Having the boys help plan meetings?

[Rockford8070]

My boys are Bears this year. Since part of their achievements included serving as a denner I thought it would be a good idea to introduce the idea and have each boy be a denner for a month. So each month the denner get's to look at the book and decide the things he wants to do and we plan our den meeting accordingly.

 

Come next year when they turn into Webelos I would like to continue the tradition and make it more like a patrol. I'd like to let the boys decide the things we do.

 

Does anyone have experience with doing this with Webelos? How'd it go?

[ScoutLass]

I do this. As wolves, the denner each month gets to plan a game for the meetings, with my help. As bears, they get to plan whole meetings with help (usually one full meeting a month is all theirs then they help plan the other two with me). As Webelos, they go into the Webelos patrol method. We don't use assistant denners. Instead, we give a citizenship award to the boy who was the best citizen in the den or showed major improvement (more of a good behavior award that we developed for den discipline). That month's good citizen does the duty of an assistant denner.

 

While cub scouting is for families, I don't think it's every too early to begin teaching leadership to the boys.

[Stosh]

When I was a WDL I did this all the time to prepare the boys for a boy-led troop experience. Not only does it allow the boys to take ownership of the program, it teaches responsibility and leadership at the same time. Why run a program of what YOU think would be fun when it's a lot easier to have them plan out a good program of what THEY think would be fun. Too often we make things a lot harder than they have to be. If you think that a game of kick-ball would be great for the boys to play and all they want to do is play tag, why fight it? Dump the ball, tag, you're it!

 

Your mileage may vary,

 

Stosh