Last week was our pack’s Blue and Gold Banquet, a wonderful evening of food and ceremony where we awarded the Arrow of Light to fifteen scouts.
After awarding the AOL, just has been done for years in our pack, we crossed the boys over into Boy Scouts where they were received by three different troops in our area. The whole thing went relatively smooth, the boys seemed genuinely excited about joining a troop, and the parents were beaming and proud.
This is all well and good, but something still nags at me. We give these boys the highest award in Cub Scouts, congratulate them for five years of hard work, then promptly send them off to Boy Scouts where they start all over at the bottom of the heap. Time at the top of the mountain? About 5 minutes total.
Are we doing these boys a disservice by crossing them over at Blue and Gold? I don’t get the impression that the boys really want to stick around, they have had their fill of Cub Scouts and are ready to move on to something new. It is hard to have a program that is equally entertaining to 1st graders and 5th graders, and doubly so when the 5th graders have seen it all already.
Nobody is complaining, I just wonder if there is a better way to handle Arrow of Light and Crossover.
You are correct. My Troop Guide asked me the same question. Why send them off when they are the highest to the lowest rank. It does not do them any service.
We generally do the same. However, this is the first year since I have been in the Pack that we basically have most all the Den ready for their Rank by March. March 12th is the Pack Meeting and we will award Tigers, Bears & Webelos I their Rank. March 17th is the Arrow of Light/Crossover Ceremony at Scouter’s Mtn. It is a Pack Overnighter that in dedicated to just the Webelos II. That has been the case for three years now. The first year, the Webelos II just had the OA come in and Bingo, GONE.
The big thing is that the Troops like to get them sooner so they can get them ready for Summer Camp and all. In our Council the first deadline is March 15th for payment to Summer Camp.
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In our troop, we really prefer a February crossover. That gives the new Scouts a chance to go on a few campouts and be ready for a week at summer camp. The summer camp experience cements their relationship with the other Scouts in the troop. After that, they are fired up for more camping with the troop.
We have one pack that has a crossover at the end of the school year, and those guys are not signed up for summer camp, and it takes all year to get them integrated.
It may just be a quirk of the calendar, but it makes a big difference.