Summeritme Acitivity Award Pin

[fauxc]

Here's what the summertime Activity award requirements say:

 

The purpose of the National Summertime 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. If a pack is in a "year-round school" (or is part of a home-school association), the pack could earn the Summertime Pack Award by having a special pack activity during those breaks.

Boys who participate in three summertime pack events (one each in June, July, and August) are eligible to receive the National Summertime Award pin.

The pin is worn on the right pocket flap of the Cub Scout Uniform, pinned onto the Cub Scout Outdoor Activity Award, if present. Multiple pins may be displayed for each year the award is earned.

Since the goal of the Summertime award is to have Packs continue the program through the summer, the summertime award scouts receive should match their current rank rather than the rank they are working on (ie, boys who have attained the rank of Tiger will receive the Tiger pin even though they are in a Wolf Den and working towards the Wolf rank

 

I understand all of this and agree with it because that means that my tigers last year have an opportunity to earn their tiger pin because they didn' join in the summer of last year as most tigers wouldn't unless they were siblings. Here's my questions:

 

1) Last year and previous years, they didn't run it this way, they gave them the pin of the rank that they were working towards. For example, if they were going into the 2nd grade (Wolf), they earned their wolf pin. The only thing that I can think of to do for these scouts is to give them the pin that they should have earned the previous year so they don't have duplicates.

 

2) New Tigers this year that did the summertime activiites, would they earn a tiger pin and then next year they could earn another tiger pin or would they just get a generic summertime activity pin?

 

Thanks

 

[5yearscouter]

Not sure where you got your info from?

If every June 1st, the boys go up a rank, so tigers become wolves,

why would you award them a tiger pin?

It makes no sense to me to do it that way.

They are no longer working on anything to do with tigers.

 

If it's a national thing, maybe they did it that way because not very many units were giving out tiger pins because many units don't have a tiger den until the fall recruiting?

 

I would be consistent. If you give the tigers two tiger pins that really doesn't sound so great, does it? I guess you could give new tigers the patch--if your council makes a patch, I don't think national makes the patch? and then give the tiger pin the next summer when they are working on wolf stuff. which still doesn't make any sense to me.

 

I think I'll continue to do it the way we've always done it in our pack, since not that many boys earn it --July is usually a really tough month to get attendance, too many parent vacations to work around.

 

So our incoming new tigers would earn the tiger pin, new wolves as of june 1 would earn the wolf pin, etc. sure webelos could earn it twice, but most don't earn it twice.

 

I don't think there is a generic pin for the summertime activity award. there used to be gold pins only, so if you can find some of the old gold pins you could award them for either incoming tigers or webelos who already earned it once.

 

I don't like the colors around the edge of the pins. they should match the hats to avoid confusion. instead they match the patch color for each rank, right?

(This message has been edited by 5yearscouter)

[howarthe]

I saw the same thing over at Merit Badge dot org, but I don't think it is canon. I suspect it is just what made sense to the goy who wrote it up. It doesn't make sense for our pack this year because we did recruits three new tigers last spring, and one of them earned this pin, so we will be awarding him a tiger pin, and all my wolves will receive wolf pins (not tiger pins). In this way, it will be possible for them to earn the Webelos pin twice, but that makes sense to me. Webelos is a two-year program. It also means that earning it as a tiger will be very rare, but that makes sense to me, too. Tiger cubs are bit more rare. I had four tigers last year. I have six wolves this year. One of the new wolves earned the summertime award pin. It wouldn't make sense to award him the tiger pin. He was never a tiger. But if another pack wants to do it another way. I personally have no problem with that. The important thing is to get the kids outside!

[Fehler]

If new Tigers earn the Tiger Orange, then entering Webelos earn Webelos Blue, what would entering 2nd year (AOL)Webelos earn? Thankfully we didn't have any new Tigers earn it, so I don't have to worry about changing my color choice.

[fauxc]

5yearscouter,

 

I copied that directly from the national website and I have seen it listed on many other sites the same way. The way that I understand it is that it is an award designed to continue throughout the summer for the current pack so it gives an opportunity for the tigers to earn it since most of them don't join until September.

 

I don't think most of the Pack was awarded this the previous years becaue of Summer commitments, so we decided to do 2-3 activities each month to allow the boys an opportunity to earn it.

 

I agree that it is confusing that sometimes they use the rank patch colors instead of the uniform colors.

(This message has been edited by fauxc)

[Eagle92]

Whatever they were on June 1 is the pin they would be working on.

 

For example, my middle son became a Tiger on June 1, and has earned the Orange Summertime Pine. Oldest joined June 1 a few years back, and also teh TC one, as well as the red Wolf one and baby blue Bear one. Since he became a Webelos on June 1 of this year, he earned his first Webelos one. next year he will earn his second Webelos pin.

 

I really wish national would go back to the original, one color Summertime Award Pin. Then all this confusion would be gone.

[Jeffrey H]

We give the color of the Den they are currently in and not the badge of rank they are currently holding.

 

We have a boy that joined the Tiger Den back in June and he will be receiving the orange pin. What else would he get? He does not have his Tiger Badge yet but he has earned the Summertime Pin. It makes sense to award him the Tiger color (orange).

 

 

[Austinole]

"...the summertime award scouts receive should match their current rank rather than the rank they are working on (ie, boys who have attained the rank of Tiger will receive the Tiger pin even though they are in a Wolf Den and working towards the Wolf rank..." This is my understanding too. Otherwise Webelos I wouldn't have a pin for Summertime activities. The only issue is when Tigers start early and do summertime right off the bat.

[Brewmeister]

Because there are only four color pins, it makes sense to award them for the level the boy is already done with. That's the way we did it.

 

It is a goofy award that doesn't synch up perfectly with the rest of the program, but it is what it is. So wolf scouts receive their tiger summertime pin at the first pack meeting in september.

 

For packs that do not recruit in spring, there is also no other way for scouts to get tiger pins.

[fauxc]

Brewmeister,

 

What do you do for new Tigers that joined in June and completed the Summertime activities?

 

[Jeffrey H]

"What do you do for new Tigers that joined in June and completed the Summertime activities"

 

We have one boy in that situation. We will give him the orange Tiger pin. As I mentioned before, what else can we do?

[Brewmeister]

Based on our experience we don't do spring recruiting and as a result don't have new boys in June.

 

However if we did, I'd probably give him the tiger pin, then have him earn the blue pin while the other boys were still on orange.

 

Hope that makes sense. Like I said the award really doesn't fit perfectly into a program that changes ranks at the end of the school year, so my philosophy would be to give the boys opportunity to earn all 4 pin colors if they participated in 4 years of summer programs regardless of whether their first summer was as a brand new tiger or newly graduated tiger.

[Eagle92]

Again, going back to one color for all grades would be ideal. The you wouldn't have the "hey how come I'm getting an orange one and he's getting a red one" thing.

[Brewmeister]

But that does not address the issue of packs who have tigers join in June and september. If first graders work on the tiger pin, there is no way for September tigers to ever earn the pin.

 

It's no additional record keeping to do it the way I describe for those packs, just a mark in the spreadsheet for who has what.

 

It seems like we're overcomplicating a pin that isn't required for any rank award...just do what makes sense for the boy and unit to encourage participation in summer events.

[Eagle92]

Brew,

 

I respectfully disagree on going back to one color for the pin not solving the problem. If we went back to one color, then it wouldn't matter if Timmy Tiger who joined June 1 before fall Round Ups got the same pin as everyone else. And the Round Up Tigers wouldn't feel left out b/c they can't get the Tiger specifc pin.

 

Jerry