Hello
My son is a Bear and I am wondering what is the best format to  use for presenting or turning in his activities towards belt loops and / or pins to his den leader? I haven't gotten much feedback on this from our Den.

Thanks,
Hansen in LA

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My den effectively communicates academic and sports awards  using e-mail. We are a somewhat large den, 8 to 10 Scouts each year for the past three years. Meetings became too busy to communicate this information in a reliable and consistent way. I ask parents of any Scout completing belt loop or pin requirements to send an e-mail to me, the den leader, containing the name of the award, the exact requirements completed (this is more relevant to the pins as they give options on what to complete), and the date the last requirement was completed. I make sure to copy our assistant den leader and den coordinator, a parent who handles entering awards and updates into our pack management system. Saving the e-mail and copying our den leadership is to help us not forget documenting and awarding the Scout his achievement.

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Michael's method makes sense.  It has the adult involved in the scout's program playing their role of Akela.  If offloads some 'busy work' from the den leader.  It puts responsibility for completion of requirements on the scout family.
But, there may be some people that just don't get it and want their son to get the bling without the bother of actually doing the requirements.  That is something to be addressed directly with individuals if it becomes a problem, but most likely will not be.

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