So Confused - RT point of scout law and pack point different?

[lisavan]

HELP!!!!!!!!  I'm the Roundtable Commissioner and we just started up our yearly roundtables.  The Roundtable Planning guide has September Roundtable teaching October.  So for October the point of the Scout Law is Thrifty and the interest Topic is cub Scout Cooking.

 

HOWEVER, for Pack Meetings on the scouting.org website, it says Kind/Creepy Crawlers.

 

SO What the heck am I suppose to teach?

 

HELP!!!

[NJCubScouter]

Lisavan, welcome to the forum!

 

In our district RT's consist of a general session for both Boy Scout and Cub Scout leaders and then breakout sessions for each. Maybe the different points of the law are supposed to be addressed during the breakout sessions?

 

Or maybe it is a mistake. I don't know.

[judybsa]

Why are the 12 Points of the Law not matched to the same month in the Pack Meeting Plans or other written Cub Scout materials? In essence the material was written for the leader’s use, education and training without adding the constraint of matching to other written Cub Scout materials. In assessing the purpose of the CSRT as a supplemental monthly training and knowing the Den Leader Guides and Pack Meeting Plans give our leaders the assistance they need to plan their program, the task force selected 12 topics designed to enhance the unit’s current programming. Each month’s program was written for that topic and then an applicable Point of the Scout Law was selected to accompany the topic. Most months could easily use more than one of the Points.

[judybsa]

The information comes from Amy Hutcherson (BSA Pilots & Program Development, Cub Scouting Specialist)

Her reply: 

Sure, your question is definitely one that has come up several times since the release of the new guide. We have compiled a list of Q&As that will address your question and others you may have. I’ve attached them for you.

Also, recently we recorded a Cub Cast promoting RT and also addressing the changes for the upcoming year. It is set to be released on September 1st.

http://www.scouting.org/Scoutcast/Cubcast.aspx

[CalicoPenn]

Lisa,

 

Welcome to the forum!

 

Based on a quick look at the National website, here's what I take away from it.  National is changing the Roundtable formula to provide more supplemental training for Cub Scout Leaders - training in areas that are often part of the Cub Scout program but aren't necessarily part of the monthly Pack Meeting Theme.  Instead of spending time in September giving people ideas for October's Pack Meeting Theme (ideas which are often taken directly from the program helps that Cubmasters and Den Leaders can read for themselves), Roundtable would now spend time giving ideas for Pack camping and hiking trips, etc. etc.  So when you look at the material and are wondering how Cub Cooking fits in, instead of thinking about the monthly theme, think about how it fits in to the overall Pack program - do Pack's have campouts planned (family? Webelos?)? - That's where this fits.  I think that's the point now - top provide supplemental training that benefits the overall Pack program, not just what the flavor of the month is.

 

Of course, you could always carve out some time to talk about the monthly themes, but in looking this over, I can't help but think that this could be a real boon to Cub Scouts in hindsight I'm wondering what took us so long to get here.

[meyerc13]

I think that most Roundtable Commissioners are not happy with this change, based on the online reaction I've seen to this change.  Even before I became a Roundtable Commissioner I was using the songs, games, etc. in the Roundtable Guides to supplement my den and Pack meetings.  It was nice having games and songs that reinforce the theme for the month.

 

Now we have the Leader Guides for each rank, which have a lot of ideas for games and songs, but they aren't focused on the month's theme.  Frankly, even some of the Pack Meeting Plans published online have songs and games that aren't at all related to the monthly theme.

 

I like the special interest topics, and in the past we've done some of that on our own because that's what our Roundtable participants wanted to see, but even if we didn't spend a lot of time going over the songs and games in the Guide during the meeting, at least we had those available for people to take back to their units.  Now we don't have it and I think that makes more work for Roundtable Commissioners (to pull it together), or if they don't do the research it makes more work for the Den and Pack leaders who will have to find it on their own.

[judybsa]

http://usscouts.org/bbugle.asp

 

a good resource for that kind of stuff.

[gumbymaster]

We too have had this challenge.  For our CSRT, our team decided to stick to the point of the scout law and theme used in the next month's pack planning for cubmasters, as we felt this would be most in-line with the needs of our leaders.  So in September, instead of using "Thrifty" as the point of the Scout Law, we stuck to "Kind" with the Creepy Crawler Theme to prepare our leaders for their October pack meetings.

 

That said, we did still do the group session on Cub Scout Cooking for our interest topic, as that was also timely as many of our pack have Fall camping planned.

 

It also helped because I lost half the roundtable staff to Back to School nights, so doing a group session instead of level breakouts also matched my staffing ability.

 

The Roundtable guide is just that a guide.  We use the parts that match what we plan to present for breakouts, interest topics, and big rocks topics - even if the guide has those listed in a different month.

[lisavan]

Thanks everyone for the responses.  Being in a little bit of a smaller number of people attending RTs, we only have staff for one large CB breakout.  So all den leaders, cubmasters, committee chairs, ect are all in the same session.  I just need to decide how to approach what is best for our needs.  It was just so confusing.  Thanks for talking me down out of the tree - so to speak!

[meyerc13]

I'm glad you posted, I'm starting to see how many Roundtable Commissioners hang out here.  This is a great site, but you might also want to join the BSA Roundtable Commissioners Group on Facebook if you haven't already.  It's a great group and full of helpful information.