Webelos To Scouts Transistion

[SR540Beaver]

Ed, yeah but......it is the Troops who complain about getting or retaining Cubs at crossover. Which makes it largely a troop problem. The Cub leaders can do everything in their power to interest the boys in moving up, but if there isn't an equal interest or momentum from the troop side, half the battle is lost. It needs to be seamless between the pack and the troop and requires more effort than just information.

[sctmom]

Ed, that's the attitude I'm talking about -- you don't care, most Scoutmasters don't care what the Cubs are doing. I believe you SHOULD care -- how can your troop help the Webelos if you don't know their requirements and don't care what their requirements are?

The new requirements for Webelos encourage more interaction with troops. You don't care?

 

[dsteele]

I must apologize to the person who asked me back in June how we got the list of second year Webelos. I didn't mean to snub you, I simply missed the question.

 

Let me answer it now. One poster said, call the packs. Yes, that will work, but you'll miss some boys that way because the usual answer will include only currently active kids -- and miss those who may have dropped out since the pack rechartered, but may still be interested in being a Boy Scout.

 

At the time we started doing this, Scoutnet wasn't even a dream. There was no way for the office to generate a list of boys by age or by grade. After some digging, I discovered that you could search by a window of dates of birth.

 

Scoutnet can do similar searches, but more powerfully -- you can tell it you want Cub Scouts between the ages of 10-11. This isn't exactly a clean list of second year Webelos, but gives enough raw data to get started.

 

The next step is to call the packs and ask them for their roster of second year webelos. If there's a name on the list from the council that is not on the pack's list -- ask about it. Perhaps he moved, perhaps he got bored, perhaps the unit just knows the kid hasn't shown up for two months.

 

By the time you combine the two lists, you have a pretty good idea of who your graduating webelos or prospective new scouts are.

 

DS

[evmori]

kwc57,

Do the Troops who complain invite Webelos to their Troop meeting & activities? If they don't, they shouldn't complain. We do. We invite 2nd year Webelos to every campout that would be appropriate & there is an open invitation to every Troop meeting.

 

sctmom,

By not caring I meant not caring that the requirements changed. It's not the Troop's job to help the Webelos. It's the Pack's job. The Troop is responsible for being available to help Webelos to meet their requirements to crossover.

 

Ed Mori

Scoutmaster

Troop 1

1 Peter 4:10

[sctmom]

It may not be the troop's "job" but what a better way to transition the boys to Boy Scouts then to have the troop involved? What a better way to ease the Webelos leader into being an Assistant Scoutmaster? What a GREAT way to have the Boy Scouts and the Webelos interact!