Activities
Presidential Service Award
While becoming an Eagle Scout is one of the highest honors a boy can obtain, there are others out there.
Recently a mother in our troop introduced me to the Presidential Service Award. I was not familiar with it. The award requires a non-profit sponsor the youth. I passed the question to Con, and he was able to confirm that the Crossroads of America Council is a sponsor of the award.
If you, as a Scoutmaster, have a scout who is interested in pursuing this award, please contact our District Executive Con Sullivan or your Unit Commissioner (if no unit commissioner is assigned to you, please contact District Commissioner Jeff Heck). They will each have the code that you need.
Service Opportunity
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We received this from District Vice Chair for Membership Sharla Merrick:
District Team,
I have sent the following to the Zionsville Troops but thought you might want to open it up to others in our District. An opportunity to provide service for a good cause.
Additionally, who knows which dates will work for which scouts. The more opportunities the better.
———————————————————
Zionsville Scouters,
The Zionsville Food Pantry is looking for help and has asked the scouts to consider helping out at the Pantry again.
Please share this opportunity with your scouts. A scout is Helpful.
Volunteers
Thank you for your interest in volunteering with the Zionsville Food Pantry! ZFP is a ministry of Zionsville Presbyterian Church located at the corner of Michigan R…
View on http://www.signupgenius.com
YIS,
Sharla
Don’t forget that this is another opportunity to contribute to worldwide effort to contribute service hours through scouting. That means serve and report your hours.
Service Hours Reporting Problems
At the last District Committee meeting on February 4, 2016, District Executive Con Sullivan reported that there is a bit of confusion about service hours reporting. Even this writer has been guilty of the confusion.
Apparently there are two separate service hour reporting websites. They do not share data!
The national website, accessible through my.scouting.org, reports directly to National Council and is used for your unit’s national statistics such as contribution to the World Movement of Scouting’s billion service-hour challenge, but not Journey to Excellence scoring.
We know this is a problem because many of our largest and most successful troops have reported zero service hours on one or both of these websites. At the same time, these units have had Eagle Scouts reporting hundreds if not thousands of service hours. The scouts are getting proper credit, but it is not passing on to the units.
Journey to Excellence has a separate scoring for service hours which can receive a separate gold-level recognition.
Make sure your unit secretary or registrar is reporting service hours to both National on my.scouting.org and the same data to the local website at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1v7vmkVA0iDiQKTG4u-m8tG8lsHaGKwMrQbd93olBHig/viewform?edit_requested=true which is linked on the front page of http://www.crossroadsbsa.org.
To prevent this being a problem in the future, District will be reviewing these statistics quarterly. For troops, we will be looking at Eagle project reports against unit reports. Discrepancies will be pointed out to units.
For Cub Scout Packs, we will be looking at zer0-hour reports as needing updating.
Remember, we are part of a world-wide effort to demonstrate the value of scouting to our communities. Your reports help that marketing effort.
Pack 105 Bear Den 2 Service
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Here is a report from John Salewicz:
One of the new adventures in the Cub Scout program is to do community service.
The Den 2 Bears in Pack 105 did a E-Cycle Drive. We set-up a collection drive of unwanted, broken electronics and took them to a recycle center. Prior to the collection, the boys learn about why these items should not be put into landfills and types of material are in electrons. We disassembled a flat screen television to see what is used to make something that we spend a large chunk of our time.
During the e-cycle drive we collected all sorts of old computers, printers, ipods, stereos, phones and TV’s. The large tube TV’s were taken to St Luke’s Church and donated so that they can be fixed if needed and given to families who are less fortunate. I am very proud of these boys, their parents and our community for coming out and supporting the environment and Scouts. Wahoo!
Service hours reporting 2015
Don’t forget to make sure that your unit has reported all of their service hours for 2015. You can report that using the link on the right column. This information will be closed out in the next week or two. Now is a good time to wrap it up.
Remember we are trying to contribute to the worldwide effort to report over a billion hours of service by 2020.
Blue and Gold Banquet Planning
The topic of tonight’s Cub Scout Roundtable is Blue and Gold Banquets with Cross-over ceremonies. Instead of handouts, this page will provide the links.
The Scouting.org website on blue and gold banquets does not provide much information. It basically acknowledges their existence and purpose.
Scouting magazine has several articles and links that are very helpful.
Like anything else with scout programming, there lots of ideas on the web. Here is an example of an entire how-to manual. Another website has links to 6 other manuals.
