National Summertime Pack Award

[AnaMaria]

This is one of those that I probably know the answer, but would like confirmation before I have to be the enforcer! For this award, can you only have 1 qualifying event per month. In June, for instance, we toured a castle. We have scouts who didn't do the tour, but did go to camp in June. Can it be an either/or thing? The paperwork would make it seem you have to choose just 1 event per month.

[ScoutNut]

Is this for the Pack award, or the individual Cub Scout award pin?

 

If this is for the individual award, I would be flexible. If it was a Scouting activity, I would let him use it.

 

We generally include Day and Summer camp in our list of Summer activities. We advertise them with the Pack, encourage boys to attend, and generally register as a Pack, even if only 1 boy is attending.

 

We also have other Summer Pack activities, so we end up with more than one per month. It gives the families more options to be active over the Summer months.

 

Bottom line is that it is up to you to decide how your Pack will handle it.

[Scouting4Ever]

We hold one event per month, some Packs will hold two.

 

For the individual we count activities such as Day Camp, Webelos Camp and this year the community band played a concert that was patriotic in nature and had much verbage about the Scouts and the 100th anniversary. We counted that as well.

 

We try to make it as easy as possible for our Scouts to do it. We do this as the program is about trying to increase your Scout retention during the summer months. Even still, we had 1/3 of our Scouts earn it this year.

[Austinole]

Maybe I did it wrong but I had two events each month. I didn't want any scouts to miss out because family vacations got in the way. I think the spirit of the idea is to keep them involved all through summer.

[Scoutfish]

 

 

That was a comment directed to me from Scoutnut when I had a question about the National Summertime Pack Award.

 

Now, if I understand what you are asking, and if I understood Scoutnut's answer - as well as some others since then:

 

1)As long as you have at least one activity each month, then you have earned it. AT LEAST ONE, but can have as many as you want.

 

 

2)Wether any scouts show up or not, and when they show up, even if they do not participate ( for whatever reason I can't imagine)...you still arranged the activity.

 

3)The award goes to the pack for planning and holding the activity. Not to the scouts for showing up. That is what the individual and den awards are for.

 

The only issue I would see as towards "qualifying events" is if you are a full year pack and conducting regular den meetings. They would not be "events" under normal circumstances.

 

"The purpose of the National Summertime Pack Award is to encourage packs to provide a year-round program by continuing to meet during the time periods when school is out of session for several weeks or months." ---->

 

http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/cubscouts/leaders/awards/unitawards.aspx(This message has been edited by scoutfish)

[ScoutNut]

Yep, in order to earn the PACK award, the MINIMUM is 3 Pack events, one event per month.

 

Many Packs (mine included) have more than one Pack activity per month. As others have mentioned, this gives more boys the opportunity to attend each month.

 

In order for a Cub Scout to earn the INDIVIDUAL award, they must participate in a MINIMUM of 1 event each month, for a total of 3 events.

 

In order to earn the DEN award, dens must have at LEAST half of their members attend each month.

 

Cub Scouts is all about flexibility.

 

If you have more than one Pack activity per month, you can list all of them on the tracking sheet, or even do more than on tracking sheet. I usually print tiny and list each on the application. The numbers for the participating boys/dens gets consolidated per month.

 

As I said, we are flexible.

 

For the PACK award, if we are only having one activity in June, and the only date we can set for it ends up being the first Saturday in July, we will still list that as our June activity. We still have two other activities in July so it still works out.

 

For INDIVIDUAL SCOUT awards, if a Scout attends ONE event each month, we will count it. It does not matter to us, which Pack, or Scouting, event it is. We will even count a Scouting event that is not one of our Packs events. As long as it is a Scouting event, it is OK with us.

 

For DEN awards, we keep track of who attends each event, and the numbers are totaled together for a monthly number. Scouts are not counted twice in one month for this.

 

The point is to stay active over the summer, and we want to encourage our Scouts to do their best to do that.

 

However, there are Packs that are very strict about what and how they count activities for any of the awards. Some will not count Day Camp, or Summer Camp. Some will not count non-Pack specific activities for the individual award. Some will not count monthly totals for the den award, but only individual event totals.

 

So, as I said earlier, it is up to the Pack leaders to determine how they want to handle their Summertime program.

 

 

 

[511Mom]

What about Lion cub's becoming Tiger's? They were made official again this year and I would hate to leave them out since they are the only Den in the Pack with 100% participation.

 

Also, on the form there is a line for type of activity, is there a list somewhere with this list? (Its a small space so I'm assuming there is a number)

[infoscouter]

511 Mom:

 

Your Lions became Tigers as of 6/1, so they qualify for the Tiger Cub Summer activity award. Next year, they can earn the Wolf one, etc.

 

Believe it or not, that little tiny line is where you write "picnic" or "hike" or "campout". The form is a fillable PDF. You can type in the boxes and save the form, so the person in your pack (outings chair or committee chair) who is responsible for submitting the form, can fill it out each month, and save it as the summer goes along.

[howarthe]

We scheduled three pack activities this summer. We also put on our pack calendar three district activities and three council activities for the summer to give scouts lots of opportunities. So far my den is at 80% I'm really looking forward to handing out those pins!

[ParkMan]

Does anyone simply ask for 3 events and allow for boys to do two one month, but then miss a month? i.e., attend two in June, miss July, but then attend again in August.

[Jeffrey H]

"Does anyone simply ask for 3 events and allow for boys to do two one month, but then miss a month? i.e., attend two in June, miss July, but then attend again in August"

 

Our Pack does. If a Cub attends at least 3 events in the Summer, then he is has earned the Summertime Pin. We include Day Camp and Webelos Summer Camp as events.

 

 

[ParkMan]

Thanks!

 

I had the case come up where we had a several kids do two events in June and then miss July. We'll have two events in August, so it's possible we could get some kids that do 3 or 4 events, but just miss the one in July. I want to recognize the kids who are active, but also did announce to parents at the start of the summer that they boys needed to attend an event each month.

 

I'm just thinking through the right approach here.

 

 

 

[diogenes]

If I'm understanding the requirements correctly, the individual must attend an activity in each of the three summer months to qualify.

[5yearscouter]

If the idea of the summertime pack award to see the boys a little bit over the summer, then 2 outings in one month and no outings in another month is ok.

 

But that isn't exactly what the summertime pack award is about IMHO. It is about seeing the boys consistently over the summer, one time a month to keep them in the habit of scouting.

 

The national website says something like one event in each month, take attendance and those who attended each event over the 3 months get the award.

 

Be careful in cub scouts with trying to give everyone every award by squinting and "do your best" about everything. if something says do this, it reaches a point where you need to do it, not come close. Consistently doing that with awards in cub scouts makes for a big culture shock in boy scouts when close enough isn't good enough--or shouldn't be good enough. so then boy scouts start to accept close enough for ranks, awards and merit badges. Don't water down the requirements just for the sake of getting another patch or ribbon or pin.

 

now if your pack had an event on june 30th and another on august 1st (or really close) because timing didn't work out for each and every month. But if you went thru the trouble of having an event each and every month, you did it so scouts could come have fun, not so you could do it and not have anyone attend, eh? and the still give out the award?

 

whatever you do, my opinion or some other opinion--for gosh sake, be consistent. and talk to 1 or 2 other leaders in your unit so you are all on the same page. you don't want a public fight about it.

[5yearscouter]

the page about it at bsa says

"Dens that have at least half of their members at the three summer pack events can earn a den ribbon. Pack members who take part in all three events are eligible for the National Summertime Pack Award pin, to wear on the right pocket flap of their uniform."