Why did the boys want to come to my Cub Scout Pack meetings?

It all started when I was cornered by the Pack leader and roped into being the Cub Scout Den Leader. I committed to doing that job so I worked hard at doing it well. I brought my little Tiger Cubs all the way up to the Arrow of Light. I started with eight boys, one moved out of the area, one left as it conflicted with his sport of choice and the other six finished Cub Scouts with the Arrow of Light. Of those six they all followed through into Boy Scouting and three went on to earn the Eagle Scout Award. I am ever so proud of every one of them. They are all in their first year of college now and they are all still good friends of my son's so I see them often. I must say again that they are all very good kids.

Back to the purpose of this article, why did the boys want to come to my Cub Scout Pack meetings. For all the years that I was Pack Leader, I kept just one rule in place and it served me well. I made sure that the boys had fun. It was that simple. They had to enjoy the meetings or they would not want to continue to come. It had to be simple (for me) and it had to be fun for them.

When we did the Ready Man Patch (one patch that is often dreaded by both leaders and scouts) we used something I invented. I created a game I called game Ready Man Baseball. I had a bag with tiny slips of paper, on those papers were written all the possible results of a baseball hit. There were; several base hits, a few doubles, two triples and one home run. If they got the question right they got the pick form the run bag. There were fouls and outs to choose from if they missed a question. They moved through the positions of bases and scored runs, fouls or outs for their teams. We did not really keep score and they all won because they learned the necessary facts for the patch. They thoroughly enjoyed learning their Ready Man facts. When it came time to do the hands on projects we did them with fun in mind too. It was not so much the product that they produced that mattered, as much as it was about the experience of working on the project. There was no critique. There were no contests, if one project flopped, oh well. We could always know that the Scout had fun working on it and now knows what not to do should he attempt another such project.

We went on Bike Hikes to local parks where we ate Cider Donuts and drank Apple Cider. We went to the local airport and they each got to sit in the cockpit of a 747, they each had their picture taken in the cockpit wearing the pilot's hat. Some of those shots made it into the local news paper. The Scouts were so proud of that. They swam and played together in the summers, they worked and succeeded together in the winters.

The boys built friendships during those years and those friendships have lasted through the Freshman year of college so far. From Scouting they learned how to problem solve with out pointing fingers. They learned that there are no problems they cannot solve if they all sit down together to talk it through. They all still get along well, they were at my home New Years Eve and they still enjoyed each other's company. They came into the living room and began to sing Barbershop style, I was so surprised. They even had my son roped into doing the base voice, he never sang before but even he sounded good.

Scouting in our small suburban community required the parents to be involved, it paid both the parents and the boys back in amazing dividends. There were many rewards for those young men who stayed active in Scouting.

Learn more about this author, Dame Leo.
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