New Scouting America Programs

0:00Welcome to Cub Chat Live. This is a weekly show for Cub Scout leaders, new Cub Scout families, and anyone looking to make youth serving programs in Scouting America. Well, awesome. If you're listening to the audio version of today's show, be sure to hit subscribe. So don't miss a thing. And if you're watching live with us today, please comment along in the live chat. Oh, and be sure to check out the audio version of the show wherever you listen to podcasts. OK, here we go.

0:30Hello everyone, and welcome to Cub Chat Live, my favorite time of the week. I am Tamara. I'll be your host today and I'm very excited to be with this gentleman, one of my really good friends, Ryan Moon, yay director for Scouting America. I'm super excited about the show, Ryan. I know everyone is. We get comments and and questions all the time in in the volunteers group on the Facebook group. That's about what's going on. You know, we saw this at Nam what is happening? And so who better to have on the show today to tell us about all the awesome stuff that you're working on? I think it's like what 150 new projects? I don't know.

1:11It feels like it's not really. It seems like that at times. Well, tell us a little bit about your job. Like is this been around forever, Ryan or? Yeah. Well, thank you, Tamra. I am so excited to be joining you in the audience here on Come Chat Live Today. This is a new position that was created last year. It was about around Nam, the national annual meeting that I heard about this position and thought this would be a great opportunity for me. I've been in the scouting profession for a little over 30 years now in five different local councils.

1:47And so this is a a unique opportunity that when it came about that I said I would love to apply and grateful to be in this position. And I've been here little over seven months now. And it's been exciting that I get to work on a lot of great new programs and initiatives from, you know, pre Cub Scouts all the way to adults. So just all over the gamut in this this job. Pretty awesome. I don't think you ever get bored. That's what I and I think after people see your list of projects you're working on, they're going to agree that you can never possibly get bored.

2:19I want to do a couple shout outs. We've had some people rich here. You came on at 92249. Welcome. I'm so glad for you to be with us. We got Rusty B from Pack 84 in New Philadelphia. OH, Alexander Holt. It's good to see you. Always great to see. Alexander Eagle, 97. Steve from Pack 3, five O 6 in Medina. OH, and Alexander Holt, he's always like, let's go. I agree. Let's go. Alexander. I love your enthusiasm. Derek Stergel, Hello. Everyone from Pack 169 is here. Welcome.

2:52Wendy Ewing. It's always so good to see you. From Elgin, IL Pack 38, Troop 38. We've got Crossroads Scouter Tom hi from Garden State Council pack 7009. Janet Griffin. Always good to see Janet. Yay, Alexander. He thinks it's cool what you're going to do, what you're going to say. I know he's going to be impressed by you. Ryan. Andrew, it's nice to have you from PAC 169 in Doylestown, PA, right close to me. Cub Scouts PAC 169 in Forest Grove, OR Great to have you here.

3:26And then Kate Benson, Woo, she's our new national director of Cub Scouts. Very excited C3 Cooper district O northern star scouting in Minnesota. Scouter Craig happy Friday to you too. Pack 3256 Alexander. I got Ballou this weekend at Theodore Nash scout reservation. Good job geared up so much. That's so fun, right? Christopher Lopez we got a lot of people on today. See you're you're like everyone wants to hear from you. Ryan. Texas Troop 3 3N22Y1 in Lancaster, CA, we've got Kayla Mccool, PAC 172 and 72 G Troupe in Marion, AR Welcome Susan.

4:14It's nice to see you from PAC110 in Missouri. We've got Hello from PAC Nine O 9 McKinney, TX with Christopher Lopez and our final one for right now, Steve Ross, TGIF. I'm with you, Steve. It's been a very long five days at 331 in Edmonds, WA Welcome everyone. Okay, so we've met you. We've talked about your new position. We've talked about every year at Nam, they have these big slides up and they tell you all the stuff that's coming and then people are like going to come out. What is that?

