Imagine

[Eamonn]

The other thread seems to have become a discussion about the Cub Scouting program.

When I read the report from the World Scout Organization or whoever it was that wrote it??

I didn't take it as any sort of a comment on the Cub Scout program.

My take on it was more along the lines of:

Imagine Scouting without the Cub Scouting program.

More in line with the way that Lord Baden Powell had planned it.

Of course it's hard now not to think of Scouting without the little guys.

Still I'm not sure if the numbers would be very different without the Cub Scouting program and Boy Scouting was a stand alone program?

Ea.

 

Ea.

[momof2cubs]

I imagine there would be a lot less scouts.

 

[Frank17]

In our neck of the city, its a lot easier to get them to join up in 1st grade than it is in 6th grade. School sports and activities have become a lot more competitive for time and involvement than they wre in my day as a youth. At the middle & high school level, they train over the summer daily in August and expect mandatory attendance at all practices/events during the school year. As a result, they are not very forgiving about a boy who wants to miss occasional practices for a Troop meeting or trip.

 

I think that without the cubbies to lay the "fun" groundwork, our local Troops would be a lot smaller.

[Eagle92]

Me personally I think a few things need to be done to improve Cubs.

 

1) Shorten it to 3 year preferably, 4 MAX. a 4.5-5 year Cub program is draining.

 

2)Do less arts and craft stuff, and do more outdoor stuff.

 

 

[qwazse]

I have no complaints about the cub program.

I think the expectation that it would feed the ranks of Boy Scouts is overstated.

I also have seen that Troops do not necessarily feed the Venturing program. Some of you have pointed out that this happens because of adversarial reasons. I have noted that Troops do not feed the crew even in non-adversarial situations.

 

At every level you need to recruit, recruit, recruit!

 

I think my venturers really like the cubs.

[SeattlePioneer]

As a district membership chair, I see a few packs and a few troops that are consistantly effective in recruiting new boys.

 

Even the troops that are effective are usually effective in recuriting Cub Scouts, mostly supplementing that by efforts to recruit boys thataren't in Scouting.

 

In my experience, the best time for Troops to recruit new Scouts is in the spring, recruiting 5th graders who are eligible to join Boy Scouts for the first time. Goin into schools with an attractive activity for a recruiting night and a quality summer program can be effective in attracting the interest of those boys and parents.

 

But I find few troops interested in having me do that for them when I'm in those schools anyway doing spring Cub Scout recruiting. Most are content to focus on recruiting Webelos and supplementing that with whatever peer-to-peer recruiting the Scouts do themselves.

 

That's too bad, in my opinion, because we leave a significant population of boys without an invitation to Boy Scouts.

 

But I can't seem to flog troops into taking an interest in that.

[momof2cubs]

Frank said it. By the time the boys in my area are in 6th grade, the sports cult is in full force. They are not forgiving of missing any practice or game for a troop activity.

 

So yes, it's a lot easier to hook them while they are young.

 

Plus there's the whole "geek" factor. If they have already have 4 years of cub scouting, they are more entrenched and less easily persuaded that scouting isn't "cool"

[desertrat77]

I think there is definitely benefit from a shorter cub program.

 

Historically, cubbing was a program to give the kids something to do while they waited for that magic day when they became boy scouts.

 

This dynamic has changed a bit. One, the cub program has become a lengthy, art/crafts oriented program unto itself. Second, I see mixed results as far as cubs (and parents) wishing to join boy scouting. Some are ready, but few seem to be chomping at the bit to leave the safety and predictability of cubbing and move to the complexity of boy scouting (adult led v. boy led).

 

After a lengthy break from scouting, I'm still amazed that Webelos is a two year program. Waaaay too long.

[JMHawkins]

I think Webelos in practice is becoming a year-and-a-half program, but with a particular problem I'm noticing: the son of the WDL is almost certainly the first one in his den "done" in every sense of the word. Done with his Arrow of Light, and done with Cub Scouting. He's been at almost every Den meeting, every Pack meeting, every outdoor activity, every overnight, every troop visit... everything for 4 + years. Cause Mom/Dad was there as the DL since Tigers.

