSA dues and Boy's Life for this year and a full cost for next year and telling the parents up front. So that the costs wouldn't be too high we didn't prorate the pack dues so I guess we could have charge a little more there to prorate those. Hope this helps. Bottom line you need to make sure you are covering your costs. Having a good treasurer is important to avoid surprises...especially when you plan larger budget events like Blue Gold. Best to you, CC

What has been your experience as to when Webelos dens adopt a den name in place of a numeral? How did the scouts take to it?

When do your cub scouts move from the blue to the tan uniform? Do they do it at the same time or when they earn the Webelo rank or both?

Thanks for the tips. I think I can pull enough from Baloo' Bugle to put together enough ideas for the cub scout midway program. Thanks again! Sincerely, CC

Thanks for the links. All I need now is Aug 2004 which is in the 2003-2004 cub scout program helps. If someone has that then please send it to my email address in my profile. In the past my pack hasn't held monthly pack meetings. Often we'd use an outing as a meeting. Which is ok but not the same. Often I'd hear the comments..."What will we do to keep the kids busy?" By using the program helps I think we've proven that the kids have fun with simple games and they LOVE to get in front and perform. You should have seen our Cub Scout Magic night! I've looked at the program helps for 2008-09 and want to supplement them with some themes our kids will like (and the adults will have fun putting together). The program helps are a guide not required but are very helpful. The important thing is to have pack meetings and to have scouts and adults engaged and having fun at them. Thanks again, CC

Thanks, Anne. That is a great source. I could take those ideas and format them into pack and den meeting suggestions. I like the program helps format, too, and would like to just copy those if I could. I'll end up using both but would still like to get old copies of the program helps. Best to you, CC

I'm a big fan of the program helps. I'm looking at our pack's program for next year and would like to substitute some past themes. Prior to me becoming cubmaster, the pack didn't use program helps so the themes (both current and past) are new to our scouts and scouters. Where can I get copies of program helps for the past 6 years. In particular, I'm interested in... Aug 2004 Scouting the Midway Oct 2004 It's a Circus of Stars Regards, CC