4:49So I know you're going to lead us through some of the cool stuff that you're working on, right? And I think the things we've heard about at Nam the last couple years. Right. No, exactly, Tamron. That's the cool thing is we've got different projects, programs that are in testing mode, some are in pilot mode and all over. And it's just so exciting. And as I, I mentioned there from, you know, cut, we've got a lot of Cub Scout related programs, older youth programs, younger youth and love to just jump right in and kind of share with everyone a little bit about some of these new programs.

5:25And 1st, I'd like to start off with some of the programs that aren't really Cub related, but you might be interested in because I know that a lot of our Cub Scouts are going to go went to scouts PSA troops. And one of the exciting new programs that we're working on is in the digital age of bringing all of our merit badges into a digital format at digital resources. And it's pretty exciting. A year ago, you know, the aviation merit badge was launched and our goal is to have all of the Eagle required and the top earning merit badges in a digital resource guide.

5:59And if you go on to the merit badges on scouting.org, you can see we've already got 54 additional ones from aviation and every month there'll be a couple more added. So pretty excited about this program. One of the things when I started last fall, that was proposed a new merit badge in the E sports, E gaming world. And so I had the pleasure of working with the committee to develop that merit badge and it just went live in the test lab earlier this month. So really excited.

6:28It's got a lot of buzz and a lot of people are interested in that becoming a full mayor badge. Stay tuned. You'll hear more about that this summer. And then another cool project we're working on and we're testing. We have 4 councils on board is Catalyst and this is serving our young adults, the 21 to 35 year olds. You know, in the past when you made your Eagle, you earned your Eagle or you kind of aged out in the program, we said, hey, thanks again.

6:56And when you've got kids that are Cub Scout age come on back. Well, we want to really engage those young adults. And so we're piling this catalyst program to keep them engaged in scouting. Now I like to have fun as much as Cub Scouts doing this next program I'm working on has been a lot of fun. And that's our drone exploring. Our our exploring program under learning for life is career awareness and it starts in junior high. We have clubs for 10 to 14 year olds and we have posts for 14 to 20. And I was given the opportunity to bring about drone exploring and we, we've been able to secure some drone kits as incentives to start new drone posts. And we have a half a dozen new drone posts already and really excited about that for councils that yeah have exploring. That sounds so much fun.

7:48I love the Catalyst program. I feel, and Alexander's saying he's the right age for that. That's amazing. I feel like that's such a great. I feel like it's a natural fit, like we should have been doing this all along. I'm glad that you are working with the team to bring that to life because I think we never want to. You know, everyone's part of the scouting family forever, right? You know, and we don't want to lose people at 18 or 21. Let me give a couple shout outs in between all the cool stuff you're doing. I see Fred Fred's on greetings from three fire Fred Glover and Dennis Wegman.

8:20Hi all Cub Scout pack 513 N Carolina and then Alexander of course is always willing to help out because he's amazing. He's like I'd like to Cub Scout adventures. Susan has twins working on merit badges and she loves so convenient. I agree. I agree. Susan Chipmunks and Catalyst, Derek is saying, and he thinks that Catalyst is, he's the range Alexander is, and I think he should be a part of that team. That would be. Amazing. We're like Francie Luhu. It's good to see you, Juan.

8:52She was at sea base. I got a chance to meet Francie Luhu. She's in the drone post. Derek. I know. I'm with you. Let's go. Let's go for. Can't wait for these to start. Love keeping scouts. From Chipmunks to Catalyst. Awesome. Cub Scout Pack 169. And then we've got Omar Lopez from Puerto Rico. I love Puerto Rico. Hi, Omar. Thank you for joining us. Oh, wonderful. And I love Puerto Rico Cub Scout Pack 66 in Aberdeen, NJ Hello, welcome, Tyler Konzo. Hello, Compact 210 Texas.

9:28Welcome. And David, thanks for everything you're doing, Ryan. Love all the creative programs needs love developed. You got yourself some love. That. So I'm here to learn everything for the first time. Kayla, welcome. We're so excited that you're here. All right, OK, so let's so we we stopped where we were talking about the the very, very cool drone. Drones yes yes, and and it's. Hard to be drones. I'm talking well, another exciting program is our Learning for Life adventure clubs and that same age range, 10 to 20 year olds. We know young adults, they want to be in the outdoors. They've of what scouting has to offer and in our adventure clubs we take away the uniform and advancement and it just gives them the scouting program.

