USSSP - Baloo's Bugle

OPENING CEREMONIES

Opening in Other Languages

Santa Clara County Council

Use the resources of the boys and their families to come up with costumes from various other countries. Each boy can represent a different country or you can have several boys represent the same country. Have all the boys in the den stand in front of the group when it is time to start. Each boy or group, in turn, should then say, “Good evening” or “Hello” in the language of the country they represent. And then teach the entire group how to say it. After each language has been practiced, the audience is divided into smaller groups, one for each country represented. The Den Chief, at a given signal, then leads the entire group in saying “Good evening/Hello” all at once in all the languages.

Family Tree Opening:

Santa Clara County Council

You can have the Cubmaster read this or divide it upand have Cubs do the different parts. Or maybe you would want to use it as a Cubmaster’s Minute for closing. CD

A family is like a strong and beautiful tree. The family’s faith in God are in its roots. The parents make up the trunk of our family tree, and the children are the branches. A poet named Helen Crawford made that comparison in a poem I would like to read to you. It’s called “The Family Tree” and it goes like this:

There’s one thing in God’s nature world that means a lot to me.

It symbolizes much of life; it is a lovely tree.

With roots so deep in God’s rich earth, it’s not disturbed by weather,

Like families with faith in God who live in peace together.

It’s trunk, the body strong and firm like parents everywhere,

To guide, control, direct, sustain the offspring which they bear.

The branches which like children spread in every known direction.

Until the fruits of their growth has reached it full perfection.

And so a tree appears to me the gem of God’s creation,

As it portrays our families which constitutes a nation.

Each of us can do our part to make our family tree stronger and more beautiful. How? By loving all the family members. Children can do it by obeying their parents, and parents showing love and fair play to their children. Let’s all resolve to strengthen out family ties.

A Family Is...

Timucua District, North Florida Council

A FAMILY IS people giving and receiving love.
A FAMILY IS people getting angry, but still loving each other.
A FAMILY IS people loving the differences about each other.
A FAMILY IS people talking and listening to each other.
A FAMILY IS people caring about what happens to each other, and letting it show.
A FAMILY IS people laughing and crying without feeling ashamed of it.
A FAMILY IS people sharing with each other.
A FAMILY IS people reaching out and leaning on each other.
A FAMILY IS people having fun together.
A FAMILY IS people giving strength to each other and feeling loyal to each other.
A FAMILY IS people LOVING one another, through good times and bad.

Our Family

Baltimore Area Council

Personnel: 4 Cub Scouts

Equipment: American Flag

Setting: Cubs standing around flag.

Our families have fun by being involved in all the Cub Scout activities, like coming to Pack meetings.

Our families have fun by helping our Cub Scouts with achievements, to advance in rank.

Our families have fun by thinking up projects for our Dens.

Just as we have fun in our Dens and Pack meetings, we also can have fun in our families. We can do things together, like saying the Pledge of Allegiance together. (Lead the pledge.)

It Is Our Family’s Belief

Baltimore Area Council

Arrangement: Eight boys, each boy reads a line - colors are posted and Pledge of Allegiance is recited.

It is our family’s belief
And one for which we pray
That Thanksgiving become a lifestyle
And not just a day.
We’re thankful for our family,
And for good friends it’s true,
For all the blessings we’ve received
Today, and all year through...

Families

Baltimore Area Council

Personnel: 8 Cub Scouts

Equipment: 8 Boys each holding a letter that spells out FAMILIES - with their lines written in LARGE print on back.

F: Folks, we are here to welcome you.
A: Advantages, we have so many.
M: Mom and Dad, we’re glad you are here.
I: Imagine how much fun we’re going to have this year.
L: Laughing and playing together as a family.
I: I think it’s great to be a Cub Scout.
E: Everyone, let’s all please stand.
S: Saluting together as we Pledge Allegiance to our flag so dear.

Family Opening

Baltimore Area Council

Have each boy hold a sign with one of the following letters on the front and the script on the back in LARGE print:

F - is for Father who is my role model as I grow
A -is for Akela
M -is for Mother who shows me how to help the Pack go who my patches will sew
I - is for Me who can Cub Scout like a pro
L - is for leader who keeps me in the know
Y -is for You in the audience, so ON WITH THE PACK MEETING

Thanksgiving

Santa Clara County Council

Assign parts to seven Cubs (Or six Cubs and a Leader for the Pledge). Have them draw pictures of Pilgrims and Thanksgiving on cards. Put their parts in LARGE letters on the back.

They came as strangers to a wild land, and none of them knew what day would be their last. Never in the old country had they known such winter; the wind so cold, the food so scarce; the enemy night so filled with dread.
Never had they worked so hard, paying with aching backs of every shelter raised against the cutting wind. Everywhere they went, famine and death watched them with pale, expectant eyes.
And, by the end of that bitter year, there was hardly one among them who had not lost to the cold earth someone he could not live without.
Then, these great men and women who had nothing, sat down to a hearty feast, filled with gratitude for what they had. We, who follow them, sometimes wonder why. Did they know some secret of happiness, denied to us, that made them so glad for so little?
And then, we think back…back to some personal wilderness we have all been through in our time. Perhaps there was once a day when simply to feel the sun again, to smell another morning’s freshness, to hear a child laugh again, was miracle enough…a time when, just to find oneself alive was as a gift beyond belief.
They had their lives; no one has more. They had freedom, too. They were where they chose to be. All the days ahead were theirs to use as they pleased. The owned themselves. No one owns more.
Remembering this, we join their feast, descendants of all the wise people whom trouble has taught to look at what they have and not at what they lack. Let us start now by showing our thankfulness for our country with the Pledge of Allegiance

Our Forefathers

The flag is posted on stage, center front. A Cub Scout stands nearby, blindfolded, gagged, and bound with a rope (at hands).

This is an American boy. Our forefathers in the American Revolution won him his freedom. (Den Chief or Den Leader unties the boy).
Our forefathers who wrote the Constitution guaranteed him free speech. (Den Chief or Den Leader removes the gag).
Our forefathers, who helped establish free education gave him the ability to see and understand. (Den Chief or Den Leader removes the blindfold).
And now YOU can help Cub Scouting teach him to preserve and to enjoy his glorious heritage and to become a good citizen. Let’s remember to strengthen our resolve to become good citizens by going to the polls when it’s time to vote.
(Turn out lights. Turn spotlight or flashlights on American Flag and repeat the Pledge of Allegiance.)