I am not a Pack Trainer. I am a Trainer in my day job and somehow I got sucked into being the District Training Chair. So, why have a picture of the Pack Trainer patch on the blog? Well, it’s simple really…I am in the middle of creating books for my Den Leader Teams. I have seen and heard of these being a Wood Badge ticket item. This also includes “building a Unit Library.” We have all seen the Song book, Cook Book Ticket items. Those can really be amazing. At first, I thought..huh? really? But then I started seeing a few and they are really good. I guess it’s because those people really put the time into it and made it to what they wanted. It wasn’t a cut/paste/slap it together job.
So, I I figured that I could and needed to do the same, but with a Den Leader Book. My fear with library’s is people running down to the Council office/store and loading up on a bunch of books and calling it good. Well, not me. While I am not completely done, I have a good start to it.
I am making one for each rank. I should be making one for the Committee Members as well. The Den Leaders will contain the, Pack Calendar, Den Leader Guide, Budget, Tour Plan info, print outs from the National website from their rank’s info and all the den meeting lessons from it as well. (Yes, they are downloadable.) It will also contain our current Journey to Excellent, Pack Meeting Duties for each den and many other items. The Webelos will have all that, and the Activity Plan sheets included. There will be a list of Beltloops and the Segment program list too, in everyones book. This will help stop confusion and misinformation about what to do within the Den and Pack.
Image via Wikipedia
What will also accompany this book is a CD of all this information on it. Actually, two CDs since there are generally Two Den Leaders. Both can have the Softcopy and one the hard copy. This will allow for both Den Leaders to send off info to Parents as needed. It can cut down on printing costs and keep info at their fingertips. Our Pack has a Website via Google, so I am hoping to load all that information to there.
The main thing is that all this information will be provided not only to the Den & Committee, but also to the Parents.
Right now, I am working on the Webelos I book, since my son is a Webelos I. The Arrow of Light book, will be similar. Tigers, Wolves and Bears the same but without Webelos info. It will be my hope that the current Den Leaders will use the book, add on to it and then transfer the book to the incoming den leader as they crossover. That way, knowledge is transfered to them. Notes about what they did, what worked, what did not work and so on. It will make the incoming Tiger Den Leaders job easier. And YOU WANT THE TIGER DEN LEADER’S JOB EASY!
What an excellent idea! I may have to follow your lead on this one.