10:18And these are great for outdoor clubs in high schools, junior highs. So we're piloting the adventure club concept and then our community impact. As we know, a lot of Scout councils are providing our Scouting programs where it be day camps, STEM camps, utilizing council resources and camps to the general public. And maybe it's for one day they partner with school districts, they come out and through the committee impact, we're now able to register or show these youth of being served by the council.

10:50And it's a great way to inform our donors, our executive board and the public of the true impact of the number of youth that get involved and participate in a Scouting program. So that's those are all under the Learning for Life and Exploring umbrella. Another thing we're looking at is the full family of scouting is working with charter organizations and that might serve a pack of troop and a older youth program, venturing, sea Scouting are exploring all under the same umbrella.

11:22And maybe as families, they meet at the same time. So they all come together. And I know a lot of our packs kind of do this where they'll meet together and then maybe break out into their dens. What if we did that on all scouting levels? And, you know, and we've heard of some groups that are already doing this. Is it something that we can help expand and our our reach in the communities where, you know, they meet in a park on a Saturday, they have a opening ceremony and then they disperse into the different programs. While they're meeting.

11:52The parents are having a committee meeting and they all gather at the end and do a potluck or something. So that's just something we're looking at too to expand scouting. The beauty of something like that, Ryan, I think is that if you have people like let's see, meeting on like you're, you're having your Cub Scout pack meet on Tuesdays and they're the troop is there too. Not only does it allow you to get people like involved, but it shows them the way like shows her more, right?

12:20The whole the whole gamut of scouting is available to them, right? And they're going to be a little bigger because who's cooler than those older scouts? Nobody. And you're pretty cool, right? But like, we're not it, right? Exactly. Exactly. That's so cool that they can, they can be together and do this. And I see some other people talking about Francie Lou, who's disappointed because she just aged out, but she's got some gears that she can engage soon. I know that's sad because you'd be amazing in this program. So we've got Mark Brown shared to my round table and troop pages.

12:53Thank you. Oh, thank you, Mark. That was a nice. Reminder. Please, like, tag some friends in the comments because you know, they want to hear about these new programs. Caitlin Mccool. Whoa, full family scouting. Exactly. Caitlin Mccool So all right, so let's let's move on to the next thing, which is paid troop leadership. That's going to be interesting. Yeah. And and that's a concept of, you know, how do we start more units and grow scouting. And in some cases, you know, we're looking at potentially of what if we hired an individual to be the paid scout master and assistant scout master and part of their job would be to train the parents and work themselves out of a job within six months or a year to turn the troop over to volunteers.

13:41And then just a way we can look at growing scouting. And so that's something right now it's conceptually we're developing. We're not piloting just yet, but something we we're looking at as a possibility going forward. And so, oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. There's a couple questions. I want to make sure I don't lose, Yeah. Well, why don't you go ahead and ask some questions before you dive into some of the Cub Scout related programs? I know because there's going to probably be a lot of questions there.

14:06OK, well, first of all, I want to fear the spear three O 5. I just got a shout her out or them out. Just got 4 new parents to take on leadership roles this week. We couldn't be prouder of our PAC 69. I couldn't be prouder. That's amazing. We always like to see your successes in the field. Andrew has a question. Which resources does Scouting America provide to the new adventure clubs activity structure and resource materials? What's the draw for a club to be related to scouting versus on their own? Great question.

14:36Yeah, great question, Andrew. So we've actually developed some tracks of program utilizing the program helps and the mayor badges. All of that are great resources that we currently offer in Scouts BSA. We've developed some real simple basic Lesson plan modules for these clubs, whether they meet once a month or weekly or a couple of times a month, just to kind of give them a taste of what Scouting has to offer. So they can be specialized or just a general just with the outdoors.

