Cub Scouts
8 Days and Counting: Back to School Night
While your Cub Scout Pack is free to hold back to school nights at your convenience, don’t forget that every Pack is also expected to help meet the Council’s promise for August 25th.
While mass media has been pared down this year due to the exorbitant cost of advertising during a presidential campaign, Council is still pushing a common sign up night for all units. It is scheduled for August 25th. That means that your pack needs to have a table somewhere at its elementary schools to accept applications for 90 minutes that night.
Make sure you have your person or persons assigned and ready to take applications. Let Con or Sharla know if you need help covering your schools.
The person at your table should have some knowledge about the new Lion Cub Program, so make sure they are trained.
Cub Scout Position-Specific Training
North Star District in cooperation with Del-Mi District will be holding in-person Cub leader position-specific training from September 6 through September 9, 2016. Tentatively the trainings will take place at Carmel’s Monon Center off of 111th Street between Westfield Rd/Rangeline Rd and College Avenue.
Positions that will be trained include Pack Trainer, Den Leader specific
, and Cubmaster Specific training. Each session will begin with Youth Protection Training.
While National and local councils have shifted focus to using e-training for these sessions, many veteran scouters have said that their first training in scouting done in-person did more to have them feel part of a larger community and network. They felt more welcome and less isolated when they began their work in Cub Scouts.
We are offering this training in order to enhance the quality of the experience for our newest Cub Scout leaders. They will come face-to-face with other new leaders and meet veteran scouters who can serve as future resources.
If you would be interested in serving on the faculty, please contact Jeff Heck or Con Sullivan.
If your pack does not have a Pack Trainer, please make a special effort to send a representative. This will help us move the District to its goal of 100% trained scouters.
Specific dates and times are to be determined.
REMINDER: District Committee August 4th
A quick reminder that the District Committee will be meeting August 4th at 7:00 pm at Second Presbyterian Church, 7700 N Meridian St, Rm 407, Indianapolis, IN 46260.
Fall Camporee planning is full swing. Please work on your troop’s event. Some ideas are available on a previous post.
We are also working on finalizing basic information about the Winter and Spring Camporees, so come with your thoughts.
Membership subcommittee is in full swing preparing for Back to School Recruitment. Your packs and troops plans to participate (yes, troops helping packs recruit) is crucial for our success. We already know that some packs are spread thin on manpower. They are small and cover many schools on August 25th. Your help is needed for their success.
Fall also has many special events like a Rocket Launch in support of membership recruitment, Cub Scout leader training, Battle of Belzer, Cub Family Camp and many others. We need your help in planning for their success.
Fall membership Kick-off
Roundtable Literature: Cubs
At the last Roundtable, we discussed using the National Den Award in your den. The National Den Award is a program of incentives and criteria for a healthy and active den. Many of its criteria are both a list of activities and meetings to attend and attendance goal.
Dens that complete this receive a ribbon to put on their patrol flag or a den doodle.
Two of the most important criteria are B.1. and B.2.:
B.1. Use the denner system within the den.
B.2. In a Tiger den, use shared leadership and rotate the boy/adult host team.
These lead to questions, such as “What is the Denner System?” and “What is shared leadership?”
The Denner System is the age-appropriate youth leadership part of Cub Scouting. It gives a boy a part of the responsibilty for running meeting and events. It takes some work from the adult Den Leader to teach the system, but the payoff comes in the following months’ meetings. The Cub Scouts will grow in independence and self-reliance.
Shared leadership is the process of having each family in the den taking responsibility for a meeting or two. This creates an expectation of participatin from the parents. The limited scope of responsibility allows the adults to experience success in a scout leadership endeavor that is quickly started, heavily scripted, and rapidly concluded. The result is that the adult partner finds that Cub leadership is not difficult to organize. The boys as a group require some effort to keep focused and active, but the adult partner is fully capable of the challenge. With the challenge completed, they are more likely to accept the next task put before them.
Look at the criteria on the linked checklist to see how your den can achieve the National Den Award.
REMINDER: Roundtable Thursday
This Thursday is round table. We will be meeting at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church outbuilding,Luke’s Lodge.
Cub Scouts topic: National Den Award. This is a powerful way to bring your den together and enhance retention.
Boy Scouts topic: using Junior Assistant Scoutmasters. This is a great use of your oldest scouts before they age out. Successful use of JASM’s will increase your rank advancement and participation of early teenagers.
Fall Membership: Assignments
When Fall Membership efforts begin, school will be starting back into session and other activities will distract.
