Our Journey Through Tiger Cub Scouting - September 2008 About This Page:

[christiejay]

Sunday, September 14

Rebekah brought the clear thread to me at church this morning, so this afternoon I decided I better go ahead and get started. I chose to start with the World Crest patch (the round purple one). It went pretty well and I was quite pleased with the results, even if I do say so myself . It was ever so slightly off-center (left-right) but should be fine. I'm not going to rip it out and start over unless I am forced to.

Had to take a break from sewing for evening church, then came home. After supper and getting Joshua put to bed, pulled out the council strip patch. Thought I was going to go nuts because the back of the patch is so slippery and I was having trouble getting it pinned straight before sewing it on. I finally had it lined up properly, and it seemed to be going well as I was working on it, but when I finished I immediately saw that it was a little lop-sided. But as Jay says, since it doesn't have a straight edge on the bottom of it, you can't really tell. My fingers were sore from pushing and pulling the needle (the council strip patch is so thick!), so the pack number patches will have to wait until tomorrow!

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Monday, September 15

This morning I completed my patch sewing, at least for the time being. Got the pack numbers attached, at least there were only 2 numbers instead of 3. There is one 3-digit pack in town, but ours is just 2. Jay also says, that saved us money from having to buy a third number!

Got the neckerchief folded over properly, or at least I think so. The only thing might be that I should have folded it once more. Jay says he used to roll his, but since I'm not creasing my folds, it still looks pretty much the same in the end.

Tonight's first meeting is all Joshua has talked about for a couple of days now. Hopefully it will not disappoint.

[Colexis Mom]

Glad you got the patches on!! I too had trouble with the council patch!! Very thick and mine's a little lopsided! Oh well! Good luck at your meeting!!

[emtpej]

Originally Posted by Colexis Mom

Glad you got the patches on!! I too had trouble with the council patch!! Very thick and mine's a little lopsided! Oh well! Good luck at your meeting!!

I like to glue them on with Aleene's glue and then sew. Maybe that's cheating...

[christiejay]

Originally Posted by Colexis Mom

Glad you got the patches on!! I too had trouble with the council patch!! Very thick and mine's a little lopsided! Oh well! Good luck at your meeting!!

Glad I'm not the only one. When does Colin start? Is he excited?

Originally Posted by emtpej

I like to glue them on with Aleene's glue and then sew. Maybe that's cheating...

Now there's an idea ... No, I don't think that's cheating. In fact, out of curiousity I googled something like "cub scout patch sewing" and found that some people tape theirs in place first, and even staple them.

[Colexis Mom]

Originally Posted by christiejay

Glad I'm not the only one. When does Colin start? Is he excited?

He starts tomorrow night. He was on me all weekend to get the patches on Yes, he's excited

I pinned mine before sewing them on, but maybe I'll go get some glue for the next ones

[christiejay]

Originally Posted by Colexis Mom

He starts tomorrow night. He was on me all weekend to get the patches on Yes, he's excited

I pinned mine before sewing them on, but maybe I'll go get some glue for the next ones

Hope you enjoy your meeting, I'll update in a couple of days to let you know how ours was.

[Chrissi]

Just be careful - even basic white glue could ruin the shirt. I'd recommend taping the patch on with scotch tape and pinning through the tape. Then peel the tape off around the pins and sew the patch on. OR tape them down and sew them all on with a sewing machine and peel off the tape afterward.

DJ's first den meeting was tonight. There are a lot of parents who just want to bring their kids and do the thing and not necessarily get very involved, so I volunteered to be den leader - thinking that then some other parent would step up and volunteer to be assistant den leader. Wrong. My DH is now my assistant den leader. As my Gram would have said, they have a lot of "I can't's" and "I'm sorry, but's" in 'em.

[emtpej]

They will need to be involved with their sons on everything, to start. It ain't a daycare.

[christiejay]

Monday, September 15
First Meeting

After I dragged Joshua away from the Wii I pulled out his uniform and explained all the patches, to the best of my knowledge, anyway. Got the neckerchief on, surprised a little at how loosely the slide fits. Very surprised at how tight the cap is - it barely goes on his head! Joshua informs me that when they went to the scout store they did not have any larger caps for Tigers. Well, at least it only has to last this year. Maybe the Wolf hats he will need next year will come in a larger size. This one is practically a toddler size. Took a few pictures of the complete ensemble, but not with the digital camera so I'm unable to share at this point. Sorry!

