Fall 2021 - Early Registration and More

Information for the Cub Pack is on the Burnaby 4SW Cub Pack blog.

In this blog post, I will address the following topics:

• Early Registration for next year (Jan – Dec 2022) – for pack and troop you will definitely lose your spot if you don’t do this, colony you will likely lose your spot
• Registration fee changes
• General Registration and Wait-lists
• First meetings
• COVID-19 restrictions likely still in place
• Where and when are we meeting?
• Camps and Canoeing
• Fundraising
• Badges
• Pacific Jamboree 2023 (PJ 2023)

Canoeing Update:

Canoeing will take place at Deer Lake Park, at the east parking lot.

Here is the schedule (green=troop, brown=beavers, blue=cubs shift 1, purple=cubs shift 2): 

• 9:00 am Canoes and scouts show up, unload canoes, prepare for canoeing
• 9:45 Start paddling
• 10:45 Bring canoes in
• 11:00 Beavers show up (only 4 beavers – 4 others went to pack)
• 11:15 Beavers go canoeing
• 12:15 Beavers come in
• 12:30 Beavers go home
• 12:30 Scouts (and scouters) eat their lunch and have a break
• 1:00 First shift Cubs show up
• 1:15 First shift heads out
• 2:15 First shift comes in, goes home
• 2:30 Second shift Cubs show up
• 2:45 Second shift heads out
• 3:45 Second shift comes in, goes home
• 4:30 Canoes put away – everyone goes home

Early Registration:

Please note: You are registered through the end of December!  This early registration is for the 2022 calendar year, not for the remainder of this year!

In order to secure your youth’s place in our group for next year, as we continue to be limited in size due to space considerations, you will need to take advantage of the early registration. We cannot prevent others from taking your spot if you wait until general registration.

Early registration will start on Wednesday September 1^st (the Wed before school starts) and continues until Tuesday September 14^th.

Although you are registered to the end of the year, because we are space constrained, if you do not intend to come back in September of this year, please let me know and I will free up your space for another youth to enjoy.  We have people on waitlist and if you are not returning we can start some of them this fall.

 

Registration Fee Changes:

In past years, in addition to the registration fee, our sections collected dues, called bones for pack and chips for beavers.  This helps to offset badges and other incidental costs that the sections incur.  To avoid handling of coins with COVID-19 still among us, and since many people no longer carry change, we are doing away with this. Instead, we have added an increment to the annual registration fees, which will be given to the sections.

Registration for our group this year will cost $285.00.  This will register you through to December 31^st 2022.

General Registration and Wait-lists:

Registration will open to the general public on Wednesday September 15^th.  Sometime between September 1^st and September 15^th, Scouts Canada will delete all wait-list entries. Please do not register new youth and waitlist them before the Waitlist is opened.

 

First Meetings:

It is very likely that our first in-person meetings will be on Wednesday September 8^th at Wesburn Park.  We will meet outdoor as much as we can for safety reasons.  Your section scouters will be reaching out to you with details. For troop, the leadership team will have a Zoom meeting to figure out patrols on Wednesday September 1^st.  This will be by invitation to those eligible for the leadership team, including former PLs, APLs, etc... 

Stay tuned for emails. You can also review the Group Blog’s Calendar page.

COVID-19 Restrictions:

We are hopeful that the province will take us into step 4 of their reopening plan. This may be jeopardized by the increases we are seeing in the Delta variant. Our current plans assume we stay at step 3. UPDATE 2021-08-22: Province suggesting that the Sep 8 reopening to stage for is very unlikely!

Scouts Canada presently has us at their Stage 4.  With this stage, we are required to maintain social distancing. With a troop size of 24 and a pack size of 18, we cannot do this using the rooms at Willingdon.  Burnaby schools are not taking external groups in for the fall, so the cub pack will need to meet at Willingdon for any indoor activity.  We expect to have the use of Wesburn park.

Please note that most if not all of our scouters have indicated to me last June that they had or were getting their vaccinations.  Many of my older scouts who were eligible had also got their vaccine. While the vaccine does not prevent you from getting infected, it reduces the likelihood by a factor of 8 times that you will get infected.  That’s means you are 8 time less likely to be able to infect anyone else.  If you do get infected, (although 8 times less likely) you are about 25 times less likely to get severely sick. (multiply those 2 factors, you are 200 times less likely to get severely sick.)  These details are available on slide 3 of this deck published by the American CDC.  In the US, the CDC has noted that a large number of children are winding up in hospital.  The vast majority of those who were old enough to get vaccinated were not vaccinated, and the vast majority of all of them had parents who were not vaccinated. 

