Cross over

[click23]

When do your units have there crossover ceremonies? Most here participate in our distrcits cross over ceremony which is in April, however some unit in other districts do theirs in March or February.

 

This is from the Webelos leaders manual "The packs annual blue and gold banquet in February should be a target date for Webelos Scouts to transition into Boy Scouting."

[perdidochas]

That is an issue for the WDL and the SM to discuss. I was a WDL for two Dens (two different years). My choice was for the boys to crossover shortly after the Blue and Gold (end of February)(crossover was early March. I thought they needed one last B&G before leaving. This year, the WDL (same pack) crossing over to our troop decided to do the crossover the last week in January. We'll see how it goes.

[Buffalo Skipper]

The packs I work with cross over at the Blue and Gold. Ceremonies at the B&G start with Tigers and progress through Webelos and the Arrow of Light presentations. Following the AoL, there is a (tear jerker of a) slideshow with pictures of the Webelos den from Tigers up. Following this the OA does their ceremony for crossover with the Troops ready to receive on the other side (the parents follow the scouts as they cross). It is a moving ceremony and is the true climax of the Blue and Gold, leaving the remaining Webelos den(s) chomping at the bit to join a troop.

 

Yet other local packs have their own ceremonies and traditions. I know one which has their Blue and Gold in February (with AoL presentations), but the scouts do not cross until the following month when, at a pack campout, the crossover takes place during the campfire. It is expected that, the receiving troop(s) camp with the pack and following the crossover, the new scouts actually camp with the troop, while the parents remain camped with the pack. This can sometimes be logistically challenging for the troops, especially if the troop does not usually receive scouts from the pack. There have been occasions when receiving troops were not invited to attend, and the webelos "crossed" to a different troop, but then "joined" a different unit.

 

Each unit is going to have their own traditions. Working together with the receiving Boy Scout troops is paramount to making this a memorable experience for the scouts and those they leave behind in the pack.

[OneHour]

Our local Packs cross over in February. The boys usually report to the troops 1st weekend in March. This is best timing. This will give the new scouts at least 2-4 full campouts before summer camp! This will help with the homesickness at summer camp. It will give the new scout a little time to work on getting at least Tenderfoot before school is out. With summer camp and fall, they should be able to get to 2nd Class and then 1st class by next summer camp. Trail to First Class for us takes 1.5 to 2 years to finish, not the recommended 1st Class by 1st year. We still retain 95% of the boys who came in. The 5% was result of family moved out of the area. Other troops might be different in terms of their expectations of when they would like to see new scouts.

 

Personally, I'd like to see transition in December, 2 reasons: 1) we would get more Webelos to transition. By Web 2, they are tired and anxious. They would have finished all requirements by October. 5-6 more months of doing nothing would disengage them easily from scouting. 2) Ever since our Council change the recharter to December, getting the webelos to cross over and join in January would save a lot of logistic registration work!

 

From the Pack's point-of-view, I would like to have the boys to attend the last Pinewood Derby and the last B&G as well! Those are their last hoorahs, but then a lot of them (and their parents) really don't care for these events.

 

1Hour

[eagle90]

Our pack crosses boys over to our troop at their Blue & Gold Dinner in February. As has been said, this allows the new boys time to assimilate into the troop, attend numerous spring camp outs before Summer Camp, and get to know the scouts in their patrol and troop.

[momof2cubs]

Around here is sometime in March, after B&G.

[Beavah]

Personally, I'd like to see transition in December

 

Oi! Silly Texans!

 

Around these parts we try to cross 'em over as late into the spring as we can, because brand new 10 year old 5th graders just aren't ready to jump right in to the winter camping / early spring cold deluge camping that troops are engaged in. It's just too big a jump for 'em, combining the social transition with a really hard transition to camping, usually before they've acquired any real outdoors gear.

 

Gotta agree with OneHour, though. The Webelos II program tends to be weak, which means the den leaders have to do a lot more creative work on their own to make things fun and challengin'.

 

Beavah

 

[momof2cubs]

Bevah: my son is so beyond bored with web IIs that he begged me to cross him over sooner. He had visited a few troops and fell in love with one of them. So SM agreed to take him in a little early. It was no problem. He will still participate in den activities until cross over, but he will also attend troop meetings and start working on his ranks for Scout and TF.

 

[OneHour]

Beav, LoL! We are experiencing our first days of winter! High in the 60's, low's in the low 50's. Phewww, just got the chill, thinking about it! LoL! Yeah, but y'all got the beautiful year round temperature, woods and mountains! We got the heat, flat lands, and mosquitoes! Trade ya.

