New Delivery Method recognition - when?

[codger]

Hello - We are implementing the New Delivery Method beginning Sept. 1, and would like some of the cub packs that did the pilot program to comment on what they did with awarding recognitions at den meetings? The Resource Guides implies that many of the recognitions are awarded immediately upon completing the requirement. My questions are:

 

How do you inventory enough recognition items ahead of time when you don't know how many boys will earn that award? Seems like we will need to keep surplus recognitions in stock?

 

At Pack night, then we are not handing out the pins or loops, so did you just have the boys stand and be recognized without a presentation?

[ScoutNut]

Immediate recognition has always been a part of Cub Scouting. That is what the Progress Toward Ranks beads have always been for.

 

However, to get a bead, or pin, in the Wolf, Bear, or Webelos, level you have to complete a number of different things. These things are usually spread out over a number of meetings. In order to give out beads, and pins to these Scouts, you would have to keep track of who is at which meeting and what was done at the meetings. Which is not really very hard, and something you have to do anyway. But, when you have to do it at the den meeting, while still running the meeting, it can get to be a bit of a pain, and rather messy. For Tigers, where they receive a bead for every 1 thing they do, it is much easier to hand beads out on the spot.

 

Purchasing other awards, and participation patches, for everyone, and then only having a few actually earn them, is a waste of time, and especially, money.

 

While we were not one of the Pilot Packs, our approach would work the same way for the "new delivery method" as well.

 

We rarely gave out any awards in den meetings. The boys were told (and congratulated) at the den meetings when they had completed a requirement for something. They would then immediately mark it off in their handbooks as done. Den leaders also kept track of who was at what meeting and what was completed. Immediately prior to turning in the month's den award form to the Pack Advancement person, den leaders collected the handbooks from their Scouts and then went over them at home to make sure that everything was recorded (both in the book, and in the den leaders records). The den award form was then filled out and included all beads, participation patches, special awards, etc, earned by the boys during the month. This way both the boys, and the leaders, could easily see when awards were being completed.

 

We then awarded everything to the Scouts that they had completed/earned during the month at the monthly Pack meeting. The Pack only purchased what was needed, with no overstock. Scouts who missed the Pack meeting were verbally recognized for their work at the Pack meeting, and given their awards during their next den meeting.

 

 

 

 

[bbender]

Let me offer my $0.02.

 

We do encourage immediate recognition and presentation at the Den Meeting of all but the Rank Badges.

 

To do that, our Pack does stock an "advancement box" located in our Chartered Org school that Den Leaders can access in order to, say, have a sufficient stock of Belt Loops or Webelos Activity Badges or the like so that at the conclusion of a Den Meeting, they can give immediate recognition by awarding the item.

-- We find that this works great.

-- Instead a Scout of wondering later "why did I get this? I forget what this was for?", they know they did this today.

-- It results in a lot of "hey look what I did" as they emerge back to parents at the end of a meeting.

 

Now, as to the issue of "did you just have the boys stand and be recognized without a presentation", I always compare this to the Olympic games (an event that earns a Gold Medal for Immediate Recognition):

-- When does an athlete get his gold medal? In most cases, right at the Olympic Venue that same day.

-- Does that mean, say, that when Eagle Scout Gold Medal Bobsledder Steve Holcomb comes home, we can't recognize him for it? Nah, he gets a huge standing Ovation and everything. Maybe a parade. It's up to us.

 

Same then for the Cub Scouts. They might have the Loop on the Belt, the Pin on the Shoulder, the Bead on the infernally difficult to tie plastic thing, the Gold Medal around the neck . . . but now they receive whatever ceremony ya want, plus the adoration and applause of the Pack public.

-- Another upside for large packs is: less time spent fumbling with all of the baubles and geegaws and less down time pinning them on, etc., fewer tears as items inevitably drop in the crowd, and so on.

 

Now, as to inventory and whether the "extras" ya end up with are a waste of time and money, our view is that depends on whether you think your Pack will continue. Yeah, as a result of the odds and ends left over, our Inventory Tackle Box will have extras, but that means that next year if there are 14 Webelos I Scouts, and 3 Fitness Pins in the box, the Advancement Person will stock 11 more for the Den Leaders before they finish Fitness.

 

YMMV, but that is the thought behind Den Meeting Immediate Recogntion.

 

Bert Bender

Pack & District Trainer

http://atlanta631.mypack.us/node/1007

 

[codger]

Thanks for the input, folks!