 

Mom or Dad is probably "done" too, and when they see their son ready to move up early (or drop out), it's a struggle for them to get the rest of the Den across the finish line.

 

Plus it seems like in general, two years is how long adults make it as Cub leaders before starting to burn out. I can definitely imagine a Cub program structured differently. Drop Tigers, and go with a two year Cub Scout (wolf/bear) program, then with a different DL a 1-2 year Webelos program that graduates them up to Boy Scout expectations of independence and responsibiliy.

 

Someone mentioned before the old "Den Mother" system where the Moms took the Cubs when they were younger and handed off to a Dad (or some man at any rate) for Webelos. Setting aside the gender roles for a moment, that system had a couple of advantages. One was not burning out the adult leaders just when they boys were at a critical transition stage. Another was implying that Webelos wasn't just more of the same, but had a different emphasis, and so you didn't have the same DL moving on and likely running the den exactly as they'd done before.

 

Edit: oh, and maybe do away with the Boy Scout joining requirement of the Arrow of Light. Make it 11 years old or completed 5th grade, then you don't have as much of a problem with staggered AOLs disrupting the rest of the den. Maybe "completed" Fifth grade isn't right - maybe it should be "within 3 months of completing 5th grade" so they can move up in April and get some time with the Troop before summer camp. But at any rate, make AOL an award, not an early release ticket.

(This message has been edited by JMHawkins)

[Eagledad]

Its hard for me to imagine. Baden Powell created Boy Scouts to serve boys who were walking the streets while their parents worked 12 hours a day at factories. Boys in our culture dont need scouting in the same way they did, so Im not sure where cubs would fit for BP. The BSA is running a business that requires getting families hooked as early as possible.

 

I imagine that we would have far fewer boy scouts without a Cub program, but for us traditional style leaders, quality over quantity is usually a good thing.

 

Barry

 

[BrotherhoodWWW]

momof2cubs wrote "Plus there's the whole "geek" factor. If they have already have 4 years of cub scouting, they are more entrenched and less easily persuaded that scouting isn't "cool" "

 

I'm having a bit of a problem every time someone mentions that Scouts is "geek". I'll admit that I've never been at the forfront of teen slang, even when I was one, but http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=geek seems to agree with what I believe to be the definition of "geek". So exactly how is it that the outdoor program of Boy Scouting is anyway "geek". No wonder we have such an identity problem!

 

I may or may not have mentioned elsewhere but I tend to agree that the Cub Scout program costs us more boys than it gets us. As for the OP of this thread I imagine that without Cubs shortterm we'd have fewer people in the program, but longterm we might increase the number of Boy Scouts. Total number however I think would still be less. My question however is do we rather choose to make a difference in the lives of our members or are we simply going for numbers and hoping for the best. I submit that the older our youth members the greater the chances that they will adopt our values and keep them.

 

[SeattlePioneer]

Hello Eagle Dad,

 

 

When I was a Scoutmaster thirty years ago, I generally found that boys who had been through Cub Scouts had benefitted fr5om it a good deal. Better able to work together, be focussed about learning and better behaved.

[momof2cubs]

Brotherhood: please don't be offended. I put it in quotes for a reason. It's a PERCEPTION amongst the teens, not the reality. I'm talking peer pressure not reality.

 

And obviously, I do not agree. Otherwise I wouldn't be here and use the name that I use here, right?

[Eagledad]

>>When I was a Scoutmaster thirty years ago, I generally found that boys who had been through Cub Scouts had benefitted fr5om it a good deal. Better able to work together, be focussed about learning and better behaved.

[BrotherhoodWWW]

momof2cubs, yeah I'm not offended in any way. I'm simply perplexed how and if when the meaning of "geek" changed from the electron element to how it seems to be used today. "Gay" seems to have changed in meaning over time as well. Us adults simply can not keep up!