Anybody teaching at their POW WOW?

[theysawyoucomin']

Anybody having a Pow Wow in their council?

 

I am again teaching the Crystal Radio and Soda Bottle Water Rockets.

 

Hopefully we get more of those radios working this year.

[Eamonn]

A few years back some guy who talks funny was the Council Training Chair. (A good looking fellow I might add.)Looked at the number of people who were attending Pow Wow and the time, effort, organization that went into it.

The truth was that while the Council had a few hard line Pow Wowers, it just wasn't or didn't seem worth the effort.

Ours is a small Council and we watched as the attendance went down and down. So with the approval of the training committee it was removed from the Council calender.

Needless to say the hard line Pow wowers were very unhappy and were thinking about deporting this good looking fellow!!

A year or two back, the new guy tried to resurrect it, but only 25 Cub Scouters turned up.

When the attendance isn't there, it makes offering the variety of classes hard and the cost gets out of hand. While local Schools were happy to donate the school we had to pay for the janitorial and security staff.

I don't know if our area is just different but it seems the parents we have today who serve as Den Leaders just either don't have the time or are unwilling to make the time to attend events like this.

Of course I heard how in the good old days Pow Wows were the high point of the Cub Scouter's season; hundreds of Cub Scouter's, meals fit for a king, wonderful crafts, Pow Wow Books that had hundreds of pages!! Sadly I just couldn't make it work!!

I went under cover for a year or so, avoiding the beady gaze of upset Pow Wowers. I slid by cover of night into Cub Scout Round Table meetings, all the time waiting to be hit by a flying cup cake!! Thankfully that never happened.

I think if Pow Wow is ever going to make a come back it will need to be done as cluster WB courses are done, with Councils (small councils like ours) each taking a year. But I have noticed with WB, Cub Scouters don't seem as willing as Boy Scouters to travel.

Eamonn.

 

[moxieman]

Having never been a Cub leader, I have never attended a Pow Wow. Then again, the local council eliminated their Pow Wow a few years back for the same reason as in Eamon's Council.

 

BUT, rather then just make it go away, the took it, the old Commissioner College and combined them to form the local University of Scouting with additional courses for Boy Scout Leaders and the OA.

 

The OA lodge comes in and helps set-up tables/chairs and preps/serves lunch.

 

Unlike the individualized events, this one keeps growing. The past couple of years we've had scout leaders from as far south as central CT (6 hours drive away) attend our University.

 

Website: http://www.pinetreebsa.org/university/

 

Alas, they haven't updated it with this year's info yet.

[Eamonn]

Sadly from the look of it Pine Tree Council is more than twice the size of our Council.

At one time there was supposed to be several local Councils getting together for the Commissioner College, but it seems to have fallen apart.

On one side we have a big Metro Council, who seems both happy and able to go it alone, on the other side we have several small Councils - smaller than us!! Part of the problem is that between us and them we have some mountains which in the winter can get in the way!!

At one time we had a group of outstanding R/T Commissioners who used to do presentations at the Natcap Council Pow Wow.

But many of these have sons who made Eagle a few years ago and the interest is no longer there.

Eamonn.

[Lisabob]

We switched from pow wow to university of scouting a few years back. It is a relatively successful event and it helps that now we are drawing from all aspects of the scouting program and not just cub leaders in terms of attendance. Still, it is a bit of an "in-group" thing. It would help if we had more active UCs to get the word out to pack leaders, who often don't even know it exists until their third or fourth year in cubbing. All of our neighboring councils have also made the switch. The only unfortunate thing is that they all offer their UoS on the same day every year! I admit I don't understand this - would rather see them staggered so a person might attend more than one if interested (we're not that far apart, geographically speaking) or have some options if the date doesn't work (as has been my case for the last 2-3 years).

 

As for the crystal radio - I've never been able to get those kits to work, would love to have someone lead a class around here. Want to do a traveling show Owl?

 

 

[featherbear]

That's what a neighboring Council near us did last Autumn, Lisabob - and it was resoundingly successful. The classes offered ranged from Leader-Specific training through Tigers, Cubs, Webelos-transitional, Troop, Venturing, high-adventure courses, and on up into district-related and leadership in all arenas. Every class was filled to the brink. They also allowed older Scouts to come and take classes, and quite a few of them did! My own son, an SPL, went back to his Troop just brimming with new ideas. We definitely plan to wander up that way again this year for this event. IMHO, more Councils ought to consider running the full gammut like that, and not limit it to Cub-level powwow.

[Cubmaster Chris]

We had our Pow Wow last weekend and it was the first time I attended (our Pinewood Derby has always been the same weekend). I also got to teach one of the classes; Pack extras (Blue & Gold, derbies, campouts, day trips, etc.)

 

We had a really good turnout and we want to expand it in the next 2 years to include even more classes.

 

Good stuff! Really recharged my batteries!