The Southern Crescent District is in the Atlanta Area Council, serving Scouts, Leaders and Parents in Clayton County and South Fulton County. See the BeAScout website for location and contact information for Cub Scout Packs (Kindergarten through 5th Grade are Cub Scouts), Scouts BSA Troops (end of 5th Grade to age 18), and Venturing Crews.
Hello Scout Leaders – Especially Key 3 Leaders and Key 3 Delegates (and those who want to be): Online Registration is Easier for All. Most new Youth and Leaders now “register” online – and it is faster and easier than ever. For one thing, the BSA will collect any registration fee and new member fee, freeing up the Unit to only collect pack program fees (or “dues”) until charter renewal for the upcoming calendar year. You can also coordinate with families and other Units to “transfer” registration and set up “multiple” registrations in more than one unit – with no paper required!
This is a great time to update your BeAScout pin and the Online Registration for your unit.
Especially because you probably want to adjust your 2022-23 pack program fees (or “dues”) and messaging to reflect the announcement of BSA fee increases that started to roll out in June 2022, with the key increases effective August 1, 2022 being $75 annual Youth Fee (up from $72) and $45 annual Adult Leader fee (up from $42) plus Unit Fee of $100 (up from $75) – see this District page for more.
You can see the steps at www.atlantabsa.org/updateBeAScoutpin, and find examples for how to complete your “BeAScout.org” profile and tailor automatic emails that generate when someone interacts with BeAScout.org and submits an online Application.
Because if you write these automatic emails well, it will help attract new Scouts and families to your unit and make their onboarding easier.
But wait – there’s more! Unit to Unit transfers, like crossover from a Pack to a Troop, can be done completely online, with no new paper! See this for more.
To help you with these messages, we’ve got some ideas for input by your Unit Key 3 Leaders or Key 3 Delegates (they have the access to do updates) in three spots:
1) Unit Pin Blurb. In My.Scouting == > Organization Manager == > Unit Pin, there is expanded space for “Additional Unit Information” (now 500 characters), and anyone seeing your online “BeAScout.org” profile will see this. We’ve posted a document with some options at www.atlantabsa.org/updateBeAScoutpin. Tailor that to fit your Unit.
2) Fee Email. Second, in My.Scouting == > Organization Manager == > Settings, there is an option to click a box called “Include Fees/Fee Explanations”, and enter “Fee Amount”. That “Fee Amount” needs to be an amount that excludes the 2022 prorated BSA National fee that will be collected directly in Online Registration.
And if you worry about Lions earning Bobcat, see this note about Lions and Bobcat. (Spoiler Alert: the general rule is if a Scout completed requirements, they earned the award, so let's recognize them!)
Those tips and resources for doing the Bobcat rank include different ways to do Bobcat, longer or shorter, plus extra game and fun ideas. Do what makes sense for your Pack and Den -- hopefully what makes sense is getting more parents to lead!
Almost every Pack in this District is smaller than the average Pack in the Atlanta Area Council. The average Atlanta Pack has about 25 Scouts and therefore averages about 4 Scouts per den -- which means those are not large enough to be fun, and less likely to have an engaged and able Den Leader emerge.
The traditional approach of the BSA to this is to tell that Pack to either (1) just recruit more kids until you have 48 (8 per den), which ignores the likelihood that while trying to get to 48 you're losing families who aren't getting good program, or (2) take whatever leader you have and let her juggle three Den Leader Guides/Handbooks in order to do the Adventures for three grade levels that are in those three Den Leader Guides and Handbooks (That's hard. Really hard.).
We can do better.
Mixed Den Adventure Plans Now Published Here. The Mixed Den resource page here at our website has nine sets of “Mixed Den” Adventure Plans and pages, for:
The Guide to Cub Scout Family Recruiting found in the Atlanta Area Council Recruiting Resources page describes steps for successful recruiting -- spoiler alert: Successful and Sustainable Recruiting Does Not Begin and End at School Sign Up Night! If families are fired up at a Sign Up Night but have no Pack to join and no leaders to deliver a program, where are the new youth going to do Cub Scouting? And do Packs with a handful of Leaders have the capacity to lead 50, 60 or more?
(1) Make a Calendar of Fun Activities that families like -- activities they want to do -- if you plan those activities, you will be the Pack they want to join (you want families who want to "do" activities, not just "drop off" kids for you to mind)
(3) Recruit More Leaders and Helpers -- yes, you need to do this throughout your recruiting process. We do "get it": recruiting is hard. But that page has many ideas about ways to approach leader recruiting so that your Pack can become an "Every Parent Helps" Pack,
all of that leads to (5) Sign-Up Events: not just the "School Sign-Up Night" scheduled by the Claude Gatlin (our District Executive) and run by both the District Professional and Pack Leaders, but also Fun Joining Events that you create for your own Pack and Dens! Any Fun Den or Pack Activity can be a Welcoming Joining Event for New Families -- let them "test drive" Cub Scouting!
Silver Comet District Stem & Nova Fair Who: All Cub Scouts and Scouts BSA Scouts When: Sunday, August 28th, 2022 from 1pm until 4pm. Where: Atlanta Area Council - 1800 Circle 75 Pkwy SE, Atlanta, Georgia 30339 Cost: $5.00 for All Scouts
Does your Scout love STEM? Are they curious about how (STEM) science, technology, engineering and mathematics affects their daily life? Join us for the Silver Comet District’s first ever STEM/Nova Fair. The STEM/Nova Fair will be open to both Cub Scouts and Scouts BSA around the council. Scouts will visit stations around the room to learn more about all the different Nova awards that the BSA Nova Programs have to offer. Stations include regatta boats, volcanoes, coding, and more. Does your Scout like a SUPER Challenge? Check out our Supernova Awards. Scouts will have the opportunity to work together to build a large-scale Rube-Goldburg machine that will be tested at the end of the STEM/Nova Fair LIVE on the Silver Comet District Facebook page. PLUS, the first 100 scout participants will receive a special Silver Comet STEM/Nova bag. Register here.
The Southern Crescent District is in the Atlanta Area Council, serving Scouts, Leaders and Parents in Clayton County and South Fulton County. See the BeAScout website for location and contact information for Cub Scout Packs (Kindergarten through 5th Grade are Cub Scouts), Scouts BSA Troops (end of 5th Grade to age 18), and Venturing Crews. 
