Planning for the Year

[Betty]

How do you plan for next year's Den meetings? I will be leading the Wolf Den next year and am worried. I have not had to set up the meetings before.

Do you set a date and time for all of the meetings now and get all of the stuff you need together now? or do you wait and do it on a month to month basis?

Do you follow the monthly themes or do you do your own thing?

Any advice would be appreciated. :D

[ScoutmasterJerry]

The very best tool... available either at your local Scout Shop or Council office is the Cub Scout Program helps.
This outlines week to week.. month to month everything to make you successful...
What songs to sing (and the words)
What crafts to do (and instructions)
Everything.
Way back when I was a Den leader (many moons ago)...
I used this tool and found it, as the commercial states....PRICELESS!

Good Luck to ya
Happy Scouting!!

[WB Bear]

Congratulations! You are beginning of an experience of your lifetime! Not only will you have quality time, fun and adventure with your son you will also can have a huge positive impact on building strong character values for him and many others.

Those are very common questions. Have you been to Den Leader Training yet? If not find out when one is and go to it. Also there is multitude of literature available that will help you in planning your meetings. You can also visit the BSA site for an abundance of information at http://www.scouting.org/nav/enter.jsp?s=ca.

Following the monthly themes is a great, idea because there is already a lot of information and plans already developed for you. Hopefully your District Cub Roundtables (plan on finding out when they are and go to them too!) they should be presenting ideas and some hands activities for you on the theme for the next month. Packs also follow a monthly theme so all your den meetings for the month will culminate in an outstanding pack meeting. You are not tied to the month themes but you should be tied to whatever theme the Pack has planned in the Pack Committee meetings. Planning is so important for anything to be successful! Check with your Pack and see what they have planned. Successful Packs have an Annual Planning meeting during the summer usually. For example February is Blue and Gold, one month for Pinewood Derbies, etc.

The Den Meetings are your meetings. Schedule them at a date, time and place works for you; of course take into consideration your assistant leaders schedules too. It is important too for the meetings the same throughout the year. The Cubs and parents need to know for example that Thursday is the “meeting night” just like Wednesday is usually Church nights.

I found that attending Leader training, Roundtables, Powwows and whatever supplement trainings I could was very worthwhile and made me feel much more at ease. But more importantly it made the program so much better for the boys. It was well worth the time involved.

Best of Luck to you and don’t ever stop seeking information.

[Nuts4Scouts]

Welcome Betty!

Wolf Dens are H-O-O-O-W-L-I-N !!!

Please don't feel we are picking on you if we stress training. Well done training can be immensely helpful to you. The chance to interact with other den leaders & pick their brains is, in itself, very valuable. So - If you have not done so already, head first to BSA's Online Learning Center -

http://olc.scouting.org/

You will be asked to sign up and give some info. This helps National, & your council, to know who you are & what training you have completed.

After signing up, take Youth Protection Training & Cub Scout Fast Start. Go thru all of the sections in the Fast Start, it will help you to get a good overview of how it all fits together. There are lots of other trainings there that, while they might not be directly useful to you now, help you see where your son will be going in a few years. So, go back and browse thru them from time to time. You will get a feeling for the entire BSA program.

Next sign up for your Council's New Leaders Essentials & Den Leader Specific Training as soon as possible. This will be a chunk of time you are investing, but, as the blurb goes, "Every Boy Deserves a Trained Leader"!

Two books you should get right now from your council shop are the Cub Scout Leader Book and the Wolf Handbook. The Leader Book has all of the rules, regs, & ideas. Use the Handbook to help plan your meetings. The 2007-2008 Program Helps book is also a great resource. BSA has 2 months of the Program Helps at a time on their National Website, along with LOTS of info for new den leaders!

http://www.scouting.org/nav/cs/l-main.html

Another little thing that helps new leaders is the Den Meeting Program worksheet. Your Cub Scout Leader Book will have this, but here is one from BSA's forms site -

http://www.scouting.org/forms/33826.pdf

It lays out the parts of the meeting nicely and give you space to write notes.

Contact your Cubmaster. Get a copy of the most current Pack calendar, there might not be one for the 2007-2008 year yet. Find out which of the Pack activities from last year will most likely be repeated this year and if there are tentative dates. Use this info, along with school & sport calendars to help put together your den's calendar.

When planing program for your den, keep in mind that most of the requirements & electives are ment to be done at home with the family. This means that good communication with your families is a must! Also good tracking paperwork on your part will help keep you sane. The Leader Book & BSA forms site includes some, others can be found on the Web.

Go thru the Wolf book and pick a few requirements & electives that you feel will work well in a den setting with all of the boys. Use this as the basis of what the den will do and plan around those. Start off with what just the first month of meetings. This will give you something to start with while you find out what else is going on. You will be able to do a better planning job in late summer, early fall, once all of the different calendars come out & you have an idea of what the Pack is planning. Put together a general den calendar for the year, but remember, things change, stuff happens & opportunities present themselves along the way, so stay flexible.

Meeting place, day & time - Again, check with your Cubmaster or Committee Chair. Your Charter Organization might have a place available for you to use, but they probably require prior scheduling. Even if you meet in a home, the earlier you can provide your families with a set schedule for them to add to their calendars the better. Weekly meetings at the same day, time, & place work best. Any changes in the meeting schedule should be well communicated to your families. These changes can include outings, temporary changes to the time or day, or cancelled meetings.

Attend all Pack Committee meetings. This is how you find out what your den will be doing for the upcoming Pack meetings and where you will have input into your Pack. DON'T DO THIS ALONE!!! Include your Asst Den Leader(s) in ALL of your planning! Ask questions at training. Attend & ask questions at your District monthly Roundtables. Ask questions of some of your Pack's old time leaders. Ask questions here. Ask questions at other Scout forums. Yahoo has some good ones. Here is one I like - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Cub-Scout-Talk/

OK - my novella is done! Sorry about the length! Hope it helps some!

[Nuts4Scouts]

Whoops - Sorry, one more thought!

Even though National changed the Tiger program last year to put the Bobcat before the Tiger award, many Packs opted to wait until this year to implement the change.

If your boys have not completed their Bobcat yet, that is what you should be concentrating on for the first month of den meetings.

Have Fun & Happy Scouting!!

[Eagle85]

Congrats on your new role as a Wolf Leader. There has been some fantastic advice already posted and I agree with it all.

The only point I would add is about tracking each scout's advancement along the Wolf trail. I know from my own experience that keeping track of who has completed what achievements/electives can be tough. Check to see if your pack has any advancement software in place for the den leaders to use (note: some packs have software set up for the pack level but not necessarily for the individual dens to access). If not, I would recommend you consider using the CubTrax software (http://trax.boy-scouts.net/cubtrax.htm). It's free and very simple to use.

I used this software for both my Wolf and Bear years and it made den life a whole lot easier. I printed off the summary sheets each week and handed them out to the parents to update during the meeting. I also used the extra space on the attendance sheet to note what was covered at each activity. This allowed me to easily explain to parents why their scout needed to make up an activity that all the other scouts had completed (i.e. their son was absent that meeting).

This is just a suggestion of course. If you're not comfortable with computers you can accomplish the same thing with a pad of graph paper and some patience. Best of luck!

[Betty]

Thank you all of this wonderful advice!!! I am going to go back and start clicking the links to see more!

I am sure I will be back in the future with more questions!

Thanks again :D

[Kronscjg]

Try this link to help with tracking if you are comfortable with a computer they are handy


http://www.geocities.com/~pack215/cub-tracker.html

[Den5Pack457]

How's it going? The hard part now is to pick and choose which of these tools works best for you. :) I hope all is going great!