We arrive at the church a few minutes early. The parking lot is full, as there is a women's Bible study going on, and the college across the street shares a parking lot with us. We walk over to the playground, where I notice several scouts playing and adults hanging out. Should have known that "meet by the playground" means "let your kid run around and act crazy"

We introduce ourselves to the guy from the info meeting (Tim I think?) and another guy who I believe is the Cubmaster, as he would be the one to conduct the meeting later. Joshua doesn't know any of the other boys, but after a brief shy moment he joins in the fun. Then I see it - an orange neckerchief lying on the ground. Joshua is having so much fun running around he doesn't even realize he has lost it. I go in to retrieve it, and get Joshua's attention. He says "Oh!" Then I tell him he needs to help me look for the slide, because I know Jay doesn't want to have to pay for another one. We probably made about 3-4 rounds of the playground before I finally found it - right next to where the neckerchief was . Why couldn't I have noticed that in the first place?

Finally the leaders decide to call the boys together to go inside and start the meeting. We found a seat. All the boys were called up front for a brief opening ceremony. Except for the Pledge of Allegiance, none of the new boys knew what was going on because it consisted of all the Cub Scout stuff they haven't learned yet. I was almost a nerd and took Joshua's picture up there, but then they asked all the parents to stand up for the pledge, so I didn't get the chance.

At this point the boys were dismissed to go next door with a couple of the parents while the rest of us received lots of (frankly boring) info. They passed out popcorn sales order forms and prize sheets and explained the procedures for the sale. They passed out a uniform sheet that explained where to put all the patches, which I didn't need. They reminded us of which uniform pieces the boys would need. (This troop and pack are not picky about uniform pants. You can buy the scout ones, or just navy ones from Wal-Mart, or even wear denim.)

There are a few boy scouts that finished Webelos last year, so they have rechartered the troop and they will meet at the same time the Cub Scout pack does, just in a different room. They compiled a list of how many boys are in each grade. Turns out there are only 4 first-graders or Tiger Cubs, so we will have a small group to start with. One couple, parents of one of the Tigers, volunteered to be DenMasters, as we were without leadership for the Tigers.

I had felt bad earlier in the day with a headache and had already taken two doses of Tylenol, and sitting through this meeting just made it worse. I had thought they said they would be passing out the calendar tonight, but no, it will not be until next week. Seems like all this stuff we did tonight could have been done last Monday, so that tonight could have been a "real" meeting. I was fairly disappointed by this. I was also disappointed that the new (?) cubmaster seemed a little stumped by some of the questions he was getting. Don't get me wrong, I know BSA is a volunteer organization and that the leaders all have "real" jobs outside of scouts. But if I'm going to be the leader of a group, I would try to be a little better prepared to instill some confidence in the parents.

However, there were several of the returning parents that I was very impressed with and I'm sure they will be a great resource during this first year. I'm still looking forward to everything to come, I just thought we would get a little more done tonight. They passed out the talent survey, where you are supposed to check off all the things you are good at that might help out the pack during the year. I felt awful about it, but I didn't check anything! I'm sure it made it look like I didn't want to help, but the things that were listed, just weren't me. It was stuff that I don't know about, or know so little about that I would never attempt to pass on that knowledge to anybody else. I'm sure once the year gets moving I will find my place, but it just wasn't on that list. They also wanted to know if we had a job that would interest the scouts or be a place to give a tour, stuff like that. But I take care of babies at our church's Mothers Day Out program. Can't see that being interested to these boys. Oh well.

At the end of the evening (the meeting ran about 10-15 minutes late) the boys were called back in for a brief closing ceremony. Again, Joshua didn't know what was going on but he enjoyed being up there.

On the way home, Joshua told me what they did in the other room. They ate M&Ms, played some games, and came home with Star Wars coloring sheets. So basically, they did nothing scout related?

As you can see, I felt kind of disillusioned about this evening's experience. But I can't be too negative since it was the first night. We will see how it goes next week. I will try not to get to the church so early, so there's not so much free play time beforehand. And I'll go over the requirements with Joshua before the next meeting so he will feel a little more prepared.

