3 flags in church.....Too much?

[Scoutfish]

Okay, at the beginning of our pack meetings, we do colors. The particular den that has the honor of doing it, carries the United States Flag and the church flag in. They place them in the stands, we say the pledge and Cub Scout promise and motto.

 

Also starting this year, the dens will sit in their own groups beside their den flag.

 

So how about a pack flag too? We have one , we just don't use it. It pretty much stays in the closet for some reason.

 

So would carrying the pack flag during colors be redundant, be tooting our own horn a bit, or just to much?

 

Would it be wrong?

 

Not meaning any disrespect, but since we are a non denominational group, would it be disrespectul if we didn't carry the church flag, but instead carried the pack flag along with the Stars and Stripes?

I mean, we are not conductimng a church service at that time,and our pack is made up of several religons and denominations.

 

But at the same time, I do not want to disrespect or offend the CO that is so gracious in chartering our pack as wellas letting us use the building as wellas the sanctuary for pack meetings.

 

Okay, I realize that I am almost making a mountain out of a mole hill. But after finding a pack flag in our storage closet ( on a pole with a ton of award ribbons), I thought we ought to have it out at colors too.

 

[BDPT00]

You think you're making a mountain out of a molehill? Just wait 'til you see some replies!

BDPT00

[Scoutfish]

Oh, I know...it's coming!

 

I just started thinking about it: We are a pack, meeting for a pack meeting for pack purposes.

 

Why not carry the pack flag?

 

Not gonna make the pack fold if we don't, but it would be cool to display it.

[gcnphkr]

Use the flag. It is a pack meeting. I can't even imagine a pack meeting without it.

 

You can ask the church about it. The CO owns all 3 flags and can tell you what they want done.

 

If you do use all 3 flags then look up the flag protocols and do it right. IIRC, the US flag goes on the left in its usual place. The other two go on the right with the church flag to the left of the pack flag. A search on battalion flags should give the answer.

 

Regarding the ribbons. We've ended up putting them on a coup stick. It looks much better than the tangled mess on the unit flag pole. The SPL keeps it near him as our spirit stick.

[Scoutfish]

Great idea about the coup stick. There are a bunch of ribbons and they are a mess!

[ScoutNut]

A Pack flag is supposed to be used by the Pack. That is what it is for.

 

Just wondering - If you hold your Pack meetings in the church itself, where do you have the space for games and activities? It seems to me it would be a bit off to be holding a race down the aisles between the pews.

 

 

[Scoutfish]

Well, being that I am new as Cub Master, I recently discovered the pack flag in out storage bulding. Did not know it was there. Didn't even know we had one.

 

Not sure about why we never displayed it before to be honest with you.

 

We did have some "drama queens" within the leadership the last 4 years or so, but they moved on. Things are really picking up between that and full commitee.

 

As far as races, we don't have races or games, during pack meetings. We do songs, dances, skits, cheers, etc. We do pack announcements and do den as well as individual scout recognition, but no races.

 

The cool thing about the church is that it is a very large one. There are 7 seperate class/meeting rooms - two of which have folding partiotion wals that can be usd to make 9 room. There is a good size kitchen/dining area too. Plus we have "the scout building" out back which is a 20 X 25(our half, Girl Scouts use other half) building with bathroom and has a 16 X 7 garage door to "open" it up some to nature.

We also have a couiple fire pits and 2 scout flag poles . No, they are just regular poles, but next to the scout building for both practice and ceremony for the Pack and Troop.

 

Now, I'm not saying that races are a bad thing, or anything like that....just that we never had them. Plenty of room though for other games and activities though.

[ScoutNut]

Just wondering.

 

I could not picture holding our Pack meetings in our church, or even wanting to. We hold ours in the Parish/School hall/gym. Plenty of room for games, and other fun stuff. We don't dance however. Picturing everyone up and doing a line (ballroom?) dance is just too funny!

 

 

[Gary_Miller]

My guess is that the US Flag and the Church Flag are permanently displayed at the front of the chapel area. Therefore they are convenient to use and is the reason for the church flag bing used instead of the pack flag.

 

My take is that it would be more appropriate to use the Pack Flag instead of the church flag, as the meeting is a meeting of the pack and not of the church.

 

While it is possible to use all three flags for the flag ceremony for the ease of conducting the ceremony it would be more appropriate to just leave the church flag at its position at the front of the room and post the pack flag next to it.(This message has been edited by Gary_Miller)

[Scoutfish]

dancing.....well, not "real' dancing.

 

Banana peel dance, Lion Hunt dance, bazooka bubblegum dance.

 

Dancing you'd expect from 7 - 10 year old boys. If you call that dancing. Of course, that's a good as I can dance too!

[ScoutNut]

Ahhhhh! Action songs and audience participation! Those we do!

[Scoutfish]

LOL! Okay, I just got what you meant by racing. DUUUUUUUUHHHHHH!

 

For some stupid reason, I was thinking two or three boys holding a foot race. Don't know where my brain was.

 

We do PWD race. We go to one of the 3 local elementry schools and use the gymnasium or cafeteria.

 

Last year, due to the size of our pack, we had Tigers race on Friday night and the rest race on Saturday morning with the top 3 Tigers also showing up Saturday morning.

 

We weren't sur how it would work at first, but it turned out better than we planned. 43 Tigers raced Friday night, went home happy and had Saturday to do whatever.

 

Meanwhile, the rrest of trhe boys did not have all the extra waitimng time before they raced.

 

We did have two best of show and two best overall trophies. One set for each event.

[ScoutNut]

We do PWD too, and a Cardboard Box Derby.

 

However, I was actually talking about relay races by team. Depending on the time we have allotted, we will run from 2-5 teams, and always include siblings, and sometimes parents. The parents also help run each team.

 

Some relays we have done are -

Hatch the Egg - run to chair, sit on a balloon to pop/hatch it, run to back of line.

Dress Up - run to chair, put on whatever theme clothes are there, run back to line, take off clothes, next in line puts on clothes, runs to chair, takes off clothes, runs to back of line.

Wheelbarrel - done with parent/kid, or kid/kid, teams.

Feather Toss - toss a feather, pick it up & toss it again, keep it up until you get around a chair and back to the line.

 

Everyone has fun, and the leaders usually use the time to get their award presentations together.

 

 

[BDPT00]

All this race stuff is fine, but we sure got a long way from flags in a hurry.

BDPT00

[Scoutfish]

We normally have our meetings from 6pm to 7ish pm. Leaders would show up 5 or 10 minutes early.

 

 

This year,our den meetings are still at 6, but we started holding our pack meetings at 6:30pm , and the leaders still show up at 6 . This gives us an extra half hour to get awards. pins, extra stuff ready without the scouts having to wait.