FOCUS

Cub Scout Roundtable Planning Guide

This Month Cub Scouts and their families will enjoy the great holiday tradition and custom of FOOD! But wait – along with eating delicious food comes good health and fitness.  Yes, it is important to try to balance the tradition of enjoying good food during the Holiday Season with good health and fitness.

CORE VALUES

Cub Scout Roundtable Planning Guide

Some of the purposes of Cub Scouting developed through this month’s theme are:

ü       Family Understanding, Boys will involve their families in holiday traditions and possibly start some new ones.

ü       Personal Achievement, Boys will set their own goals for good health and fitness.

ü       Respectful Relationships, Boys will learn about the holiday customs and traditions of others.

The core value highlighted this month is:

ü       Health and Fitness, Boys will learn “you are what you eat,” and understand the personal commitment for good nutrition.

Can you think of others??? Hint – look in your Cub Scout Program Helps.  It lists different ones!! All the items on both lists are applicable!!  You could probably list all twelve if you thought about it!!

COMMISSIONER’S CORNER

I love doing Christmas in November.  Drives my wife crazy.  Gets our house moving with new ideas for the upcoming holidays.  This year’s December Theme is a great one for getting families working together to create something for many to enjoy.  But don’t forget about working in the Core Value of Health and Fitness by healthy eating.  I made a great discovery this month – www.5aday.com an organization that promotes eating your colors to get your 5 to 9 servings of fruits and vegetables. I spoke with a representative and they have some really great stuff.  Kathy on my RT staff says there stuff is great and the kids at her school compete to see who can eat the most colors!!  My wife and I are trying the colors to improve our diets.

So we may have two speakers at Roundtable – a lady from www.5aday.com and a nutritionist from our local hospital, The Memorial Hospital of Salem County. She told me they have a fun education program for school groups and could show it to our Cub leaders.  Don’t overlook this resource when planning your RT and Pack Meetings. 

I put in lots of theme related material (including a greatly expanded Cub Grub section) and loaded in some Holiday crafts so Baloo is a little larger than usual this month.  Pow Wow books were split.  Some followed the theme very well but had almost no Holiday stuff. Others were compendiums of years of cub scout Holiday stuff.  I have three Audience Participations and a story this month but I know I will do “The House Where Santa Claus Lives” from my “How To Book”  If I didn’t, my pack would shoot me.

When reading Baloo, please check out all the parts. Even the Tigers, there is a great list this month, From A to Z What Families Can Do To Help Their Communities.  It has lots of good ideas for everyone in the Scouting program from new Tiger to 21 year old Venturer.

Thanks to Pat from Baltimore Area Council for my Commissioner Dave edition of their Pow Wow book.  And to those of you Jim from Great Salt Lake (and few others) who told me about copying text from Adobe to Word.  Jim sent me a CD to help.  Thanks.  Wes from Circle Ten has promised me a CD after his Pow Wow is over.  I have one coming from Chief Seattle Council, too.  Lisa from Minsi Trails who took over from a 14 year veteran CS RT Commissioner wrote for help in getting Pow Wow books.  Her council stopped making Pow Wow books when they went to the University format.  I suggested some councils with good books and said she should call and ask. 

Someone said to me this month, Baloo is used at more RTs than the official stuff.  If that’s true it’s disturbing.  It is, also, not the purpose of Baloo.  Baloo is intended to supplement “CS Program Helps” and “CS RT Planning Guide” and “The How To Book” and other publications just as a Pow Wow book supplements those publications.  There are ten purposes to Cub Scouting and twelve Core Values, the BSA materials suggest activities to help Cub Scouts learn those purposes and values in a subtle way (“More is caught than taught,” we always say).  My CS RT Planning Guide has notes explaining why certain games, songs, skits, … were chosen and what value or purpose they help the boys learn.  Please be sure to read through the material before planning so you know how to properly focus your meetings.  Baloo is a great collection of Cub Scout stuff but please use it with care.

Similar Themes to Look at for Ideas

Baltimore Area and Santa Clara County Councils

If you have old CS Program Helps, CS RT Planning Guides for these months, check them out for more theme related ideas.  Also, Baloo is available on the Web for back from before I started reading it.  CD

May 1978             Growing Food

July 1978             Come and Get It

June 1987            Come and Get It

December 1987     Happy Holiday

May 1998             Kitchen Chemistry

December 1998     Let’s Celebrate!

December 1999     Holiday Magic

March 2000           Cub Grub

Dec. 2000             What Do You Do at Holiday Time?