FOCUS

Cub Scout Roundtable Leaders’ Guide

All Aboard the Cub Scout Express!!  This month gives us the opportunity to welcome boys to another fun-filled Cub Scouting year and to invite new boys to join us.  Cub Scouts and their families will learn about trains, teamwork, and the importance of cooperation and being helpful to others.

CORE VALUES

Cub Scout Roundtable Leaders’ Guide

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

ü  Fun and Adventure, Cub Scouts and their families will have fun learning about Trains or visiting local railway museums, railway clubs, and train stations.

ü  Good Citizenship, Cub Scouts will learn the importance of staying on the track of good citizenship.

ü  Family Understanding, Cub Scouts will learn the importance of cooperation and teamwork as they begin to work on advancement projects with their families.

The core value highlighted this month is:

ü  Compassion, Cub Scouts will learn to be kind and considerate to new boys in t heir den and look for ways to make them feel welcome.

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

"Make no small plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably will not themselves be realized."  Daniel Burnham

In that small quote I see the reason so many Dens and Packs fail and others succeed beyond belief.  The ones that succeed make great plans and challenge their Cubs.  They take them on adventures they love.  The others, try to keep it simple, have leaders that do not plan and throw together quick plans of easy crafts.  And the boys get tired of these.  I know my son never went for an easy Merit Badge.  When I would showhim, hey you’ve almost done this why not quickly finish it up??  He would say NO.  I used to Electricity Merit Badge at Scouting College.  He never took the course.  He said he knew most of the stuff from helping me prep and didn’t think he would learn more in class.  He said he wanted challenge.  Ad I was stubborn enough to not just sign a card for him unless he asked to complete the card.  CHALLENGE YOUR CUBS!!  MAKE GRAND PLANS!!  WE ARE TRYING TO BUILD CHARACTER NOT FILL TIME AND EARN BADGES!!  Enough Soap Box for now

John Wayne America, Why I Love Her.  I received a link to a beautiful tribute to America by John Wayne and thought I would share it with you all.  The pictures are beautiful!!! The words are very meaningful (and he mentions that regal bird – the Bob White!!)

http://sagebrushpatriot.com/america.htm

Make no small plans ….

The Boys’ Life Reading Contest has returned!!  Just in time for all our Cub Scout Harry Potter fans.  While only a few will win a prize, every entrant receives a patch.  And the patch has been redesigned for 2007!!  Encourage your whole den to enter.  See details under Special Opportunity and at www.boyslife.org

Please watch what goes into your Pow Wow Books and try to have some material not found everywhere..  If you copy an old issue opf Baloo for your book, try to add in some things the Scouters in your council have doen for that theme for years. It will make them happy and help us all get new ideas.  Julie in California used to insist on original material for her books.  And I loved getting them and using them. 

An activity in many Pow Wow books for this month is a Coal Garden.  It says to use Mercurochrome and Laundry Bluing.  Well, I did find Laundry Bluing for sale on the internet but Mercurochrome which contains mercury was removed from the FDA’s “Generally Regarded As Safe” list in 1998, is not to be found for sale and probably should not be used by Cubs.  (Although being an early Boomer I know I painted lots of my cuts with it when I was a child)   As I researched this I found the source to be the September 2001 issue of Baloo’s Bugle.  I, also found most of my usual sources – had copied verbatim that issue of Baloo into their books.  This is the aspect of Baloo that scares me the most.  That Scouters will not try to create new ideas but only recycle old ones.  This Program is always in need of new material and new jokes and current activities.  In a few years there will be no more film canisters.  The plastic cups on the bottom of two liter bottles are already gone.  Who knows what other craft supplies will just go away because of technology??

And in one book, I found the same skit about crossing the Railroad Tracks three times with only the names of the characters changed.  Please, Pow Wow Chairs, check out what is going into your books.

Many thanks to Alice for providing me material from other sources. 

National makes a patch for every Cub Scout Monthly theme.  This is the one for this theme.  Check them out at www.scoutstuff.org go to patches and look for 2007 Cub Scout Monthly Theme Emblems.

Turn in your Summertime Pack Award!

Months with similar themes to

Cub Scout Express

Dave D. in Illinois

If you are looking for more ideas for your Fall Round Up, Join Scouting Night, Cub Scout Back to School Night or what ever you call it, most every September the theme material will have items you can use.  So besides the 2007-2008 CS Program Helps, check out the September material in past issues of Cub Scout Program Helps and Baloo’s Bugle.  Also, be sure to talk with your District Exec or District membership team for even more ideas!!!  CD

Important Dates

Baltimore Area Council

1st           World War II Began

4th          Labor Day (fly flag)

9th          Grandparent’s Day (1st Sunday after Labor Day)

11th        Patriot Day (fly flag half staff)

11th        Rosh Hashanah Begins at Sundown

12th        Defenders Day (Maryland)

14th        Star Spangled Banner Written (1814)

17th        Constitution Day (fly flag
also Citizenship Day since 1952)

19th        POW/MIA Recognition Day (fly flag)

21st        Yom Kippur begins at sundown

22nd       Fall Begins (5:51 a.m. EDT)

25th        Sukkot begins at sundown