 

Momo ... my youngest one was the same way, he kept coming to our troop meetings in Oct, Nov, Dec, and Jan two years ago when he was a Webelos 2. He loves our den meetings, but his eyes were transfixed on the troop and what his Eagle brothers were doing! He was lucky. He didn't have to convince the scoutmaster too hard since his father is the scoutmaster.

 

Again, personally, Webelos program is way too long! When the Webs come in, they are either very excited (75% of them) or burned out (25%). Along with them, their parents are either very burned out (75% of them) or very excited (25% of them). The longer the program, the higher the percentage of burned out scouts and parents (mostly den leaders).(This message has been edited by OneHour)

[Eagle92]

It really depends. My pack has crossed them over in Dec. one time, and the boys were not ready. Another time we did it in Jan. and it was great. This year we were delayed, and they crossed over this past monday.

 

Agree some Web IIs are chomping at the bit. Heck I got a Bear who want to start camping every month right now!

[momof2cubs]

It really does depend on the kid too. My youngest son's den, I shudder sometimes when I think about it. They are Bears now and it gives me chills to think we have only have a year and a half to get them ready for boy scouts. They are a younger bunch, many with ADD, so it is VERY difficult. I highly doubt we will be crossing any of them over any sooner than we have to.

 

We are really going to have to bring our A game to get them ready during the webs years.

[Austinole]

We crossover in March. I'm pretty sure our Webelos want to stick around for one last Derby run.

[Eagledad]

Crossovers are kind of hard. Troops will do what the packs want, but they usually have the calender planned so they can get new scouts up to speed before summer camp. Our troop would liked to have all the new scouts by the middle of February and plan around that. Packs typically try to program around Blue and Gold, but Dens a lot of the time have their own agenda as well, so it can get messy. After I had a few years as a troop leader and Pack Leader, I tried to get the pack to schedule crossovers and AOLs at Pack meetings and leave the Blue and Gold to just plain fun pack awards. Pack meetings are easier for Troops to send a representative for the crossovers. Pack meetings are easier for the CM to add a crossover or AOL if one suddenly pops up later in the year.

 

We had years where our pack had 30 Webelos in three dens crossing over into six troops. And, several of the families didn't pick a troop until just a few minutes before the crossover. But you know, I remember those days fondly.

 

Barry

[mikecummings157]

The Pack I'm affiliated in crosses the Webelos 2 to Boy Scouts @ the Blue-n-Gold Banquet in February.

 

Another local Pack crosses them over in late March.

 

As Scoutmaster of a Troop, it's preferred to get them earlier to get them more experience before summer camp. We've gotten boys from both Packs and the extra month helps.

 

As a side note, the Pack I'm affiliated with has a seperate "Crossover" in late April or early May, where we have the younger boys cross the bridge to the next level, i.e Wolf to Bear. This way they can work on the next rank over the summer if they'd like to.

[JMHawkins]

Our troop gets new scouts all year long. We're still pretty new and recruit aggressively outside of Cub Scouts, and those guys come in whenever. So we don't really have a schedule built around getting new guys ready for Summer Camp since we get them all the time anyway. Our schedule is more about what sort of places we can go at what time of year.

 

We did cross over a bunch of Webelos, plus signed up some of their non-cub friends from a soccer team, in December. Their first campout was January. Friday night the temps got below 30. Saturday morning was a steady cold rain giving way to snow around noon, which lasted on and off for the afternoon. Sunday morning we woke to a freezing drizzle while we broke camp and packed up.

 

Every single new kid said he loved it. 30 person snowball fights and earning their Totin' Chits seemed to be the highlights. I was really proud of their PLs. One of the new guys is the son of a friend of mine, and his dad told me he came home from the meeting two weeks before the campout with a list of gear his PL strongly suggested he get to stay warm. This was our 3rd straight sub-freezing trip, and the scouts are getting pretty good at it. They helped the new guys just like they were supposed to.

 

Myself, I'm looking forward to some warmer weather...

 

From the Pack side, there are two packs in our town. One had two WebII dens, the other one. The dens have all scheduled their own crossovers, independant of normal pack meetings and on their own schedule. One (the one above) crossed over in Dec. because all their guys were ready. Another crossed over in Jan (their first campout will be Klondike), and the third (same Pack as the Dec den) will cross over this month. A couple of years ago our pack did a crossover in June because it took that long for the guys to finish. Not sure when my son's WebI den will crossover next year, but I'm pretty sure he'll want it to be as early as possible.