Arrow of Light separate from crossing over

[AnaMaria]

It seems like most Packs treat the awarding of the Arrow of Light and crossing over to a Boy Scout Troop as simultaneous events. Is there anyone who doesn't?

 

Our Pack has historically operated this way as well with both events happening at our campout in early May. I'm den leader for 4th grade Webelos that will probably have earned their AofL by early December this year, but won't be crossing until at least February. If that all happens, I definitely want to go ahead and award the AofL in December. I'm concerned (perhaps unnecessarily) about annoying the other Webelos den leader with boys currently in 4th grade.

 

Not really looking for permission, or even advice, just wondering how other folks operate.

[artjrk]

The two packs my sons have been associated with have elected to honor those Webelos receiving AoL at the B&G in February. They go on to honor all the Webelos in the 5th grade in celebration of their years in Cub Scouts. Both packs participate in a District Crossover ceremony involving about 25 packs in March. Not all Pack in the district do this cause I know I need to go to two other Packs to welcome new boys that are crossing over in their own Pack ceremonies to our Troop.

[infoscouter]

We recognize three separate events. They may or may not happen in February at the B&G.

 

Awarding the Arrow of Light. This is done with a special ceremony, separate from the crossover.

 

Graduating from the pack. This recognizes the end of the Scout's career in Cub Scouting whether or not he joins a troop (although for the last 10 years, we've only had one or two Scouts in this situation).

 

Crossing over into a Boy Scout troop. This deserves a separate recognition from the other two events. While symbolic, it represents a significant event which stands alone. I know of several packs in our area which reserve B&G for the Arrow of Light, and have the crossover ceremony in March (in fact, three of the five crossovers in which the troop I serve will be participating are in March).

[ScoutNut]

Our Pack generally awards AOL, and does Crossover, at the same Pack meeting. Usually that meeting is our February Blue & Gold.

 

It happens this way because the Webelos den leader arranges his/her program to finish by February of the Scouts 5th grade year. Since most Webelos requirements are done as a den, this is fairly easy to do.

 

We do both ceremonies at the same meeting because by the time the Scouts earn AOL, they are more than ready to move on to Boy Scouts, and they do not want to wait another month.

 

 

 

 

[Mom2Scouts06]

We have Arrow of Light and Crossover to Troop seperate. We do not do it Blue and Gold either. Our Arrow of Light ceremony is a seperate ceremony in and of itself to solely recognize the Webelos for their achievement.

 

I am not a fan of combining AOL with Blue and Gold, or other pack meeting awards. I think they worked hard for their award so the ceremony should be their night!

[Snow_White]

We have always done Arrow of Light and cross-over at one ceremony - previously as part of the Blue & Gold, this year as a separate ceremony in February. They usually don't finish up AoL until this time of the year, so we've never had to deal with the situation you describe, although our committee has had a few theoretical discussions about whether or not we would do them separately.

 

I know you're not looking for advice, but I just wanted to throw a couple of thoughts out on the table for discussion. I've always been a proponent of giving out awards when they are earned. However, if your pack has a particular tradition, are your boys happy to do it a different way? (Parents may have more problem with breaking tradition than the boys, but I wouldn't be too concerned with that.) Also, addressing your comment about the other den leader possibly being annoyed - is there real or perceived competition between your dens? Is this really likely to cause hard feelings? Obviously you shouldn't hold your den back, but you may have to be prepared to smooth some ruffled feathers with the other den leader, parents, or pack committee when you start doing things different from the way "we've always done it".

[MNBob]

Our Pack had traditionally done Arrow of Light, Cross Over and Cub Scout rank advancements at Blue & Gold. We found that put a lot of pressure on the Cub Scouts dens especially those with leaders who were brand new to Scouting. So we no longer made Blue & Gold the target for rank advancement.

 

Last year our Blue & Gold did not include Arrow of Light or Cross Over ceremonies. That was because the Troop the 4 Webelos were joining was not ready to receive new Scouts at the time of our B&G. Instead AoL and Cross Over happened at the March Pack meeting. This year we are doing both ceremonies at Blue & Gold but the banquet isn't until next week (March 7) because of venue availability. In our case all of the boys are earning Arrow of Light but the ceremony we are using is designed to treat them separately so that Scouts who did not earn the Arrow could then still cross over (but see http://www.scouter.com/Forums/viewThread.asp?threadID=267724 for an interesting discussion about this).

 

We've just chosen to run our Webelos program in this manner. At the same time we've never had a Scout earn his Arrow of Light long before other Scouts so the issue of timing hasn't come up. However I think there are some practical reasons that make it hard to hold multiple ceremonies:

1. Do you co-opt a Pack meeting for the AoL? Will the other leaders buy in to this? If you do it at a regular Pack meeting is the ceremony "special" enough or does it just feel like another award at a Pack meeting?

