Scouting, Volume 99, Number 1, January-February 2011 Page: 16
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CUB SCOUT CORNER
Blue and Gold Overload
Make your annual banquet enjoyable, not unendurable.
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I
THE BIGGEST CUB SCOUT event of the
year doesn't have to be the longest.
After all, families shouldn't have to
bring a late-night snack to survive their
pack's annual blue and gold dinner.
Yet some blue and gold banquets
last longer than Gone with the Wind,
testing the endurance of boys and
parents alike. This happens because
leaders try to cram everything into
the event: advancement ceremonies,
Webelos Scout crossovers, leader recog-
nition, skits, slideshows, songs, outside
entertainment, announcements, and—
oh, yeah—a three-course meal.
So how can you get everything
accomplished and still get the boys in
bed on time? Elaine Hebenthal, pack
trainer for Pack 23 in Tallahassee, Fla.,
says, "You can't do it all and not have it
take a long, long time!'
But that doesn't mean you should
consider marathon blue and gold ban-
quets inevitable.
Hebenthal and Kathy Gaidos,
Cubmaster of Pack 382 in Nashville,
Tenn., suggest three simple steps to
avoid blue and gold overload.
Prepare Properly
To spend less time at your blue and
gold banquet, spend more time plan-
ning it. Gaidos starts the process after
Christmas. By the time she's finished,
every leader has an agenda of how
long each segment will take. "I break
it out by den," she says, "so I know that
I'm going to allow this much time for
this den and that much time for that
den. They really appreciate it because
I'm not hurrying them."
Preparing properly also means
ensuring that workers set up the room
and place all recognition items long
before the program begins. And to
save time, she puts each boy's awards
in a labeled, zip-top bag.
Prune the Program
Next, Hebenthal says, decide what
needs to take place at the banquet and
what could happen in another setting.
For example, "Some packs will have
the Webelos crossover separate from
blue and gold, maybe at the March
pack meeting or maybe even some-
thing entirely separate," she says.
Also, don't hand out every arrow
point, bead, and belt loop at the blue
and gold banquet. When her boys
earn participation patches, Gaidos
presents them at a regular pack
meeting. "I'll have all the boys come
up together and say something about
what they've done or where they
went," she says.
If you take that approach, consider
listing the awards in the banquet's
printed program. "That makes it
visible so that everybody can see who's
earned what," Hebenthal says.
Pruning the program allows you
to give activities the attention they
16
SCOUTING * JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2011
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Boy Scouts of America. Scouting, Volume 99, Number 1, January-February 2011, periodical, January 2011; Irving, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth299172/m1/18/: accessed April 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Boy Scouts of America National Scouting Museum.