What happens at your Blue&Gold

[Phibbles]

This is my first year back in scouts since I was a kid. I am curious to know what other packs do at their Blue&Gold dinner.

 

My son's pack is using the Blue and Gold this month as a vehicle for awarding all scouts their rank awards. The Sr.Webelos will apparently cross-over to Boy Scouts, the tigers will receive their tiger badges, wolves the wolf badge, etc... The scouts will not start working on the next rank till after June, so the next 3-4 months will be spent working on electives.

 

What do you do?

[Reaper]

Our BGB is in our CO's (a school PTO) cafeteria, but food catered by a popular hamburger and hot dog place (Scouts eat free). We have a Fellas Cake Bake (give awards for best Scout theme, tallest, etc, and then that's our dessert). This year for program, each Den is presenting some portion of the History of BSA (BP, Unknown Scout's Good Turn skit, Addition of Cub Scouts, etc.). Craft table at gathering to make a papertowel tube Cub Scout as centerpiece. Webelos I's are being presented their Weblos Rank Badges. A few announcements. Good time!

[tdk101]

Our B&G is a potluck dinner. This year we have some of our Webelos 2 earning their Arrow of Light and Crossing over before dinner. After dinner we have judging by the kids of a Cake Decorating Contest. The boys bring the cakes already decorated. The winners get a Golden Wisk Award. Some den leaders are presenting some awards to the boys also. The funniest part is we hold a Cub Scout Idol talent show. The boys sign up and peform. We have 3 judges and the winner gets the Golden Microphone (dollar store toy microphone). Kids love it. Its a really fun event.

[ParkMan]

Our B&G is a potluck dinner in our CO's (a local church) fellowship hall.

 

Once the meeting starts, people go through the serving line. Then, the program starts. The program is very similar to a normal pack meeting.

- general announcements

- a few Dens do a cheer, skit, or song

- every den then awards their rank badges. (Seems that about 80% of the boys receive their rank badges at the B&G.)

- meeting concludes

 

It's a large pack, so even this program lasts anywhere from 60-90 minutes.

 

One thing I noticed this year (but don't remember from years past) - it seemed very loud and only about half the people focused on the program unless their son was involved or receiving an award - others were talking in the background, getting seconds of food, etc...

 

Love the topic. I'm also very interested in what different packs do & what kind of program they follow.

[dylfrick]

I haven't been to a B&G in a very long time, but I remember mine pretty well.

 

We had a potluck dinner, after the dinner we had a cake auction. All the boys made a cake in whatever theme they wanted, most in an outdoors theme, then they were auctioned off and the proceeds went to the pack. After we did a crossing over ceremony, and the they awarded some other things like coins for being in since Tigers and they did the AOL ceremony.

 

I've heard of other things such as skits and songs and crafts, all sound like great ideas.

[mkarlinm]

Our Pack just had ours . Very happy and very sad. My son crossed over and I stepped down as CM and over to CC.

 

We had a potluck and gave out any awards earned over the past month and then only rank awards that were earned. Not everyone ranked and that was ok. When it got to loud I would just stop talking and the other people/ guest would hush the talkers.

 

We had games also.

[OwntheNight]

Looking forward to our B/G this coming Sat. Catered BBQ (including cleanup )All of our cubs have been decorating birthday boxes for the table centerpieces, they have the filled those boxes with age appropriate toys and toiletries. Local dentists have been donating toothbrushes and toothpaste to us. After B/G, we will be delivering all boxes to a local charity that assists underpriveledged and homeless children. Everyone deserves a birthday present, even if it's not their birthday. We will have the obligatory rank advancements for all dens. Our Web II DL is pulling out the OA headdress and the portable fire for an interesting show. We are also having a couple of the young men who graduated from this pack, who literally had their ECOH 3 days ago, come back and talk to our boys. We are also doing the WEB II slideshow recap. We've got 15 WEB II's who all have earned AOL, so we're planning on not having a dry eye in the house. This B/G is bittersweet for me, since WEB II son...sorry, SCOUTson now is officially crossing over to the Troop, but Tigerson will earn his Tiger badge and I know I still have 4 more years of Cubs and am now pulling double duty with Troop and Pack. Should be alot of fun.

[Melgamatic]

We held our Blue and Gold this past Friday night. We don't hold rank badges if the boys earned them before the B&G, but many dens aim for that date, and a lot of boys received those rank badges.

 

We did very well on popcorn this year, and with a lot of money in the bank we catered the meal, with Italian food (meatballs, sausage and peppers, baked ziti, baked chicken in sauce, fruit salad, garden salad, etc). We got a great sheet cake with the 100th Anniversary logo on the top. Cost for the roughly 100 people was around $700. We don't charge for parents, grandparents, siblings, etc to attend (we did years back before we had a financial cushion).

 

The Mayor of our town came and gave a very nice, very short speech.

 

We had each den do a skit or song, and the Boy Scouts in attendance awarded a prize to the best one. We also had each den do a centerpiece, and the Boy Scouts also judged that contest. Prize for each was a $25 Visa card for den expenses (field trips, craft materials, whatever).

 

We had a very nice bridging over ceremony, with 2 Scoutmasters and around 6 scouts (mostly eagles) from the two troops our Cubs tend to join. We presented them with big arrows mounted on placques from the "Arrow Of Light Award Company" in Utah.

 

By the way, the 2010 rank badges and AOL awards are really neat.

 

We tried to make the event quick, lasting less than 2 hours. Originally we hoped to do the awards and skits during dinner, but it was too noisy so we let everyone eat before we moved on.

 

-Dave

 

[Mom2Scouts06]

Our Blue and Gold is full of activity! We do not do AOL or Crossover at Blue and Gold....we just prefer that be seperate cermony recognizing just WEbelos.

 

We do hand out rank advancements, Trophies and certificates from our Pinewood Derby, We do a Dad/Lad Bake Off Auction to which last year we raised over $800! We used to do a potluck but got stuck to many times with not enough food. This year we are having it catered by a friend of one of our committee members. Parents will bring desserts for the Bake off and drinks. We will also have a birthday cake to say Happy Birthday to scouting!

 

Some dens do a skit or song. We always do the Lone Scouter skit this year we are having it with a twist! Our Blue and Gold is on a Saturday and last about 3 hrs!

[Phibbles]

I am so glad you all posted your experiences. It is fun to read how everyone differs. And you gave me some great ideas for the future.

 

Our B&G lasted almost 4 hours. It was very busy. We held it at a local banquet hall so families had to buy tickets in advance since it was catered.

 

We started with awards for younger scouts. Broke for food. Then had entertainment from a local Native American group. They came and performed a few drum songs/dances. The scouts go to dance with them for one of the songs.

 

Afterwords, we moved on to Webelos recognition. They got gifts from the pack, took part in an AOL candle ceremony. Received a gift from their parents. Then also crossed over to scouting.

 

They finished the evenining with a gift basket auction. Each den was asked to donate a gift basket that raffled off.

 

It was a fun day...just really different from my childhood. The B&G of my youth was more similar to your experiences.