15:10And so it's kind of a low impact where we, we, we realize that as youth get older that it's a a bit more challenging for them to just jump right in and into Scouting. And so this might be a way that if we've lost out on some of these youth, we know they still want to do what scouting has to offer, but maybe, you know, without the uniform and just focusing on rank advancement. And so it's a really low key, but at the same time, a youth might join an adventure club and say, wow, this is great. You mean I could actually earn badges and even work towards my Eagle rank.

15:43So it'd be another way to that we can steer young folks into our scouting programs as well. Awesome. That's awesome. OK, you're just everybody's chatting with us today. I'm so excited. People are people are so stoked. OK Kayla's like we have pack 17272G and soon 72 B. Lots of us are on committees for all of them. This would be great. And Chad's like hi Tamara. These are some great ideas. Of course they are because Ryan Heather says hi Ryan, come scout pack 219 from Las Vegas. I feel like you know her.

16:18I sure do. Some great people from Las Vegas, Sheila thinking this is amazing. How would this be funded? So I think Kaylan's comment, Kayla, you can correct me if I'm wrong. Are you, you're Speaking of this the are you Speaking of the adventure club? We're going through so many things. Adventure club or the paid troop leadership stuff. She's wondering how this would be funded. She's like the paid position is what she's talking about. Thank you. OK. Yeah, some of that we're working with other departments, folks here at National potentially have a grant availability and and I'll explain one of our Cub Scout programs actually is kind of following that model and this is something we're looking at for the older youth programs as well. Well, Tamara, are we ready to dive into some of our you get? A couple more questions.

17:06OK, let's let's keep. Answering excited. They're asking great questions. They're very excited. So Mike is asking, are you saying paid leadership, scout master, assistant scout master to start the new troops? Is that what the the model is? Yes, yeah. They would come in as a paid leader from the very beginning and then recruit the the scouts and the families. And then their goal would be to work themselves out of a job, train the parents and the families to take over the troops so they could go and start another new unit.

17:37And they can work on a couple of units at the the same time. Interesting. So they'd be like an expert new unit organizer. So. And then Debbie says Pack 31. She's here. Hi, Debbie. I'm welcome. Welcome. West Mifflin, PA, Another neighbor of mine. So right. And then Mike, what from what pool are they being picked? He's asking. What's that now? The the the leaders that we might get in this position, what pool are we selecting them from? Would they be a local council?

18:06Oh yeah. These would be a local council decisions. And again, all of these programs that we're working on, we partner with local councils and, you know, in in all of these programs, we have, you know, a few councils that are testing, some of these are still in testing mode. Make sure we can work out all the kinks and see if it is going to work that we can roll it out on a national level and when we have a final product others are still in the planning stages so the stay tuned as we progress but yeah and then some we've already got finished products like drone exploring post yes I. Think we're ready to roll into my favorite part of your stuff? Yes, all right.

18:49Hotel these kinds of programs. That's right. Well, the first one is Family Adventure Camp. We know families now more than ever want to go outdoors and go camping. And who better to provide camping experiences than Scouting America? And we have great opportunities, great camp facilities, and right now at three of our National high adventure bases, we offer Family Adventure Camp. And this is for any family family that has kids that have youth can participate in the Family Adventure camp. You don't need to be registered in our program to participate. The only requirement is you have youth under 18 attending the camps.

19:29And each camp is unique and different where they depending on what the camp has to offer. Some offer full meal plans and program. And so our goal with the family Adventure camp is also work with local councils. And so we have a, a central booking kind of like like a KOA where a family could go online to our family adventure camp and find the nearest camping facility near them. And so that's that's one we're working on. There you. Go, people. Won fabulous prizes. I mean, people are going to film. I just want to say this, that if you won a fabulous prize last week, first of all, congratulations, that's amazing. You're going to have the best time ever. If you won one and you didn't like Aaron's been trying to track you down.

20:21And if you didn't respond to Aaron, we just need your information because our, like Philmont, for example, wants to follow up with you and make sure you have your certificate. So very exciting. I think people love the family adventure camp. So we talked. About that, that's wonderful. All right. Well, another program we're working on is, you know, we have such a great program and we want everybody to be in Scouting, especially Cub Scouting and how do we increase our retention.

