Welcome back to a new scouting season. In addition to welcoming back our returning scouts we would also like to wish the best to our scouts who crossed over into the Boy Scouts at the end of the previous season. Your pack wishes you the best of luck and hopes you enjoy your learning experience in the Boy Scouts.
We hope everyone had a great summer and after a summer of camping, day camp, resident camp, eclipse picnics, and more – we hope there are quite a few good stories to tell. We would love to get feedback on any of the Summer activities you attended both in and out of Scouts.
New Season
As we get back into the swing of things with our weekly meetings starting back up on Monday, September 11th. We have our Open House Monday September 25th. This is the time of the year for returning scouts to bring in any friends or family interested in scouting. So have your scout bring a friend and if that friend joins and pays their 2018 dues in full, the referring scout earns their recruiter badge, shown to the right.
During this time we will have a lot of new scouts showing up with an interest in scouting. We expect that our seasoned scouts will exhibit the core values of scouting and help make the new scouts feel welcome. They should take the time to introduce themselves, introduce new boys to other pack members & leaders, as well as assist them with earning the Bobcat rank.
Lion Program will continue
The Lion program was designed to introduce kindergarten-age boys and their families to the fun of Scouting. It is still considered a pilot program and Pack 1776 will be running a Lion Den again.
Lions are 5 or 6 year old boys in kindergarten and the Lion must be 5 years old by September 30 to participate. The Lion and his adult partner attend the meetings and activities together. The Lion den is led by a Lion Guide, who is an experienced Cub Scout leader. The parents or Lion adult partners take turns leading the activities and den meetings for the Lions. The Lion Guide helps mentor each Parent to prepare for their meeting/outing. The Den Meeting Plans are outlined in the Lion Parent and Leader Guidebook with simple easy to follow step by step instructions listing everything down to any supplies needed.
Shawna, who has been our Tiger Den leader for several years, and the Lion Guide last year will be the Lion Guide again. So if your scout has any younger siblings normally just beyond scouting age, or any friends neighbors with scouts of kindergarten age patiently waiting to join the Cub Scouts. Now is their chance.
Other News
Siblings
Cub Scouts is a family program and as such girls have always been allowed to take part in pack activities such as holiday parties and camping trips. Cub Scout aged females have also always been allowed to participate in district and council run activities such as fall fest, and day camp. In accordance with this, our pack is open to allowing cub scout aged girls to fully participate in our cub scout program. While they cannot officially register as a Cub Scout nor wear the official uniform, as a family member of someone in the cub scout program, they are welcome to participate and get the same experience. The key to allowing this, is that the potential scout must be related to someone within the pack, whether it be another scout or an adult. Again, I must stress the importance of this – the only way that they can participate in the program and ensure that they are covered by the program, is that they must be a family member of someone in the program.
Handbooks
For returning scouts, your new handbooks have already been paid for and will be distributed by or at our first Pack Meeting. It is around this first pack meeting that we start getting knee-deep into advancement, and it will be around the time we are picking up the awards and Bobcat rank patches. As they start to become available we will distribute them.
Solar Eclipse Patches
According to National Supply, we should have the eclipse patches for those that attended our Eclipse Viewing Picnic, in October. The same day that the National Supply Group announced the patches, they went into a back order status. From there they continued to extend the last day of purchase until finally closing the ability to purchase on Sept 4th. We are told they are due in sometime in October – hopefully they will get here sooner.
Calendar
Don’t forget to keep an eye on the calendar. Click the Calendar link at the top of this page and bookmark it. We are getting ready to populate it with our planned activities as well as a bunch of optional activities that you can do with your scout which would be fun and may help them earn requirements. Additionally, one of our leaders has volunteered to make a printed monthly calendar to hand out instead of our biannual printed calendar. We are working on the details but we have some additional ideas in store to go with this that you may find useful.
Website Updates
We have added a new feature to the website, so that when a new post is made it automatically emails everyone that is subscribed. This serves two purposes: 1) You will always get notified when we post something new to the website, and 2) We no longer have to manually create a follow up email for those really important posts we want to get out. We took the liberty of importing all parents into the list and the email you received notifying you of this post is the first email. We plan to add improvements to this to try and prevent ‘den-specific’ posts from notifying you, but we aren’t quite there yet.
Cub Fun Day – Saturday September 16th
The Roosevelt District is hosting a Cub Scout Fun Day on Saturday September 16th, at Wissinoming Park, from 10:00 AM until 3:00 PM. It will be a fun filled day of Cub Scout Activities and Games. The event is free for activities and events; there will be food and refreshments available for purchase. As with most scout activities this is a rain or shine event. All scouts are invited to bring a few of their friends to show them what Cub Scouts is all about. Pack 1776 will have applications available for anyone that is interested in signing up. Additionally, Den Leader and Cubmaster Position Specific Training will be available for anyone interested in learning what being a Den Leader or Cubmaster is all about.
We look forward to seeing everyone on Monday the 11th and hearing what other exciting things you did over the Summer. We have a lot of fresh ideas this year and are excited for a great year!
Welcome Back! For new families, welcome to Cub Scouts!
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