What I am saying is: Please get vaccinated, if you have not already!  Doing so not only protects you from getting seriously ill, it also protects your children and everyone they come in contact with (including scouters like me).  If your child is 12 or older, please get them vaccinated, if you have not already.  Even in troop, there are younger children who are not eligible for vaccination. Having the older ones get vaccinated protects the younger ones.

Where and When Are We Meeting?

Pack and Colony will meet at 6:30 pm.  Troop will meet at 7:00 pm.  Your section scouters will send you emails beforehand so you know the details.  We do not yet know what rooms we will have access to in Willingdon (if any) and depending on how restrictions go, we may not be able to use them at first, as social distancing will be pretty-well impossible.  Count on meeting at Wesburn until you get an email with specific details.  You can also check the Group Blog’s Calendar page.  We will be creative about avoiding being indoors for now.

 

Camps and Canoeing:

On Saturday September 11^th, we plan on having a day of canoeing at Deer Lake. Troop will start with their session in the morning, then the beavers will come. In the afternoon, the cubs will come, in 2 shifts.  Details and timing for sections will be posted on the Group Blog site and emailed to the sections. Scouter Chil will be splitting the cubs up into 2 shifts.

On the last weekend of September, cubs and scouts will be camping at Chilliwack Lake Camp. Details to be provide in emails and on group and pack blog sites closer to the time. 

Fundraising:

We anticipate 3 fundraising options for this fall.  These are limited by the need to keep things COVID-19 safe. 

Popcorn:

We will do a popcorn campaign, but we will NOT do show-and-sell, but will provide you with the option to take orders. We recommend against going door-to-door due to COVID-19, but encourage parents to reach out to family, friends, close neighbors and coworkers to support your children.

Return-It Express:

We will continue to provide the option for you to use the Return-it Express sites to return your bottles and have the money go to the group.  If you do this, email me with the details so I can credit this to your section and optionally to you (see the PJ 2023 item below).

Donations:

Donations can be made through Scouts Canada, designated to our group.   Note that some companies have a program that matches volunteer hours with money to go to a charity of your choice. Scouts Canada is an option, and in the notes field you can say “Designate to Burnaby 4SW Scouting”.

Our Fundraising Coordinator will be communicating some details by email and we will update our Fundraising page on the group blog with details on all 3 options in time for the first in-person meeting.

 

Badges:

In past years, we kept an inventory of badges, when we got low on a popular one, one of us would stop by the scout shop and grab a couple more.  Unfortunately, there are no longer any scout shops.  All orders are now done through scoutshop.ca.  It turns out that Scouts Canada uses a shipping company that insists on shipping boxes and charging a minimum of over $12.  Due to this, it is impractical for us to keep topping up badge inventory.  Some sections already have badge inventory. Those sections will use up their inventory.  Once that is done, we will be sending out an order for badges at the start of December, for distribution in January, at the start of Spring Break for distribution after Spring Break, and at the end of May, for distribution in September.  We will use ScoutsTracker to track badges for youth, but you may need to wait a bit to actually get the badges.

 

Pacific Jamboree 2023:

OK, this might blow your mind after the 1.5 year mess we’ve gone through, but Scouts Canada is looking for a camp chief to run the Pacific Jamboree in 2023. 

Any Cub who is a Howler this year (will be turning 11 in 2022) will be able to attend. Some of this year’s scouts will be venturers and can go as an Offer-of-Service (OOS), others will be going as scouts.  With that in mind the group committee has agreed that any youth in these age ranges who earns $100 to $599 in a year  (Sep-Aug) will have 10% of what they bring in allocated to offset registration for PJ 2023 if they choose to attend it.  Any youth who earns $600 or more we will allocate 20% of those funds to offset registration. You have 2 years to do this.  These funds remain the property of the group, but if your youth continues as a member of this group and registers for PJ 2023, we will allocate these funds to offset registration costs.

For Return-It donations, you will need to let me know when and how much you did, as Return-It gives me no idea who was responsible for the donation.