20:49And so for the past seven months, I've been working with four councils and working on a project to increase retention, especially on new families that first year that join. And we just completed earlier this month a survey to packs to families within the council and we're getting those results. We're now going to work on some in person discussion meetings. So stay tuned. We're going to have some results by Nam by the end of May of, you know, just some.

21:19We think that we're going to come out with just some key bullet points that if your pack does these three or four things, you're going to be more successful and your families are going to stay in into scouting longer. So really excited about that, I think. That's going to be very interesting to our our units because we've, we have surveys that tell us, well, the reason why people left are the these reasons, you know, but we don't have like necessarily the best practices of our best units.

21:51Advertisement. That'll be interesting to hear that. Yeah. So we're, we're really excited. And then the seasonal Cub Scout program, this one was funded throughout the Lily Grant. I'm really excited about this. It's, it's not a new program, it's a new delivery model. We're offering a 12 week seasonal program similar to the sport leagues like Little League basketball, where for 12 weeks and we're we're testing it with our Wolf Baron. We blows. And we have 5 councils that are piloting this program this spring and they, and we have grant money where we actually pay the leadership to run the program.

22:32It's after school for 12 weeks, 90 minute sessions. At the end of the 90, after the 12 weeks, they earn their badge of rank. And so we're really excited about this. And we're, we're really focusing on the areas where we're not currently serving Scouts. So we're not infringing upon our traditional Cub Scout packs. We're really looking at private schools and communities where they're, you know, parents aren't stepping up to volunteer, but they're used to doing the the that type of a three month model program. And so we're really anxious to see how this is going. Our first seasonal Cub Scout pack got off the ground earlier this month in Las Vegas.

23:15They're one of our test councils. So we're really excited to see how seasonal scouting can go and and grow in just another opportunity to serve youth in Cub. And I guess Aaron, one of the questions I have that I look at this list and I'm sure maybe other people are thinking this too. And I know there's questions about, oh, how's it going to find and how the training is going to go, all this stuff. But some of these programs are not going to knock, they're not going to be successful. I mean that is that what you're thinking? Like some of these are going to be successful and some of these are not going to be successful.

23:44But that's valuable information too, right? No, you're absolutely right. And that's the key with this. You know, we're what's exciting is we're willing to try and we're trying in small selected markets before we just yeah, and learn, you know, and there's you know, we've already been able to make some changes and, and to some of the programs we're offering. And you know what, what are some ways we can make it better? And, you know, ultimately we want to serve more youth in scouting.

24:12And so if we have different delivery models that that's great because one size doesn't fit all. And that's what we're trying to do is look for opportunities to serve. And that brings us to our next exciting program. And you know, I think we can have a whole show just on Chipmunks, but we're going to. Do that? I don't know. We might. We might, but we we want to, we want to jump right in and let everybody know because if you were at the national annual meeting, you might have heard about squirrels and that was the original program.

24:46And if we go to the next slide, you can kind of a little bit of history is our neighbors in Scouts UK, they piloted a squirrels program pre COVID. So they just completed their fifth year with squirrels and they've been very successful with the four to six year old market. In fact, today they have over 700 squirrel dans are which are called Dre's a squirrel. Dre is a group of squirrels and over 11,000 members in their program. It's their fastest growing program and it also has the highest retention. They're seeing a lot of squirrels bridge over into the Beaver program, which is the their equivalent of Cub Scouting for 6 to 8 year olds.

25:29And so we've had the pleasure of having multiple conversations this past fall with our friends in the UK to really learn about their squirrel program. And then it just so happened at the same time, our neighbors up north in Scouts Canada launched their own pilot program of Chipmunks just this fall, and we had some conversations with them as well. And both organizations were very gracious to let us utilize a lot of their materials that they've developed and tested and we kind of made it our own. And so in Scouting America, we're right now ready to launch and we're beginning our testing phase of our Chipmunk program is the name it's going to be.