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Tuesday, September 16

Tried to explalin the motto to Joshua. It is "Do Your Best". I also read the short explanation that was in the handbook. Then I asked Joshua "What is the cub scout motto?" and he just stood there. Hmmm. Didn't feel like pressing the matter tonight.

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Wednesday, September 17

Mailed in our form to attend the first district campout, which will be October 4-5. Since that's a Saturday and Jay currently does not have to work on Saturdays he is going to be able to go with us.

After Joshua got in from school, I went back to the motto with him. Tried to be a little more clear this time with what I was saying and how I was saying it. I asked Joshua "What is the cub scout motto?" and he said "Do ... do ... I can't remember the rest of it." Oh boy. Not feeling too well this evening, and not wanting to make an issue out of it, I tell him we will look at it again tomorrow. Will think of another way to state it without being too elementary about it. I think he is going for an explanation of it, trying to read too much into the question. No worries, we'll get it before next Monday.

[Chrissi]

Christie, trying making a game out of it. That's what I'm doing with DJ. I turned it into a joke so we could learn it faster because I have to try to teach it to the kids now that I'm the Den Leader.

I say, "What's the Cub Scout Motto?"
DJ, playing his part, says back, "What's a motto?"
I say, "Nothing, what's a motto with you?!"
DJ says, "Nothing, because I do my best!"

(As far as I'm concerned "Do my best." is sufficient for a 6 or 7 year old. )

BUT - now he remembers what the Cub Scout Motto is. I think I'll try teaching this one to all the boys before the pack meeting on Monday. I feel guilty not doing any meeting stuff until 2 weeks from now for my den.

[christiejay]

Originally Posted by Chrissi

Christie, trying making a game out of it. That's what I'm doing with DJ. I turned it into a joke so we could learn it faster because I have to try to teach it to the kids now that I'm the Den Leader.

I say, "What's the Cub Scout Motto?"
DJ, playing his part, says back, "What's a motto?"
I say, "Nothing, what's a motto with you?!"
DJ says, "Nothing, because I do my best!"

(As far as I'm concerned "Do my best." is sufficient for a 6 or 7 year old. )

BUT - now he remembers what the Cub Scout Motto is. I think I'll try teaching this one to all the boys before the pack meeting on Monday. I feel guilty not doing any meeting stuff until 2 weeks from now for my den.

That's great - a little Lion King humor!

We went over it again just now, and I think he finally "got it" - that all I wanted him to know was just those 3 little words "Do Your Best". Somehow he got it into his head that he needed to give some grand explanation. I'll ask him again before bed just to see if it has sunk in. Then we'll move on to the sign and salute, and he will have earned his tiger paw totem. What I'm sure will be confusing, because it is a little confusing to me, is teaching him the law of the pack and the cub scout promise, and getting him to keep those two things separate, as well as separate from the motto.

Good luck being den leader!

[emtpej]

Christie, you are good at organizing! You are good at photography. You are good at typing. You are an excellent resource person for the Webelos badge of Traveler!

Also, he may need to grow into that neckerchief a little, so you may want to leave it off until the meeting begins. It is usually a good idea to let the kids burn off a little energy before the meetings, it would be great if you or the other parents could lead them in some games, possibly for some scout achievement. At the very first meeting, the boys haven't 'done' anything yet, so there really little to do -- no awards or show 'n tell or anything.

Oh, and a good way to keep the slide from coming off is to tie a knot in the ends of the neckerchief after the slide goes on. Our pack was a 'belt and above' uniform pack too.

The pack may need help with a newsletter or website that you could run... there are all sorts of things you could do! They don't expect things to be done perfectly, just done!

[Colexis Mom]

Sorry the meetings wasn't what you expected Christie And that you weren't feeling well either Colin's den doesn't require the hat or the pants (one less thing to buy - he'd never fit into the pants anyway since the shirt was 3 sizes too big)!! And sorry they didn't do anything scout related.

I didn't get too much out of Matt or Colin, but I don't think they are selling popcorn (at least no one has mentioned it yet - although the next town over is as I got hit up at Dick's Sporting Goods)!! They went out to pick leaves, and did rubbings of them with crayons. And they too are going on the camp out October 4th and 5th!! They have a hike this Sunday at the local mountain! Busy, busy, busy. I hope things are much improved for the next meeting

[Joanne929]