how do you decorate your arrow of light arrows?

[Basementdweller]

Thats great some one resurrected a nearly 5 year old thread.

[cpnowak]

Cubs are turning into scouts every year!!! . This thread has helped me lots. Thanks everyone for sharing.

[SSScout]

Check around at Roundtable, Cub Roundup, Webelos Weekend, etc. Might find a Scouter with a tree to take down... I had a 10" Cherry in the wrong place in my yard that was dying. I was able to take it down and chainsaw off several 1" "cookies" of trunk, each had a split in it. We shared them around the District that year. Various plaques were made, AoL, awards. One Cubber did this: fletch end of an old arrow was cut off, painted and glued at an angle in the split, made a nice effect. Big Web badge glued on, name and date burned into the wood. Nice wall hanging.

[AnnLaurelB]

Another zombie!

 

But I'm about to present an AOL on the 30th, but I can't find kits with less than 4 in them. This boy only joined as a 5th grader, so he doesn't have the Tiger, etc ... stripes going on there.

 

Could I just construct a "kit" myself?

 

ALSO! The deposed CC got AOL plaques made of wood, that look like the sunburst. I can't find where she got those (and we're not exactly on speaking terms!)

 

Any ideas?

[Akecheta]

Ann

 

Try Mountain Dreams Trading Post(link below). We had a similar situation where the scout did not earn the AOL but we wanted to recognize him. We mounted his "Career" arrow on a slap of wood which we got at Micheal's Craft Store and got a brass plate with his dates as a Cub Scout. We put a picture hanger clip on the back and in twenty minutes we had a completed project. It cost us about $25 for everything.

The scout and his family was very appreciative and surprised. We are a new pack so all of the Web Is were asking if they would get the same thing next year. It definitely created some excitement.

 

http://stores.ebay.com/Mountain-Dreams-Trading-Post?_trksid=p4340.l2563

[AnnLaurelB]

Awesome! Thanks for that!

 

And I really like the idea of a "career arrow" for a Cub who doesn't happen to do AOL. Good stuff!

[Twocubdad]

 

 

How do these arrows add to the program? Sounds like a whole lot of adult time goes into making them. Do the Scouts participate? Do the boys even know what the all the coded bands mean?

 

An on-going tradition I started in our old pack many years ago was for the WebIs to build shadow boxes which were given to the WebIIs as a "graduation" gift. The WebIs actually built the boxes and counted it toward their Craftsman pin. That the WebIs put all the time and effort into the boxes and then gave them away was a bit of a life lesson for some boys. But that they would receive their own shadow box the next year helped. The WebIIs really looked forward to receiving them and of course put all the actual patches and awards from their cub years -- not coded stripes on a store-bought arrow.

 

 

[AnnLaurelB]

The parents are supposed to assemble the arrow as a way to participate in the Award, because presumably they helped their son achieve it.

 

As the ceremony goes, yes ~ the CM (or whomever) does explain what each colored stripe means. Each boy's arrow will be different, since not every boy WAS a Tiger, or he might or might not have earned silver AP's while a Wolf.

 

They're a visual "record", I guess you could say, of the Scout's Cub career.

[ZScout5]

For a Feb or March presentation, we order kits from CubItems no later than Dec. The kits come with plaque, assembled arrow, engraved plate, and arrow holding pegs.

We stain/ poly the plaque with metallic gold paint in the light rays. Had one den leader hang various beads from arrow to symbolize ranks and awards earned. Tried colored vinyl tape one year.

Normally we follow the standard paint bands to symbolize the various awards. Each boy's total kit takes about 3 hours to complete. Used to be the den leader handled doing them, but now at most the DL might help the Cubmaster.

[Scoutfish]

In cases like this, I say : To each, his own.,

 

Do what you want, but what alot of you call AoL arrows sound like carrer arrows instead. The colored bands represnet ranks, awards and arrow points...thus representing his cub scouting carrer.

 

Again, if that's what you like and the scout liks it, then it's absolutely the right thing to do.

 

Here's what I did - partly because I like doing stuff myself, and partly because I am cheap!

 

 

I took some 1X6 pine boards about 22 inches long and rotered the sunray of light part of the arrow of light symbol.

 

I stained the wood a dark oak color and then went back and painted in the carved out part with yellow paint.

 

I also painted each scouts name, pack number, and date under the middle of the arc.

 

Under the bottom edge of the board, I used two gold colored cup hooks to attache a wooden arrow.

 

I then attched two feathers to the arrow just because I thought it looked cool. They don't actually mean anything, but again, they look cool.

 

I wroter my name and the date on the back so that 20 years from now, they will at least know who made them!

 

 

 

The scouts loved them!

 

Here's a pic of them at the Scouter.com facebook page:

 

 

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/photo.php?fbid=403493456345610&set=o.172739770499&type=1&theater

 

 

 

 

[5yearscouter]

We buy our arrows from a local archery shop. They will attach whatever colored fletching you want, stain the arrows, and glue on plastic stone looking arrow heads usually for about $6 or 7 depending on what they have in stock. Can buy 1 or 12 that way.

 

We have parents who would rather their son not get an arrow if they have to make it. well maybe not quite that bad, but they hem and haw and can't get babysitting and we don't want the scouts working on their own arrows. Usually the den leader and asst, sometimes with cubmaster help get the arrows made.

 

we have a spreadsheet in excel with the names of awards in order for the colors of the stripes, and spaces in between each stripe is the width of a type of craft masking tape we can get in a small dispenser. We make one spreadsheet section for each kid, tape it on the arrow with a bit of hang down, then line up the masking tape with each blank spot on the spreadsheet and tape the arrows up. then put them in a box with a notch out and start painting. we use mostly the orange, red, yellow, white, green and blue you'd find in a standard testors set, with addition of a testors gold and silver and sometimes we get a light blue for bobcat etc.

 

Then we usually attach a bit of sinew around the plastic arrowhead to make it look like it's tied on, a bit of leather to make a hanger, and sometimes tie on a couple of feathers to hang down. one den put on a bead on the hanging leather for each webelos badge they earned because they were tired of painting stripes.

 

we print a fresh copy of the kid's little spreadsheet that says which badges & awards they earned and put it in an envelope with a thank you and congratulations card so they have it for their records. the arrows hang free, they aren't on a plaque or anything special like that.

 

My oldest does OA crossover and AOL ceremonies, and hands the boys their arrows. He's had a few that got carried away with what is on the arrow--the biggest display included a blanket with all their cub scout patches on it hanging from the arrow, and then cous bead necklaces giving a bead for each meeting, uniform, event, activity over 5 years and those beads hang on the arrow too. gets hard to keep it neat in clean and not dragging thru the dirt when they pass them off to the scout at a campfire ceremony. and takes up a whole wall in their house if hey try to hang it.