By Robert Peterson
Photographs By Richard Bell

From a chili cook-off to constructing piñatas to roping toy horses, New Jersey district Scouters create a fun-filled evening to help leaders prepare exciting pack meetings for their Cub Scouts.

• Benefits From Mingling Cub Scout and Boy Scout Leaders at Roundtables
• Champion Chili Cook-Off Recipe

Ask veteran Scouters about the most important support they receive from district leadership and chances are they'll describe the monthly evening roundtables designed to help them prepare exciting troop and pack programs.

At well-run roundtables, unit leaders practice useful skills for the next month's unit programs, get a healthy dose of encouragement and enthusiasm, find out what's new in the district and council, and—not incidentally—have some fun.

Take, for example, the Cub Scout leaders' roundtable in January 2004 in the Mercer Area District of the Central New Jersey Council.

A model pack meeting

The Cub Scout theme for February 2004 was "Fiesta," an opportunity to focus on Latin American games, songs, and foods. Ben Polanski, who has led the district's roundtables for four years and is now its district commissioner, agreed to head up the January roundtable.

Polanski welcomed a visitor to the roundtable in the cafeteria of Mercer Junior-Senior High School.

"We start with next month's pack theme in planning the roundtable," he said, explaining the sombrero and serape he was wearing. "Tonight's program is based on a pack meeting that has every element—gathering exercise, opening ceremony, games, and so forth—focused on Fiesta."

Arriving Cub Scouters caught the fiesta mood immediately as they listened to recorded salsa music and checked out a display of cans and packages of chili sauces, taco shells, kidney beans, black beans, rice, and other ingredients often used in Mexican dishes.

Around the room, 13 pots of chili were heating, soon to be ready for sampling. Both Boy Scout and Cub Scout leaders provided recipes because at Mercer Area District roundtables, leaders from both programs participate in openings, closings, and special events (like the cook-off). They then split up during the rest of the time for program-specific training. (See Sidebar)

The opening ceremony was conducted by both Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts, a district roundtable tradition.

"We like to involve the kids in roundtables," Polanski explained. "They're ultimately our target audience, and if they don't react [to the ideas we're trying], this will all be just an academic exercise."

The boys posted the colors and led the Pledge of Allegiance, with the Cub Scouts wearing ponchos they had made from paper bags. A Boy Scout flutist played "The Star-Spangled Banner," followed by recitation of the Scout Oath and Law and Cub Scout Promise and Law of the Pack.

Roundtable commissioner Ben Polanski (left) teams with his successor, Bonnie Williams, and unit commissioner Harold Lane to display items that go with the theme.

The opening ended with a serial reading of "I Am Old Glory" by eight Boy Scouts.

Before getting down to the evening's main purpose, Ben Polanski attended to some district and council business. After summarizing coming events, he called on then-Scout Executive Ronald S. Green (now Simon Kenton Council Scout executive in Columbus, Ohio) to explain changes in the council's camper accident and sickness liability insurance policy for leaders and pack parents.

(Polanski explained that Scout Executive Green was present because the insurance issue had come up earlier at the commissioners' staff meeting and "[sometimes] the Scout executive is the only person the leaders listen to [on such matters].")

From mild to pure heat!

An interlude of music followed with Polanski on guitar and two Scouts (Brian Laustsen and Michael Polanski) on trumpets. They drew warm applause for their rendition of pieces from "Romance for Guitar" and "Malaguena."

Then Polanski announced that the 13 bubbling pots of cook-off chili were ready for the 78 leaders, eight parents, and 16 Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts to judge. Each pot had a number, and participants could vote according to their own standards of taste, he told the participants.

"The only rule [for judging] is that there are no rules," he said.

The 78 roundtable attendees sampled the chili recipes and voted for their favorite.

As participants heaped samples from each pot onto paper plates and used plastic forks to taste the entries, comments could be heard, like "No. 2 is mild" and "No. 4 is pure heat!"

Polanski then called for a decision to be determined by a show of hands. The winner was Russ Koch, activity chairman for the district committee and a leader of Troop 59, First Presbyterian Church, Hightstown, N.J. (His recipe for Spicy Beef and Chicken Chili With Cornbread appears in the sidebar below.)

"I'm not really a gourmet cook," Koch admitted, "although I cook a lot at camp-outs."

Games and crafts

After the Boy Scout leaders exited the cafeteria for their separate session, the Cub Scouters began a game of trying to lasso wooden rocking horses under the guidance of Bernadine (Bonnie) Williams. A pack trainer and a former den leader of Pack 66, chartered to the Lions Club in West Windsor Township, she is scheduled to succeed Polanski as Cub Scout roundtable commissioner.

Williams then led Scouters in making and decorating ponchos, piñatas, and maracas, using paper bags, colorful crepe paper, and noodles or rice. Success with these projects resulted in much cheering and laughter.

After a half-hour of this craft training, the Boy Scout leaders rejoined the group in the cafeteria for the closing ceremony.

A Boy Scout prayed in Spanish, which was translated for everyone: "Dear Lord, we thank you for our fiesta tonight, our friends, and of course, the food. We ask for a blessed and happy new year. Amen."

The leaders and Scouts formed a circle with crossed arms and clasped hands and recited the Scout benediction: "Now, may the Great Master of all Scouts be with us until we meet again."

As Cub Scouters departed for home, staff members were confident that the February pack meetings to be organized by the roundtable participants were certain to be fiestas to remember.

In the May-June 2004 issue, contributing editor Robert Peterson wrote about the annual International Coastal Cleanup.

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