Welcome to 2024-2025 Program Year!
We are excited to be starting back our program year for Pack 337. We have a lot of things coming up this year and there are some new changes to the Cub Scouts program. First off, I would like to introduce myself. I’m Edward Francis, the new Cubmaster of Pack 337. I am Eagle Scout from Troop 104 in Blytheville, AR. I was involved in Cub Scouting from 5 years old in the original Tiger Cub program. My oldest son is a Bear Scout in Pack 337 and this is our 3rd year in the Pack. I’m excited to be taking on an important role helping lead this Pack and the youth.
At our parent orientation night, I went through a presentation talking about Cub Scouts and information about the program. Some key highlights are around the need for some open positions in our leadership. We are currently looking for an Assistant Cubmaster, Fundraising Chair, Advancement Chair, and Recruitment Chair. At our last committee meeting we discussed implementing term limits for our leadership positions, so these positions would be a 2-to-3-year commitment. If anyone is interested in taking on any leadership position, please reach out to myself or Andy Fazel to discuss. We are always needing parents to help in other ways other than official leadership positions, so I’ve created our Family Talent Survey where you can provide us with information on how you would be willing to get involved.
Another area that I discussed was the new Cub Scout program updates. Scouting America has spent a few years coming up with a new way to make the program Fun, Simple, and Easy. With that they have introduced many changes. Some small and some a little larger. For instance, there is no more Rank of Bobcat. Instead, each scout will earn the Bobcat adventure loop as part of their required adventures for each rank. The adventure teaches the scout about Character and Leadership and has requirements that are age appropriate. Also, the second year of Webelos is now its own rank of Arrow of Light. There is no carry over of adventures from Webelos into Arrow of Light as it was before. Every rank has to get six required adventures and two elective adventures to achieve their rank. There has also been clean up to a lot of the adventures to where there are comparable adventures across all ranks. One of which is called “Race On” which can be award with participation in the Pinewood Derby. All these changes and others are helping to make this program better for the youth and to continue to drive it into the future.
Additionally, Scouting America is moving towards a newer web design for their advancement tracking with Scoutbook Plus. This is the online tool that we use to keep track of our scouts and their adventures and ranks. There is also a parent portal where you can see your youth’s progress. I highly recommend checking it out (https://advancements.scouting.org). There is also an app that you can download to access it on a mobile device (Apple, Android).
This year we are changing some things up in the communication world. We will still send out emails, but they should mostly point back to a post on this feed. We are also adopting GroupMe as a quick form of communication. This is an App/Service owned by Microsoft that is similar to text messages. The nice part of this tool is that we can easily add new family members as the Pack grows. Please join our Pack GroupMe and the Den Leaders will get you added to their individual GroupMe chats based on your child’s den.
Finally, if you know of any other kids or families that might be interested in joining us this year, please invite them to one of our meetings. If you do, let your den leader and me know so we can greet them and get them any information they need. And just in case, here is a link to the application they can fill out to join us.
Feel free to reach out and let me know if you have any questions or would like to share anything with me. I look forward to getting to know everyone and helping to lead this Pack! Thanks!