Where are yall getting your recruiting signs? The ones my Pack has are made out of a trash bag material and the ones sold on the scout shop won't process through for purchase.

I don’t know how someone made this page and it got to print without anyone noticing the really obvious issue…

(Yes, it’s missing a space for the final digit. Standard phone number formatting in the US and Canada is XXX-XXX-XXXX.)

Stuff like this really reinforces that this book is insanely overpriced.

Our AoL's will cross over in March and our Pack spring camping will be in May. If any of our newly crossed over AoL's want to join us for our Spring Camping, would there be any issues or reasons why they shouldn't? We have friendships between the AoL's and other ranks so I'd like to tell families with AoLs they are still welcome to join for one last camping trip if they'd like to. Any reason why this would be a no-no? Liabilty or something? I am talking about them tenting with their families and following all rules as if they were still part of the Pack.

I'm looking for some flying machine ideas. Any help off the top of your heads would be much appreciated.

Is anyone familiar with laws in Texas requiring public schools to allow patriotic organizations (scouts) to use space for meeting as long as janitors are present.

We are being charged $34 an hour for meeting space at our school we are chartered through and trying to figure out ways around the districts new rule.

I just want to clarify under the revised camping rules, AoLs who stay overnight at a troop lock-in now require two registered leaders specifically from their Pack, or the AoL parent to attend, correct? And Webelos are no longer permitted to attend? Thanks!

How do you handle a parent constantly making divisive political statements and outbursts? We had a parent of a new scout who keeps making outbursts about his favorite political candidate. He cheers his name every time we do the pledge of allegiance. When our Cubmaster told him to knock that off that it's disrespectful to the kids doing the flag ceremony to interrupt with commentary he argued his 1st amendment rights and then laughed at her as she walked away saying "guess who you voted for". Last week we had the city Mayor to speak to the pack for the Citizenship adventures. (A non-partisan position) And he fed his daughter questions trying to shame one party and to lift the Mayors competition. Today he posted a political thing on the Pack Facebook page. It was taken down because it had nothing to do with scouts and he was told we only post Pack related news and activities per the group page rules. He's now threatening to get his lawyer and Fox news involved because we are censoring him. Thank God his daughter is an AOL and it's only a few short months to crossover.

What do we do with this guy? I suggested calling out COR and Council to come to the next pack meeting so if he causes problems there are good witnesses. My wife is worried this guy will show up with a gun if we provoke him.

We’re starting up a new pack from scratch and want to start purchasing some camping equipment.

I’m looking at what stove to purchase, thinking about a camp chef 3-burner stove. We could purchase the griddle later and have a fairly flexible cooking system. The pro 16 is on sale today for $250, any thoughts from the group?

Right now, the pack is only about 25 kids, but we expect it to grow.

Also on my list is : Ez-up 10x10 shelter 2 8 foot folding tables 2 5 gallon water jugs with spigot Wash bins Propane tree with lantern 30 lb propane tank Cooking utensils and pots Large igloo ice chest

Of course we will add lots of kitchen essentials, seasonings, etc. to this, but this is the main hardware

Got these from a friend and thought they were interesting

Is there a specific pocket certificate for AOL Knife Safety Adventure? Or are we to continue using the Whittling Chip card?

It's been 40-ish years since I was in Cub Scouts and A LOT has changed since I was last involved. My son is currently a Tiger Cub and got his first Adventure Loop at the last pack meeting and was very pleased with it. (His first time being called up for any award in anything!)

We're visting his grandmother for Thanksgiving and she has access to a pool. I was wondering if he would be able to complete the requirements for Tigers In The Water while we're here. He's been taking swimming lessons back home, so this should be no problem for him to meet the requirements.

However, reading through the information on the Scouting.org site, it seems like it's intended for a den to do as a group since it's talking about completing the BSA Safe Swim Defense training, health and medical forms, lifeguards, and separating into ability groups.