2. If you hold a special meeting is the rest of the Pack (non-Webelos) going to be that interested in attending? We don't even get everyone to attend Blue & Gold so I'm sure even less would want to attend a ceremony that was only for a small sub-set of boys without any other activities. Can you afford it? Will other leaders help with planning?

3. If only some Scouts earn their AoL early will they be interested in any future Webelos den meetings or will they be looking to cross over as soon as possible?

2.

[DYB-Mike]

Our Webelos get their Arrow of Light when they earn it. If they earn it by the Blue and Gold then so much the better.

 

Our Crossover occurs at our Family Campout held in mid to late May. This is the last event of our Cub Scout Year (although we do keep active in the summer).

 

Im just curious, you speak of 4th grade Webelos earning their Arrow of Light. Im familiar with 4th grade boys (Webelos I) earning the Webelos badge and then moving on to Arrow of Light and Crossover in the 5th grade (Webelos II). Am I missing something?

 

YIS

Mike

 

[MNBob]

Mike: I think the OP is referring to the boys earning AoL by December. They are currently 4th graders but in Dec they will be in 5th grade.

 

If you award AoL as soon as it is earned do you treat it like any other rank advancement or do you have a special ceremony that you peform multiple times?

[Phibbles]

Our pack also does everything at the B&G in Feb. I am only a Tiger leader, but think it is too much for the B&G. I wish they would split it up and do some of these awards/ceremonies separate from the B&G.

 

 

If you award AOL in December, will do you a candle ceremony (or other) when you do it? Or are you just planning to present the award at a regular pack meeting?

[ScoutNut]

Just a question on the May crossovers to Boy Scouting.

 

Usually when you wait that late the boys are unable to attend camp with their new Troop that first summer. Do the Troops continue to have regular meetings, or do other activities, besides summer camp, over the summer months? Or must the "new" Boy Scouts wait until August or September to start doing things with their Troop? If they have to wait, do you know how that has affected their retention in the Troop?

 

 

 

 

[GKlose]

I've seen it all over the place, depending upon the units involved. One very active pack and troop in an adjacent town has separate ceremonies. The way the Scoutmaster of the troop put it, "the troop owns the crossover." There are plenty of units that would disagree with that statement.

 

The packs I've seen directly do a combined 2-part ceremony for Arrow of Light and crossover, inviting the receiving troops to run the ceremony. Last year, for my younger son, I rewrote that ceremony a little, mostly because it was very cumbersome (I dropped about 15 minutes from it!), and it put more of the Arrow of Light responsibility on the pack.

 

The one thing that I wish would change is the way that one pack (our troop's "feeder pack") handles it. They use the Blue and Gold as an end-of-year awards banquet, in June, and they hold almost all awards until then!

 

Their Cubmaster last year is this year's Webelos Den Leader...he's already said "we'll be done early" (meaning well before June) so I said "great, let's cross them over when they're ready." For good reason -- we want to get them camping with the troop before a July summer camp time. But -- he's resisting a little. It's like he thinks their Blue and Gold will be less special. My argument to him is that they can still honor the new Scouts in an Arrow of Light ceremony, but in fact, give them the award and crossover a few months before.

 

Anyway -- we'll see.

 

Guy

[DYB-Mike]

Thanks, MNBob. When I think about what you say it makes sense. I have to admit that the grade/age/date stuff sometimes throws me.

 

We do make a bigger deal on the Arrow of Light award. Weve been fortunate in my time with the Pack that the boys have pretty much earned it as a group so that makes setting up a special ceremony easier.

 

ScoutNut, I guess you would call our Pack a feeder pack. We coordinate with our big brother Troop so that the new scouts are prepared to go to summer camp. There is usually a Troop camp out in June and the summer camp in July. In June the Troop holds a couple of summer camp information meetings, complete with visuals and older scout endorsements, with new scouts and their parents to help prepare them.

 

I had asked about the May Crossover and it appears its done to ease them into the cold weather camping experience we get here in New England. They get used to how the Troop operates in the field in the good weather and by the time the winter months hit theyre (hopefully) old hands.

 

YIS

Mike

 

 

[pbmartin70]

We treat them as two separate ceremonies. We have traditionally awarded the Arrow of Light at the Blue & Gold banquet in February and then had a separate crossover ceremony in March. It seems like the last few years there have been one or two that complete the AOL but then don't continue on into Boy Scouts.

[Pack212Scouter]

Our Pack treats AOL completely separate. We even separated it from B&G because the time we could devote to honor these boys was too limited. We now do an AOL ceremony sometime in March, followed by the Troop doing a Bridgeover for them immediately following at the next Troop Meeting.