Ultimately, you need to intrigue younger cub scouts about the fun that awaits them, thank the adults for making the program happen, and encourage graduating Webelos to continue into Boy Scouts.
The part of the program that is least within your control but is the most important to inviting Webelos to transition into Boy Scouts is the cross-over ceremony. A good cross-over ceremony is planned by the Cub Scout Pack but relies on Boy S
couts and Scoutmasters to make it work.
Our local chapter of the Order of the Arrow, the national scout honorary society. offers to send boy scouts to perform the actual cross-over ceremony. Our chapter the Lowaneu Allonque chapter is eager to perform for you. (Their chapter advisor John Ruggles is a good contact. Please copy District Commissioner Jeff Heck to avoid any breakdowns in communication.) They will typically send 4-5 boys of about 15-18 years old. Once your master of ceremonies hands the actual cr0ss-over cere
mony over to the OA boys, your pack can sit back and watch. The Webelos and their parents will be called forward to walk through the ceremony. If members of the welcoming Boy Scout Troop(s) are present, they are invited to participate.
Remember there are good reasons to have a blue and gold ceremony without Webelos crossing over. This is the ideal time to have boys make their rank for the year. The younger scouts can then see what older scouts can do, too.
Good luck.
Marching Band and Scouts
Do you have a musical scout or a marching band scout who you would like to keep engaged in scouts? Does marching band seem like an impediment to his scouting experience?
Two reasons why marching band participants can thrive in scouts:
- Crossroads of America Scout Band at Camp Belzer
- Madison Scouts.
Many are familiar with the 98-year old local Scout Band at Camp Belzer and registered as Crew 559.
A Cub Scout is Helpful
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H
ere is an article submitted by John Salewicz, Ass’t Cubmaster and Bear Den Leader of Pack 105, Den 2 (Thank you!)
During Zionsville Pack 105 Fall Camporee at Spring Mill State Park, our Cub Scouts completed a service project. We worked with the Park’s Property Manager to determine their needs.We decided on a trail rehab project.
They had been very short-handed this year and have not had the time nor the manpower to do the work. During the spring and early summer months they experienced very heavy rains that washed out part of a trail they call “The Stagecoach Trail”.
This trail is a historically significant part of the area. During the settlement era, it was the life-line to the mill. The trail was was the only way in or out of the village. It was used to move goods from the village. The village supplied a growing nation with corn meal and lumber. After the park opened, this trail served as the main entrance to the park until the 1960’s.
This project required us to move a tri-axle of gravel down the trail — bucket brigade style — to fill in the numerous washed out areas. This was quite the accomplishment for these Cub Scouts and Webelos. The trail has a very steep grade
and took a lot of effort! We were able to complete this project in an 1 hour and 45 minutes. Hikers will benefit from this hard work for years to come.WAHOO SERVICE!!!
This is a great example for future story ideas. Keep them coming.
Pack 105 celebrating their successful service project.
Eagle Project Ideas
In our meetings with local community leaders, District Executive Con Sullivan and District Commissioner Jeff Heck ran into the Nora Alliance.
The Nora Alliance is a neighborhood advocacy group in Nora. They are looking for ways to enhance the Nora Community. Increased pedestrian space, parkway like enhancement, improvements to the Monon trail.
They want to make the Monon a more park-like environment, especially in the more sun exposed section from 86th St to 96th St.
As part of that goal, we discussed whether Eagle Scouts could do improvements along the Monon. Maybe each section of 40-50 yards could have improvements of slightly different character and elements, while being part of a larger theme. That way each Life Scout could give it his own twist, while making the larger project coherent.
The idea is still in the works, but there is the potential for at least 6-12 Eagle Projects in that area. This might take some adult coordination on themes and procedures to make the politics a bit more manageable for the Life Scouts. Still, in this vision, each Life Scout would have to observe the theme and general rules, while being responsible for the blue prints preparation and approval of his own section. Then he would be responsible for the time and materials to make his blue print spring to life.
We would like feedback on whether this idea has merits and how we could make it work.
Service Project Opportunity
Heather Brownell of the Heart & Soul Clinic in Westfield, Indiana has contacted volunteer organizations with the following plea for help:
The Heart and Soul Clinic is desperately in need of a group or organization to pull some weeds and cut back some bushes. Depending on the number of individuals that help, I am guessing this should only take at most 2 hours.
Heather can be contacted at (317) 804-5782. I am not going to post her direct email on the internet, but the information email for the clinic posted on their website is info@heartandsoulclinic.org.
Thank you to Troop 56’s Bill Cherry for this lead on an article.
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