On the site, the requirements are:

1. Tiger Safe Swim Defense
2. Swim Area Safety
3. Go Swimming ("Take your den and go swimming")
4. Bubbles in the Water
5. Flutter Kicking
6. Swim Time Is Over

In the Scouting app, the requirements are:

1. Learn about the swimming safety rules that you need to follow.
2. Demonstrate how to enter the swimming area properly.
3. With your Tiger adult partner as your buddy, be active in water depths matching your ability for 20 minutes.
4. Place your face in the water and blow bubbles
5. Demonstrate a flutter kick.
6. Demonstrate how to exit the swimming area properly.

If he can do this outside of the den, do I just mark off progress in the app as he completes the requirements?

The Den Leader resources for Arrow of Light "First Aid" Adventure Requirement 3 are incomplete and seem to suggest practicing CPR on a person (but maybe on a stuffed animal).

It states:

4. Practice heart attack or sudden cardiac arrest and stopped breathing. Explain that the response to these two situations is the same. Ask Cub Scouts to buddy up. Provide each set of buddies a CPR breathing barrier. Ask each set of buddies to decide who will be playing the victim first. Explain that they will each have a turn to be the victim. Assign a parent or legal guardian or den chief to each set of buddies. The adult would be the person for the “Call” in the 3 C’s. 

5. Demonstrate how to do CPR on another adult. 

Place the person on their back on a firm, flat surface. Stand or kneel beside the person.  

Give 30 chest compressions 

Hand position: Two hands centered on the chest 

Body position: Shoulders directly over hands; elbows locked 

Depth: At least 2 inches 

Rate: 100 to 120 per minute  

Allow chest to return to normal position after each compression 

Give 2 pretend breaths

Open the airway to a past-neutral position using the head-tilt/chin-lift technique 

Pinch the nose shut, take a normal breath. Tell Cub Scouts in an emergency they will make a complete seal over the person’s mouth with their mouth. But for this demonstration they can just blow onto the stuffed animal’s mouth without touching it, like blowing out a candle. 

Ensure each breath lasts about 1 second and makes the chest rise; allow air to exit before giving the next breath 

Tell Cub Scouts they will need to call 911, explain the situation, then continue to do this pattern until help arrives. 

Discuss the different signs for a heart attack, cardiac arrest, and stopped breathing, The 3 C’s may be different for each situation. 

Assign each buddy group either a heart attack, cardiac arrest or stopped breathing. 

Tell Cub Scouts that they will practice CPR with their buddy. The responder will initiate the 3 C’s. 

It can't possibly be suggesting that youth practice chest compressions on a person, can it? Were they supposed to practice on a stuffed animal (as mentioned in the rescue breaths section), and this was lost in editing?

It then goes on to state:

7. Ask the following:

And that's it.

When my daughter decided she wanted to be a cub I tried on my old uniforms but unsurprisingly they didn’t fit lol. I’ve been on a journey to be able to fit back into them so I can wear them to meetings and outings as something fun for the cubs and to keep their interest. As a youth and aged out youth I was camp staff, venture, and 3rd assistant SM for the 2010 nat jambo. I have full uniforms for each and am excited to wear them all again

Our Pack youth members assigtments are currently a mess. Do I use Scoutbook or Scoutbook Plus to move youth members into Den's? I fix this last December but since I have forgotten how to do this.

Webelos need to move to AOL group and same for lower groups. Then I have lots of new scouts that need to be in a Den. I wish the system was drag and drop.

Also how to remove leaders from Den's and update them.

I found this video about Scoutbook for Leaders. I assume this would be the most up to date https://help.scoutbook.scouting.org/knowledge-base/scoutbook-for-leaders-videos/

Otherwise i'm looking on youtube.

Update: I went to Scoutbook and selected my own kid and went to Membership and had an option to "reassign den". Click it and sent me to Scoutbook Plus.

I recently have taken over the Bears Den and am currently planning out how to hit our requirements for Paws for Action. Specifically I am trying to come up with ideas for how to find an age appropriate service project for them. I am leaning towards some type of clean up project.

Cub to Eagle Scout, now new Cub Scout dad here with something that’s been bugging me.

The belt loop for the Lion adventure “Mountain Lion” shows a set of paw prints with claw marks in front of the pads. Mountain lions, like other cats, have retractable claws and don’t generally leave claw marks with their prints.

