This year, I’ve changed roles within our Cub Scout pack, and am now the Cubmaster. Therefore, may normal year plan will instead be about our Pack year plan. Because I still want to think about it, and to be sure that I know each of the rank requirements, I think that I will still write up a (Hypothetical) Bear Den Year Plan at a later time.
Our Pack is shaping up to be smaller and younger than in recent years. We just crossed over a large group of AOL’s and the two classes following that have always been small. However, we have lots of 3rd graders, and I think that the kids are positively responding to the extra responsibilities being placed on them. If anything, I think that this year will be a good building year, setting the pack up for some more activities next summer and year.
One addition that we made for this year is including the Scouting Outdoor Code during our opening flag ceremony. I really want to try to add more ecology into our program, and this is one way that we can start to elevate those concepts to the same level as the Pledge of Allegiance, Scout Oath, and Scout Law. In case you aren’t familiar with it the Outdoor Code is:
As an American, I will do my best to:
Be clean in my outdoor manners,
Be careful with fire,
Be considerate in the outdoors, and
Be conservation-minded
Here are the Pack Meetings and Events that we have planned for this year:
September: Paper Rocket Construction and Blast off
https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/295786main_Rockets_Adv_High_Power_Paper.pdf
October: Military Speaker to talk about Uniforms
This is a meeting that I’ve been wanting to have for a while. We have some difficulty with kids wearing their uniforms correctly, if at all. But uniforms are important. They signify both membership in a group, but also a way to show individual experience and achievement. I think that having someone from outside of scouting, who wears a uniform, speak to these things along with me will help the kids to listen and hopefully retain this a little better.
November: Raingutter Regatta
December: Movie Night – We use the school cafeteria one evening, entire families are invited and encouraged to bring their sleeping bags to “camp out”
January: Snow Tubing at a local ski hill https://skisunburst.com/
Also, we are having a mid-year awards night. Especially for the new scouts, I think that it is important for them to get that Bobcat badge early on and be able to have something on that uniform.
February: Overnight at the Museum – because the pack is young, we wanted to opt for a camping experience that would be very easy and accessible, but still be interesting. This looks like a well-organized program. For the actual camping, we get assigned a “region” exhibit within North America in which we get to camp. I hope that we get the arctic, but I think that we can have fun talking about what it would be like to be camping under the stars in whichever region we are assigned (I believe the rooms are Plains, Rockies, Northern Forest, Arctic, Southwest/Desert, Southeast/Swamp, and Pacific Northwest).
March: The Bear Den is going to lead the pack (which again consists of younger scouts) in a carnival with games that they have learned and prepared. This fulfills the “Grin and Bear it” adventure in the Bear program. While this adventure has been recently removed as a required adventure and is now only an elective adventure, I think that it will give our budding leaders of this big group each a chance to plan and execute a role to make the carnival happen.
April: Indoor rock climbing https://adventurerock.com/
Also, Pinewood Derby race
May: Blue and Gold Banquet – We thought that we would try moving the Blue and Gold Banquet up into May instead of our normal June to make it a little easier on families rather than having it right at the end of the school year.
June: Camping at the Zoo – The county zoo has a scouting weekend where packs and troops can camp overnight. As far as I know this is the only event in our area where Cub Scouts of any age can camp at the same event as the older Scouts BSA kids. I think that it could help with retention for our young kids to have a chance to see some of the older scouts in action and doing some fun demonstrations.
We haven’t planned next summer at all yet, I guess for two reasons, first it is the start of next program year, and we tend to be a little more spur of the moment and more informal in the summer with our events.