cool cub advancement ceremony

[LauraT7]

Found this and thought it was a great idea to share...

 

When "performing" ceremonies at your Pack meeting, you need to remember to view it as if you were an 8 or 9-year-old boy. Remember to add a little magic and mystery and you'll have meaning, symbolism and interest wrapped up into one ceremony that can be prepared in 5 minutes using common household items,

that will astound and amaze your boys. Water is poured into a glass and turns yellow, if the Scout has a truly sunny disposition. When poured into a second glass, it turns green to represent his love of the outdoors. And when poured into a third, changes to blue to indicate that he is a "true blue" Cub Scout and worth of earning his rank.

 

Set-Up:

 

Tell participants that you have some water that was

collected from a special place in the forest, a Scout camp etc. Tell them it is alive with the spirits of Scouting, the woods or animals and will react in the presence of boys that are deserving of their next rank. If they are ready, the water will go from being clear to yellow, yellow to green and green to blue.

 

Materials:

Yellow and green food coloring

Water

4 tall clear glasses

Liquid bleach

 

Bleach is a poison and can cause skin and eye irritation. Do not drink the solution or get it on your uniform or clothes.

 

The Secret: Place one drop of yellow food coloring in the bottom of one glass, one drop of green food coloring in the bottom of the second glass and a teaspoon of bleach in the other. Place the glasses so that the audience cannot see the advance preparations. Hold the glasses in such a way that your hand obscures the food coloring in the bottom. The food coloring may be allowed to dry.

 

Pour the water into the first glass and it will turn yellow on contact with the food coloring. Pour the contents into the second glass and the contents will turn green on contact with the green food coloring.

 

Ask the boys once again if they've completed all their

requirements and pour into the last glass containing bleach.

The bleach will slowly beach out the yellow food coloring, leaving blue behind. Note that this may take a few moments, and may give the boys a chance to reflect on their efforts.

The less bleach you use, the more slowly the color change will take place.

 

Over a period of 5-15 minutes, the blue will also be bleached out, leaving a progressively paler blue solution. Either remove the competed demonstration from view or explain that the spirits have left the glasses now that their job is done.

 

Test your formulation first, as different brands of food coloring may require more or less bleach to completely bleach out. This is a great "standby" ceremony to have in your back pocket in the event something else you have planned goes wrong, someone doesn't show up etc.

 

After your ceremony everyone is going to want to know the secret of how you did this. Tell them it was magic and a magician never tells how a trick is done, and leave it that way.

 

This ceremony came from Sue Carter, North Trails District Roundtable, Detroit Area Council.

[CubsRgr8]

Thanks for the great ceremony! I've been looking for something cool for our AOL ceremony coming up in February and this is it!

[molscouter]

I just had the thought that you could tweak it a bit for part of a crossover ceremony by first using blue coloring and adding it to a glass with yellow to make green, so as to represent moving from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts.

[Sparkie]

I've used this ceremony, and it works as well as LauraT describes!

 

I have another idea i would like to share, that i haven't been able to top. Last year at our B&G i used a Spirit of Scouting ceremony using a glow stick (of all things). Now this is a REAL cool one.

 

Prior to the meeting, cut the top off of a glow stick and remove the glass cylinder. Empty the contents of each liquid into 2 different containers (to transport to the meeting). For the ceremony, i placed the lesser of the 2 liquids in a clear glass votive holder (it wasn't so obvious there was already liquid in there). I had the scout hold this container as i explained to everyone that while at summer camp i had collected some water from the lake. The lake water, when placed in the container would tell us if Johnny had the Spirit of Scouting in him. I had the lights turned off and proceeded to pour the 2nd liquid in the holder, and within minutes it was glowing with the "Spirit of Scouting"! It was truelly magical moment for everyone there, and the look on his face was PRICELESS! I think he was a little nervous that he didn't do everything he was supposed to .

 

I tried this at home first before the meeting, which i highly recommend doing.

 

Sparkie