26:11And you can see our little friendly chipmunk and our logo right there. Now a lot of people are wondering what's the difference between Chipmunks and Cub Scouting? Is this just going to be another den that we're going to add to the pack? No, no, there's some big differences. And our next slide kind of shows you some of the comparison real quickly that Chipmunks is truly a stand alone program. So it is not part of the pack. It will be its own individual program. And we're really targeting the pre-K youth, so 4-5 year olds and they will meet as a playdate group in a scurry, which is a group of chipmunks we'll call a scurry. It's the weekly program is developed. It's going to be led by parents, which will be scurry coordinators with one council level volunteer or district level volunteer, which appropriately is named a chipmunk Ranger will be the registered position of the district volunteer.

27:09And we're really focusing on those age appropriate skills. They're preparing them to go to kindergarten and it's based on storytelling. There is no formal recognition. There is no rank advancement. There's a sticker book with stickers that they'll be earning in the spring testing. We've got a simple neckerchief and slide. You know, down the road we'll probably develop AT shirt, but we have a neckerchief and the key component that they do not come to district or council events.

27:38It's a simple, real simple on boarding where they have their playdate groups and a great way to introduce families to scouting and prepare them for school. And the way we're delivering this program, which is pretty exciting, is our chipmunk has some forest friends that are helping. A big thing with pre-K is storytelling and puppets. And our next slide, I'd like to introduce you to our 8 forest friends. So as you can see from Sebastian the skunk to Don the deer and everyone in between, Cyrus the squirrel, each one of these forest animals is associated with a program theme, as you can see on the right, for music and movement, friendship, creativity. And so these are the weekly lesson plans. They'll jump around.

28:28That'll be one of the different program themes. You can see they'll have a sticker book, a neckerchief. Each week a couple of the chipmunks will help pass out crayons or do an activity and they get a cute little chipmunk helper sticker that they can put in their sticker book. And so we're, we're really excited and we have 4 councils that will be testing. In fact, our first group of chipmunks will be meeting within the next 20 to 30 days. So we're really excited to launch this program and then hopefully open it up to even more councils this fall to test Chipmunks. That's exciting.

29:08And I think we've talked about this before. I think the characters are very, they're just charming, right? They're very, very. I want a sticker. I like the sticker. I just wanted to say Tory Foley. I got to shout you out, my friend. Somehow our Tigers decided recruiting their friends in class was our plan. We ended up with four Tiger Dens this season. Our crossover take forever. If they all say you know what, Tori? I would take that problem. You know what I mean?

29:37I'd be so excited. The longest crossover ceremony in the world. You know, that would be so amazing. Congratulations, Tori. That's spectacular. All right, we're we're kind of nearing the end of the show. It's been so great to have you on. I just, I'm so inspired by all the things you're doing and all the awesome stuff you're coming up with. And it's been such a pleasure. I got a chance to work with Ryan when he filled in for Anthony for a national Cub Scout director.

30:05So it's been such a pleasure and your stuff is so exciting. So and I think people are excited, like look at all the comments. Oh, wonderful. So I just wanted to remind everyone again, if you if you won a prize last week and you have a little message from Aaron, please respond so that we can give you your certificate. And then I think Brian also included instructions in the comments section as well. Next week is going to be a great show because you know who's on next week, Ryan.

30:35Oh, I think it's our new national director at Cub Scouting. Is Kate Penson, she's going to be on next week. I'm super excited and we got a little game show cooking up for you about so that's very, very exciting. So I am so delighted. Thank you so much, Ryan for joining us today. Thank you for all of our audience. You guys are, but we could never imagine working with people better than y'all like what you bring to the table, what you do every week to support the families that you serve.

31:08You guys are rock stars and I hope every week when you tune in, and I say this, I kind of say in similar message every week because I really need it. I hope you know how valued you are and how much we appreciate you. So thank you so much. See you next week. Thanks everyone, appreciate it. Thanks for tuning in today. Be sure to catch next week's episode Same Time, Same Place and let us know how we're doing at go.scoutingmagazine.org/rate Cub Chat. We love feedback and ideas for new episodes and you can visit blog.scoutingmagazine.org/cub Chat live. For all our past episodes, you can see us live, except it's recorded.

31:55But it it was live. OK, see you next week.