Membership
2015 Cub Scout Recruiting Rally
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Adventure is Waiting… Launch into Scouting!
Join us at the Council Recruiting Rally at Victory Field
Our council will be conducting a “Picnic in the Park” –Recruiting Rally at Victory Field on Thursday, July 16th. This will be a great opportunity for Scout leaders to get ready for the council-wide Sign Up night on August 27th.
There will be food, prizes and lots of excitement and information sharing. Scout leaders will also be able to:
• Pick up posters, yard signs & all of the other materials needed for the sign up meeting
• Learn about the new online registration for youth membership
• Meet with your district membership team and district executive
• Get details about the rocket launch events and family camping weekends
Old News made New: Boy Scout as Lifesaver
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Did you catch this story last year? WRTV-6 has re-visited last summer’s life saving story.
Del-Mi District’s Tyler Hulka, 11, was re-united with A.J. Barrickman, 3, at the pool where the near-drowning occurred in Cicero. Click the photo to see the whole story.
Good story to start the summer swimming season.
Cub Scout Recruiting Resources Online
The BSA built a new website in the past year called ScoutingWire. Its primary purpose is to serve as a central clearinghouse for news from the BSA.
One example of these resources that are timely to Scouters’ needs is a page on Cub Scout Recruiting. ScoutingWire has a subpage called “Marketing Hub” where this information can be reviewed in more detail. There is one section for Councils and Districts. There is another section for Packs and Dens.
Bryan on Scouting says, “Our overall goal: Let’s not let one boy miss the chance to be a Cub Scout.” This is just a small example of what ScoutingWire has to offer. Take a look!
Jeff Heck
Roundtable: High Adventure Materials
Tonight at Boy Scout Roundtable, District Commissioner Jeff Heck led a discussion of high adventure for boy scouts and venturers. He talked about the opportunities for units to provide high adventure and its benefits to the program.
- Provides marketing panache to incoming families, allowing dreams and visions of great adventures to come.
- Provides solid leadership development opportunities for crew contingent youth leaders.
- For participants of all ages, builds personal and long-lasting connections with nature and their travel companions.
- Fosters self-reliance, flexibility of mind, and perserverance.
June Roundtable Agenda
Our June Roundtable will be held, as always, beginning at 6:30 p.m. at Second Presbyterian Church, 7700 N Meridian St, 4th Floor, Indianapolis. RSVPs are welcome, but not required.
We plan on introducing our new District Executive Con Sullivan. He will be asked to give a few remarks.
The opening general session will be “Maximizing Council Resources for Your Unit” by District Commissioner Jeff Heck.
We will then break into Cub Roundtables and Scout Roundtables.
Sharla Merrick our Cub Roundtable Commissioner will host a conversation on Cub Recruitment, with a special emphasis on what will be happening in July, August, and September this year.
Jeff Heck will host a conversation about planning high adventure and using fellow district members as resources. We will discuss BSA bases and non-BSA trip ideas, planning cycles, and problems to watch out for.
Please be sure to invite any and all adults from your units. It is very important to get as many membership coordinators from all of our units to participate in Sharla’s discussion. Cub Recruiting this year is going to require Boy Scout Troops’ help, so please have your membership coordinator attend.
– Jeff Heck
Preparing Web Resources for Recruiting Season
Many scouters do not feel that they are technically savvy. One of the resources available to units is the beascout.org. This website is intended to help people who are interested in scouting find units near their house.
As we go into a major recruiting season with a heavy marketing blitz, we need to be aware of how our units are listed on that website.
Here’s a link to a video to help key unit personnel update the information on the website.
What is the Fundamental Unit of Scouting?
As adults, we are involved in our units: packs, troops, and crews. We rarely stop to consider who is the most important part of the unit. As we talk to Council representatives, they talk about our units as packs, troops, and crews. This is for a good reason. Their job is to support the adults at those levels. Council’s (and, therefore, district’s) focus is on creating and maintaining a place for boys to do scouting.
This focus from council on units can easily confuse the adult leaders that those units are the primary units of scouting. If council focuses at that level it must be the most important, right?
Wrong. The most important is the den or patrol. Our focus is the boy and his enjoyment and growth. The den or patrol (which I simplify to patrol for reasons that will become more clear shortly) is where the boy experiences scouting. He wants to do scouting with his friends. He is more likely to continue scouting if his friends are physically nearby. The patrol is where this proximity can and should occur.
Clarke Green shares some very interesting literature from Canadian scouting about why and how this works. It is worth a read.
What should we learn from this? Do these lessons apply to Boy Scouts only or do they apply to dens and crews?
The stronger the identity and cohesiveness of the patrols, the stronger the pack, troop, or crew. The boys doing what they love as a patrol will never fail to seek more of the fun. They want to spend time with their friends their own age. If they get this, they will want to share the joy with younger scouts. It starts a healthy cycle of do, model, teach, and do again.
Cub Scouts for kindergarteners?
One of my son’s fellow Cub Scouts had a father a bit older than me. The father still had his Cub Scout shirt from the 1960’s with the Lion Cub Rank. This was the predecessor to the Arrow of Light and Webelos program. Webelos originally meant “Wolf, Bear, Lion: WBLs.”
In 1971, our current program started with the Tigers phased in the 1980’s.
Now BSA is pilot testing a reintroduction of the Lion rank. Instead of the highest rank, Lion would be a new rank for kindergarteners, similar to the Girl Scouts’ Daisies. Minnesota’s Northern Star Council was first. It has now expanded to the Garden State Council and Western Massachusetts Council.
Webelos to Scout Transition . . . For Adults
We spend a long time and effort worrying about the boys transitioning from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts.
Frankly that’s not the biggest problem.
The people who have the hardest time transitioning are the former cub leader-parents. Boy Scouts is often a culture shock.
Considering that a former cubmaster may be very accustomed to watching the boys progress from year-to-year in there nice, tidy, little den. Rarely is there a difference in age greater than 14 months. The den leader is an adult, who maintains order much like a teacher in a classroom does.
And then the transition the Boy Scouts.
Why is scouting unique in its continual success in raising reliable men?
Good men don’t automatically raise themselves. Think of the Lord of the Flies or other dystopian stories. You will see stories straying far from the Scout Law.
The internet tells us that Frederick Douglass said, “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” (As a historian, I have searched electronically all the Douglass primary sources I can to find that quote in context and to cite its true source. No luck. I fear this quote is as accurate as Ben Franklin’s old adage, “Everything on the Internet is true.”) From personal observation, many would agree with Douglass.
The famous researcher Abraham Maslow demonstrated that successful people meet their physical needs before meeting their psychological needs. Once physical and psychological needs are met, academic curiosities can be pursued. Once an intellectual self-assurance is reached, it is easier for a man to face deprivations of food, shelter, and water. Read the rest of this entry »
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