Spring 2021 - Wrapping Up for the Summer

Wrap-up Meeting and Moving Up Ceremonies: 

As we approach summer, with just a few meetings left, it’s time to plan for our upcoming wrap-up meeting. This year, we cannot provide food, and we will not be able to have parents attend (due to Provincial Health Authority restrictions), so we won’t be holding it at Warner Loat park. Instead, it will take place at Wesburn Park where our sections have been meeting this spring.

While as of this email there may be a few more meetings of your section, this meeting will be the last one for both Beavers and Cubs.  Troop is working on a Great 8 Challenge that lasts into the middle of June and have a day camp the following weekend, so they will be continuing for a bit.

Date and Time:

Wednesday June 2^nd, 2021 at Wesburn Park.

Beavers 6:30-7:30 except white tails who will stay until 8:00 with the cub pack

Cubs 6:30-8:00 except howlers who will stay until 9:00 with the scout troop

Scouts 7:00-9:00

Moving Up:

At this meeting, the older beavers and cubs (white tails and howlers) will be graduated to the next section.  In September, the white tails will be meeting with the cubs and the howlers will be meeting with the scouts.  We have two scouts who will be registered as venturers but will be able to continue to participate with Troop.  Your scouters will send emails to those who are going up to the next section.

Agenda:

The following is our agenda for the moving up ceremonies, but be aware that your section scouters will provide you with instructions for any activities that you will be doing. Parents, please note the start and end times for your sections. If you have older beavers or cubs who are moving up to the next section, (beavers who turned or will turn 8 this year or older, cubs who turned or will turn 11 this year or older), then your pick up time will be when the next section up ends.  If in doubt, ask your scouters:

 

·        6:30 pm Beavers and Cubs meet at Wesburn Park

o   Beavers on north side of creek, Cubs on south side

o   Cubs may move to a different location in the park after they meet

·        7:00 pm Troop arrives, south side of parking lot

·        7:20 pm Beavers call riverbanks, Cubs call parade circle

o   Call forward white tails

o   Cubs send two Howlers to fetch the white tails

o   White tails are introduced to the Cub pack

·        7:30 pm Beavers are dismissed for the summer

o   White tails can stay and play games with the Cubs

·        7:50 pm Cubs call parade circle, Troop calls horseshoe

o   Call forward Howlers

o   Troop sends two senior scouts to fetch the Howlers

o   Howlers are introduced to the Troop

o   Cubs have closing grand howl with new White Tails

·        8:00 pm Cubs are dismissed for the summer

o   Howlers can stay and play games or do activities with Troop

·        9:00 pm Troop dismissed, but will have at least one more meeting (for Great 8 Challenge)

What to Bring:

Your section scouter will send an email telling you what you need to bring. As always, you will be asked the pre-screening questions and if you are feeling sick, you cannot come.

Early Registration for 2022:

In early September, there will be a 2 week span during which you will be able to register for 2022.  After that, Scouts Canada opens registration up to the general public.  Please note that we have a waitlist for people who want to register already.  If you do not register in September when we restart, you may find that the group becomes full with other people and we will not be able to take you.  You will get emails both from Scouts Canada and from us when that time comes. 

Winter 2021 Schedule

Scout Week Dinner:

When: Next Wednesday, February 24^th starting at 6:00 pm ending about 9:00

What: Our founder, Lord Sir Robert Baden Powell’s birthday is on Feb 22. Every year, scouts around the world celebrate this as a time to recognize contributions and enjoy a celebration together. Normally Willingdon would host this in the Connection, but this year, we need to keep it virtual, so we are doing a virtual potluck.  

For older kids, this might be a great opportunity to do the cooking and make a camp-style meal the whole family can enjoy.  Ranging from hot dogs or mac and cheese, to steak and lobster!

Agenda:

The first hour is optional, but we hope you will be able to make it:

• 6:00 Gather on Zoom to start cooking supper and visit (you might start cooking earlier if your meal takes more than 30 minutes)
• 6:30 Start eating – I will show slides of pre-COVID camps and rambles for pack and troop
• 7:00 Pastor Jono will provide a devotional
• 7:15 Recognition for our retired Akela and semi-retired Hawkeye
• 7:30 Movie night: Shaun the Sheep
• 9:00 End

Regular weekly pack and troop Zoom connection.  Details will be sent by email.