Several items - September & October

We had a good kickoff meeting this past week.  Thank you to those of you who were able to attend.  My apologies for the late start - we do have the goal of starting on time, but some of the materials needed for an advancement ceremony were not there on time and  so there was a delay. 

We are so grateful for the help we received with taking down chairs and cleaning up at the end of the pack meeting!  This followed right along with one of the main themes of our parent meeting.  It was appropriate that the pack meeting theme this month is Cooperation, because that is what we are asking for more of in our pack family.  We are all busy, and the committee needs help from our pack families in order to help the program run as well as possible.  Please arrive a few minutes early to pack meeting and help us set up.  We promise to do our best to start right on time.  Please stay after for a few minutes to help us clean up and we can all get back home a little sooner. 

We will be asking for more help with pack meeting treats and with some of our big events such as Scouting for Food, Pinewood Derby and Blue & Gold Banquet.  Please watch for assignments in the coming weeks.

We will be having advancement ceremonies quarterly instead of monthly.  This helps us be able to plan more fully in advance and put more time and effort into making it a memorable experience for your scout.  Please try to let us know by the prior month's pack meeting if your scout will be eligible for advancement or other awards. That being said, belt loops are a quick, easy award that can be presented at any pack meeting.  

 Our October Pack Meeting happens on the 10th, during Fall Break, but for those of you who will be in town there will be a service project at the Cannery.  Families are invited to this as well.  Details will be sent out as soon as possible.  The core value of October is Responsibility.

Our November 14th pack meeting will center on the core value of Citizenship, with special attention paid to Veterans' Day. 

Our next Awards Ceremonies Pack Meeting will be on December 12th.  The core value of the month is Respect.

One event we need some volunteers for right now is Round Table on Thursday, October 3rd, at the LDS Stake Center on Brown Road just past Mountain View High School.  Our pack is doing the flag ceremony and opening prayer at this leader training meeting.  It's a great opportunity for our boys to show what they know about conducting a proper flag ceremony.  Your den leaders will be asking for volunteers in den meeting this next week.  We need to be there at 6:45 p.m. and the boys should be done around 7:15 p.m.  If your scout needs to participate in a flag ceremony for one of his achievements, please be sure to let us know!

 To the right on the blog page is a link for the Belt Loops requirements and worksheets.  A worksheet needs to be submitted to the Cub Master before a belt loop will be awarded.  The featured September belt loops are Weather and Soccer. 

The featured belt loops in October are Computers and Golf.  You can earn any belt loop or pin any time - we just feature a couple every month to help you notice what is available. 

We are looking forward to a great year!  We have wonderful Cub Scouts and we are grateful for them and for their families.  Scouting is an amazing program.  Thank you for choosing to be part of it!

Welcome our newest Bobcat to Pack 377!

It is the photographer's camera's fault (see all the denial and deflection?) that this picture is a little blurry, but it still manages to capture a great moment with our Pack's newest Bobcat and his mom.  They came to Round Table (monthly leader training meeting) for a special presentation where members of the Order of the Arrow presented Bobcat ranks to a few chosen scouts.  He will be wearing his badge temporarily pinned upside down on his uniform until he does a good deed without being asked.  Then his mom will let him know that he can turn that badge around and it will be attached to his uniform, right side up.

Please be sure to welcome Luke to our Pack and congratulate him on completing this first step in Cub Scouting!

First Summer Activity - Bashas Tour

We did five scout activities this summer and they all went great!  Just to create a feeling of suspense (not because I have anything else to do!), I will post the pictures gradually.  ;)  I'm honestly not sure if we have pictures of the last activity anyway.....

Here were the boys that came to our first June activity: a behind-the-scenes tour of the Bashas on Brown & Ellsworth.  The manager took us on the tour and the boys were wonderful - respectful, asking questions, interested in what he was saying.  We got free vanilla frappuccino samples from the Starbucks (coffee-free!) and then the manager even gave us a pizza lunch from the deli for free at the end of the tour because he was so impressed by our scouts.  It was a fun morning!

They got to walk inside one of the delivery trucks that was backed up in the loading dock - it was dark and really hot inside, but they were surprised at how big it was.

We learned that a LOT of cardboard is crushed and recycled at this store every day.  The crushing machine is pretty big.

Even though it's out of focus, this picture gives you an idea of the size of the refrigerators they have at this store.  As you can tell, they are quite cold!  The boys got to have some samples of freshly cut fruit that the store puts out for people to taste in the produce section. 

"That's a lot of frosting!"  The scouts all agreed that the chocolate cake was their favorite...as they watched the lady in the bakery frosting and decorating this cake.  The bucket in front of her was full of chocolate fudge frosting.  We learned that this Bashas is one of the few in the valley that also still makes doughnuts in its bakery from scratch every morning.

They have pizza made from scratch as well, and then cooked in a brick oven.  The scouts got to custom order their pizza and see how it was all put together.  It baked while we finished our tour and was worth the wait! 

Here is one last shot of the boys before we went into the store.  What a great-looking group of young men!