Conversely, the Wolf adventure “Paws on the Path” show a series of prints, assumably wolf prints, that lack claw marks. Wolfs, like other Canids, do not have retractable claws. Their claws are always out and thus make marks along with their pads.

I get these are awards for 5 and 7 year-olds and the symbols used aren’t as important as the lessons learned. Maybe I’m just being pedantic, but for an organization like Scouts, which is so heavy into outdoor skills, to overlook something like basic wildlife tracks, someone somewhere along the line should have caught this.

Anyway, rant over. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

On the Facebook groups and at Roundtable the concept of giving gifts to the scouts for holidays has seemed to take traction in my area and offering Cub Bucks (pretend money that can be used toward tchotchkes) for good behavior at meetings and attendance.

What happened to attending to have fun and the learning that happens when having fun?

Are we as leaders supposed to be making/buying presents to keep the families interest in participating? Seems like it goes against some parts of the scouting program

Question is - where do I go from here? What am I talking about? Here's the background.

Went to renew my son's membership with BSA and the charge for his membership fees is on my credit card but his membership status continued to be listed as "Submitted" with a link to complete payment. So, it never appeared to me in any form that membership was confirmed with payment. All I have seen is continuing queues for payment.

After disputing the charge on my Credit Card, I received an email from a Senior Project Manager in the IT Group at BSA in Irving TX asking why the dispute on the charge and stating that he will contest the dispute.

After explaining the situation, the IT guy was apologetic for the experience I had and in effect said that if I cancelled the dispute with my credit card, that he would refund the fees.

So I cancelled the dispute and since then he has not been able to issue a refund.

Since then, sever emails to this IT Guy have gone unanswered.

I believe it is time to escalate this issue within BSA. (Side note is I spoke to a very nice gentleman at the local council - he was not able to issue a refund; and, he would need payment to renew my son's membership.)

Question is - where do I go from here? Who would be best to contact within BSA regarding this membership renewal debacle? Any recommendations or connections you might have are greatly appreciated.

Just wrapped up our unit recharter and a couple observations.

1. Easy to do and submit. Had one YPT that was expiring before year end so had to hold while the training was done.

2. A bit confusing that I couldn’t remove Adult leaders but they will roll off when they don’t pay 2025 dues (AOL leader from last spring for example).

3. Had to use council to change my Exec Officer. They were very helpful and easy to do on a paper application form.

4. I didn’t realize that the charter document no longer needed to be signed? I got the document signed like in the past but council doesn’t require it this year.

On this last point, I’m concerned that the charter agreement is not in the online system to be approved. Seems to be counter to the last few years when the document was expanded quite a bit. Not sure if this is what others are seeing. How can you expect to enforce a 4 party agreement when you don’t have 2 (unit and charter org) that don’t see it in your process. Please tell me I missed something.

Hello,

We created a new Cub Scout Pack with plans to meet at our church.

Unfortunately the church isn’t going to approve a land use agreement, after some changes there took effect. And lack of support.

Can a Cub Scout Pack operate like some homeschooling packs do and meet organically anywhere? Or does a pack need to have a land use agreement to exist?

Any information helps.

We have a nice set of telescoping aluminum flag poles for our Pack and American flags, but one of them has decided to no longer tighten when turned. We’ve been using tape to hold it. Is there a piece inside that expands when turned? Or did the aluminum get stretched out? How can I fix it?

We’ve had a bit of a troubled history with our chartered org, a local school where the pack was founded. Approximately half our pack attends and the other half pulls from the local area. For the last year plus we’ve paid a different school for meeting space, as the chartered school required a staff member present for any meetings but didn’t have a stable person to do so. Fast forward to today and in talking about rechartering, they’ve decided to treat scouts like other school clubs and now we’d require a staff member present for meetings, regardless of where they occur, as they claim they’re responsible for the scouts. I asked if that included activities like hikes and campouts and they didn’t seem to have considered those. They’re also wanting ~$150 per scout in fees to cover their staff time.

The staff member requirement would basically prevent us from operating and I’m not super keen on asking for a collective several thousand dollars in additional fees from our families for the privilege.

Has anyone else had a chartered org require presence for any activity?