Now is the time to make sure your Pack has appointed a person to review the literature that you plan on giving your new prospective families. Information and templates are available at the Council Recruitment webpage. Those documents should include:
- Your annual calendar (updated from any summer long-range planning);
- Your information book or parent guide on pack practices and expectations;
- Your annual cost of cub scouts and how popcorn and fundraising offset the out-of-pocket costs (the goal is that they see the value of fund raising to minimize out-of-pocket costs);
- Your BeAScout.org pin needs to have accurate meeting information and contact information for your leadership.
In your information packs, do not forget that we are introducing Lion Cub/kindergartners into the program this Fall. So everyone will need to update their documents for this addition. Con Sullivan is the council coordinator for Lions, so be sure to address questions to him as you need.
If you know how is responsible for each or all of these documents, you then need to set a deadline for these to be submitted to the pack committee for approval. Ideally the committee would approve these before the end of July. Maybe then the documents need to be submitted to the committee a week or two before the meeting that would meet that July deadline. That way the documents can simply be polished and printed for August recruitment.
Do your homework now: committee chairs, make sure you have these assignments done in May. It will make August just that much easier.
For more information on how to update your BeAScout.org pin, watch this video:
Spring Prep for Fall Recruiting
As we wind down on the school year, minds travel to far away places. Well, at least, situations that are far different than the average school day routine for both parents and kids.
Unfortunately, once we leave for summer break, all sorts of planning for Fall go on break, too. Have you ever tried to find a school principle on summer break? They are hard to find if you try during their vacation.
A great way for your Pack to get ahead for the Fall Recruiting season is to talk to the school principle now about Boy Talks and Back to School Nights.
Simply confirming in person that the principle approves Boy Talks and sign up tables is very powerful.
Two more keep steps to avoid Fall problems are to:
- Send a confirmation email today about what you and the principle agree. When back to school time arrives, you simply re-send the confirmation email to inquire if all is still on track.
- Seek permission to distribute our recruitment flyers to the school. Some school districts require at least 30 days notice of any request for distribution. If you start now, the deadline is easier.
If you are in a large school system, coordinate your efforts with the District Membership Committee Chair Sharla Merrick or her committee Jenny Beyers and Mike Yates or you can contact District Executive Con Sullivan for basic information and flyer coordination.
You can see the entire campaign overview here
.
Work now so that Fall issues are easy!
Fall 2016 Recruitment Campaign
From Sharla Merrick, District Vice-Chair for Membership sends this message:
Hey North Star Scouters!It’s that time of the year — time to work on the yard, take the Cubs outside, and plan for Fall Registration 🙂2016 Fall Registration will be very similar to last year. The mandatory registration night that will be advertised by Council is Thursday August 25th. Each elementary school will need a scouter to staff registration that night. In addition, Packs are encouraged to have an optional earlier Registration Night to better line up with your school calendars.What we are asking from you now is to contact the elementary schools that are affiliated with your Pack and set up your Registration Night(s), Boy Talks, and representation at Back to School Night. Please use the attached Google form to submit the information so that we can coordinate speakers (if needed) and provide you with all signs/packets/stickers/etc. in time. We are asking each Pack to have an adult leader or volunteer with your Pack to speak at your Boy Talks if possible.Please submit the google form by May 15th. If you would rather turn in a printed form you can do that at May 12th’s Ideal Year of Scouting. (Don’t miss the Ideal Year of Scouting Meeting! There will be information available about the New Lions Program for Kindergartners as well as info to help make this year awesome!)
SAVE THE DATE: We will have a Recruitment Kick-Off with supplies, food, and fun on July 15 (location to be determined.)I’ve invited you to fill out the form Cub Scout Membership . To fill it out, visit:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Sqt187BlP7kOcCdLUWE-f5SwE66N_TeGeQlkd_h0-TU/viewform?c=0&w=1&usp=mail_form_linkCub Scouts Have More Fun!Sharla Merrick and Jenny BeyerCub Scout Membership Team
Prototype Unit Handbook: Request for pack and troop forms
I am beginning a project that I want to complete by May 30th. I am looking to design a prototype of a new parent handbook.
I am asking for your help.
First I am asking each unit to email me a copy of their current handbook, annual calendar and handout on costs of membership by May 5th. We will use these as sources of best practices. Documents in a word processing file are preferred.
Second, I am looking for a panel of editors to assist in assessing the result and focusing on simplification and clarity.
Some of the concepts I will be building come from Scouting Magazine’s article last spring. They had to be more generic nationally. Ideally we as a district can put in more specifics in a prototype.
CAC North Star Unofficial Website 
You must be logged in to post a comment.