New Cub Scout requirements are up - denner?

[Armymutt]

40 minutes ago, mrjohns2 said:

They can? Each rank now has a knife safety adventure. 

Yes, and they are all electives.  There is no requirement to do it, unlike the previous version of the Bear rank.  

[mrjohns2]

19 hours ago, Armymutt said:

Yes, and they are all electives.  There is no requirement to do it, unlike the previous version of the Bear rank.  

Thank you for pointing that out. It caused me to go look and confirm. Yes. 😞

[BetterWithCheddar]

My district held its annual Fall Cub Day Camp yesterday. We're fortunate to have a great group of volunteers that put this event together every year. Best I can tell, it's staffed mostly by older adults whose children have long since aged out of the program and whose ties to local units have dissolved. We're also fortunate to have a DE that was an Eagle Scout in this same district and who makes everyone feel like the most important volunteer in the council, even though he himself is the one working long, odd hours for what I'm sure amounts to ~$15/hour. 

The Fall day camp is a great way to get Cubs outside before the crummy winter weather in our region limits our options. I was even able to piggy-back our monthly Wolf Den meeting onto the event and complete an Orienteering Adventure. The only downside: several activity stations were closed on short notice due to what our DE cited as "recent changes to the national guidelines for the operations of range and target activities." I'm not too familiar with the G2SS, but we were unable to have archery, slingshots, or paper rockets ~ all of which had been offered in previous years and were popular among Cubs and parents.

This will hardly be a surprise to many forum members, but it feels like the national organization is making Scouting marginally safer at great expense to the program. Honestly, I was more concerned about someone catching a hook in the eye at the fishing station yesterday than I would have been about launching a homemade paper rocket using an air compressor operated by an adult.

[BetterWithCheddar]

I'm a Wolf Den Leader and recently held two successful den meetings:

We completed the Air of the Wolf adventure by holding a "Paper Airplane Derby". I taped out a 40-foot "runway" in our meeting area for the kids to launch their planes. They each got 5 sheets of paper and 5 minutes to make some prototypes with their parents. After taking turns testing their planes, they got another 5 minutes to refine their prototypes. Following a second flight test, they got 2 minutes and 2 sheets of paper to make a final model and see who could throw their plane the furthest. It was inexpensive and all the boys seemed engaged.

We also completed the Adventures in Coins adventure. I bought inexpensive coin folders off Amazon and gave the kids each 4 rolls of pennies. They had fun opening the coin rolls with their parents and filling up their coin folders with different years and mint marks.

It's cold and dark on most weeknights during the school year, so we're often limited by activities that can be conducted at our meeting space in the public library. We also have a pair of boys whose behavior can present a challenge and impacts other kids' experiences. Running den meetings has always been hit or miss. Sometimes I'll put in a lot of effort and come up short; however, these meetings went great. I may repeat them next year once we've completed all of our required Bear adventures. I hope others are able to give them a try.