I'm involved in helping the council start a new unit at my son's charter school. He is already in a pack local to our home and we don't intend to transfer (though we might plural). I will probably be COR or UC for the new unit at least for a year or two until it gets on it's own feet.

For those of you who were involved with starting a new unit what are your "I wish I'd have done that different" or "That went spectacularly better than I thought it would" scenarios?

This is my first full year as a den leader and I’m having trouble getting parents to pay dues. We have approx 10 kids in our lion/tiger combined den and a complete lack of interest in parent volunteers. I’ve managed to make it fun and we’ve focused on the more interactive fun based loops so far this year to keep kids engaged and interested in coming back.

The problem is parents just arnt paying dues. I’ve already explained scouts definitely won’t be getting awards if parents arnt paying but short of just blocking the door I’m not sure what else to do. We’ve kept them as manageable as possible at $5 a meeting or $20 a month (or less in some cases.) Our small pack doesn’t require uniforms or books to keep costs low in the hopes that it may encourage due payment. We’ve incentivized fundraising by offering to keep profits from the fundraiser in a scout specific book but they arnt interested in that either.

I’m a 44 year old 5 foot 2 lady and I don’t think anyone is taking me seriously when it comes to “threats” about dues. Any suggestions on how to encourage people to pay?

I was a Scout about thirty years ago and don't recall much. My son loved the recruiting event for one of the local packs and we signed him up as a Lion. He was the only Lion so they talked me into being the Den Leader. I'm actively trying to build the Lion Den and we're up to 3 members now. I know the kids have short attention spans. Should I worry about doing extra or just stick to the plans and outlines given for the different Lion loops? All input is welcome!

Hello!

I am a den leader (39 F) for a den of 3 Weblos in our pack. I have recently lost my job and I have 3 disabilities covered under the ADA.

I agreed to be the leader as no one else stepped up and I didn't want my daughter to not have the experience.

I am knowledgeable, however I am finding it super difficult to come up with ideas.

I don't want to be the boring "leader" all the other packs in our troop have more than 8 children.

The scouts pay $2 in dues a week, directly to me....this is supposed to help me pay for materials needed for meetings. Let's be honest $6 a week does nothing, especially when $2 is coming out of my pocket. So essentially I am given $4 to use to get "materials"

I just feel as though what I've done is disappointing to my scouts and I am extremely creative but I am unfortunately not made of money.

Has anyone else run into this situation?

Do you have any ideas or suggestions?

Thank you!

First of all, many of you have provided advice on this in the past, and I really appreciate it. The kindness, understanding and personal stories have been encouraging.

A Tiger Scout with Autism has proved a challenge to engage. The scout barely attends the meeting in spite of my efforts to provide special materials and activities just for them. She would rather play with the toys in the library, and melts down if she can’t- like an inconsolable, hour long melt down. The parents don’t fight with her anymore, and honestly I can’t blame them. Moving the location is not an option for me due to the size of the group (11).

Online materials don’t really talk about how to work with young kids who are severely impaired, so I reached out to my Unit Commissioner and gave the full run down. He’s “out of ideas”. My wife is a public elementary school teacher and after witnessing how things go she says that this is probably beyond the scope of the organization. The scout is in first grade, but doesn’t have any of the faculties of even a kindergartner.

I’m tired of making special accommodations that never get used- as most of us know, planning and executing a regular meeting can be tough enough.

I don’t feel like the organization is willing to acknowledge that perhaps Cub scouts is not going to be a good fit for all kids in the traditional Cub scout timeframe. I don’t feel like in all my reading I’ve ever read, “this is how to have a difficult discussion with parents”. The scout Registration can be done at any time, with any pack, without advanced notice.

In my personal case, this family just showed up and blindsided me (most of the way through a first meeting)- I wasn’t prepared to have a discussion to ask questions like, “this is how things work- do you think your scout can handle that?”. It’d be nice if scout registration had some comments or information to better prepare parents to have these conversations, and training/guidance for den leaders.

I’ve seen a lot of websites for packs that have the pack number displayed like the pack numerals on our uniforms. Is there a resource I can use to generate this? I’m helping start up a new pack and I’d like to use that graphic on the website and for internal pack communications.