Welcome to our information page for new and prospective members!

This page has information on what Cub Scouting is like, including links to the Boy Scouts of America's website with specifics about the program and the principles behind it.  We also have information below about our pack's activities, so that you can join in the fun at any time and try it out for yourself.  We're looking forward to meeting you!

Aims of Scouting

    Cub Scouting, like all levels of Scouting, focuses on the development of these four critical life skills:  

• Character
• Citizenship
• Physical Fitness
• Leadership

Everything Cub Scouts do as part of the Cub Scout program gives them opportunities to advance their skills in these areas, and at the same time presents them with fun challenges and activities they can share with their friends and families.  

The Program

     Cub Scouting is for girls and boys from kindergarten through fifth grade.  Cub Scouts are organized into dens; each den is made up of scouts in the same grade.  Lions are kindergarteners; Tigers are first graders.  Wolves are second graders, Bears are third graders, and Webelos are fourth graders.  Fifth graders are technically in their second year of Webelos, but are also known as Arrow of Light scouts because they are working on earning their Arrow of Light, the highest rank a Cub Scout can earn- and the only rank badge that carries over to their Boy Scout uniform.  All of the dens together make up the Cub Scout Pack.  Volunteers from the pack's parents serve as leaders at the den and pack levels. 

     Cub Scouts earn the rank badge for their year by completing a series of required adventures (6 for kids from Lions through Bears, 5 for Webelos, 4 for Arrow of Light) along with 1 or 2 elective adventures depending on the age.  Lions earn a Lion badge, Tigers earn a Tiger badge, and so on.  Scouts who don't complete the requirements for their rank badge still advance to the next rank of Scouting with their den mates the following year, but there's no going back to earn a previous year's rank badge.  In addition to rank advancement, there are many other opportunities for exploration in a wide range of subjects to earn additional awards such as the religious emblem of faith, Nova and Supernova awards (STEM activities), the World Conservation Award, Emergency Preparedness, and more.  

     Our pack enjoys a wide variety of activities that cover a lot of areas of interest, from the traditional outdoor pastimes everyone associates with Scouting- like camping, hiking, boating, fishing, stargazing, and navigation skills- to hands on science and technology experiences with our STEM program.  We also enjoy practicing marksmanship in our shooting sports program (BB guns and archery), going to sporting and cultural events, performing community service projects, and just hanging out on a summer evening grilling food and enjoying local parks.  Check out our calendar in the next section to see what we've got planned for this year!  We try to mix it up a little every year to give people new experiences along with old favorites. 

     Click here to visit BSA's website and see an overview of Cub Scouting!

Calendar

     The pack's website, hosted on Trooptrack, gives us calendar functions and we keep track of all pack and den events in the Calendar, access to which is limited to members of the pack.  Email reminders are automatically sent out by the calendar to help members stay on top of events. We have a PDF of our calendar here for you to review- we may update events closer to the actual date as weather or facilities availability dictate.  We also have a Twitter account and can use that along with the email on our site to quickly notify people of changes.  

Schools we serve

     Children from any school in any district are welcome to join our pack!  There are no restrictions on who can join our pack, and we are beyond excited to be welcoming girls this fall.  Most of our students attend Olson Elementary, Ridgeview Elementary, and Normandale Hills Elementary in Bloomington, MN.  We have some children from private schools in the area as well.  Our district does its best to ensure there is outreach to students at all area schools, and we are proud to serve these schools and their students.

Contact information for leaders

Information about Youth Protection

     BSA takes youth protection extremely seriously and puts a great deal of effort into background checks, education, and preventive strategies to minimize opportunities for grooming or overt physical, emotional, or sexual abuse from either adults or other youth.  All registered leaders undergo a background check, and are required to maintain updated youth protection training every 2 years.  Requirements for scout advancement every year include training on internet safety, awareness of concerning behaviors, and how to respond.  All adults in the pack, regardless of leadership status, are expected to adhere to Two Deep Leadership principles.  There is never one on one contact between adults and youth in Scouting, and everyone knows to expect this and speak up if it isn't being observed.  

     Please follow this link to BSA's website for additional details about our commitment to youth protection, our strategies to combat it at all levels of society, and resources that you might find helpful to protect the kids in your life from abuse.

Girls in Scouting

     After decades of grassroots support from families across the United States, girls in Cub Scouting has become a reality!  We are more excited than we can put into words.  There have always been girls in Cub Scouting, doing their best right alongside their registered brothers, and we are incredibly proud to finally be able to reward their hard work and their accomplishments officially, with the same awards their brothers have always earned.  The program followed by male and female Cub Scouts is identical, and the program itself is not changing at all.  Venturing, Sea Scouts, and Explorers programs (other Scouting programs in Northern Star Scouting) have been coed for years, and female leaders, parents, and siblings have been attending programming with Cub Scout family members for years.  That means Northern Star Scouting facilities, including camps, are already coeducational with designated bathrooms, shower rooms, and available single gender sleeping spaces.

Click here for information about Girls in Scouting. This will take you to Northern Star Scouting's up to the minute web page!

Outdoor Program

     We have been growing our Outdoor Programming in recent years and are very pleased to offer three pack camping trips a year, in fall, winter, and spring.  We always have a cabin available in case of inclement weather, as we know the range of camping experience in our pack ranges from people who do backcountry trips on their own, to people whose last tent experience might have been as a Cub Scout themselves.  Or possibly an outdoor wedding.  We like to keep people comfortable, well fed, and entertained.  We also offer the Shooting Sports Award program, which focuses on safety and marksmanship with BB guns and archery.  We have been doing a series of trivia hikes, and also do bike rides in the summers.  We go ice skating in the winter, when the ice permits, and we attend Camp Akela summer camp at Phillippo Scout Reservation in Cannon Falls every summer.  Fostering a sense of appreciation in our children for the wild spaces around us is critical to preserving those spaces for future generations, and as life's pace gets faster and its minutes more crammed full of stuff, connecting with nature becomes even more important for all of us.   We try to unplug from the electronics and reconnect with our families when we camp.  

STEM program

     Our pack is also growing its STEM offerings!  STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math, and it's one of our favorite ways to bring relevance to advancement activities, pack meetings, and outdoor activities.  We get as hands on as we can, and give our scouts different layers of interest to explore in each subject.  We hold our Pinewood Derby every year, and are working on a program to bring some in depth exploration of the science and engineering behind derby cars with hands on workshops for the scouts without having to worry they'll somehow damage their entry for the race.  Many of our pack and district events have a STEM theme, and this year we will also be offering the Nova award program, which offers in depth opportunities for Scouts to explore various STEM fields.  The Supernova award is an additional level of recognition Scouts can achieve.  Check out BSA's STEM informational web site for details, and stay tuned if you're interested because we're going to dive into this program this year!  

Service

      Like all Scouting organizations, we involve our scouts in service projects that support our chartered organization, The Church of St. Edward the Confessor, as well as local schools and park districts.  We participate in Scouting for Food and are planning on participating in Wreaths Across America this year.  We're always looking for new opportunities to serve our community and help our scouts learn how to make a difference in the world around them.  

Finances and Fundraising

     We should have a specific handout with this information in the very near future, and we will make that available to everyone on the web page and also at Scouting Mayhem, our kickoff fall event.