Coastie the Safety Boat for Cub Scouts

Summary
Coastie is a robotic cartoon character used by the Coast Guard Auxiliary to assist with teaching recreational boating safety to younger audiences. As such he is a natural for helping the local Auxiliary Flotilla engage Cub Scouts in a fun discussion of boating safety.

Lessons learned
 Organize this event through the right leader, the Cubmaster. To get the best participation, you need a full Pack meeting with Cubs from all of the Dens. The Cubmaster's name and contact information is readily available from the local District Executive. Call the local council office and ask to speak to the "D.E." (District Executive) for your town. Whenever possible, bring together two Packs into a special, combined Pack meeting and have one of the Packs host the event. Most Packs have about 30 Cub Scouts. We got twice the number of scouts with combined meetings. It takes time to put on a Coastie event. The more scouts you can present him to at once, the better. For a 45 minute to an hour presentation, it takes about 4~5 hours for each Auxiliarist with travel, setup, actual event, breakdown, and return travel. 

Resources

 * [[Image:htm.gif|16px|Website]] Project Coastie - The Robot Safety Boat (from SITREP)
 * [[Image:ppt.gif|PowerPoint available]] Auxiliary Coastie Events
 * [[Image:ppt.gif|PowerPoint available]] Coastie's Boating Rules
 * [[Image:doc.gif|MS Doc file available]] Coastie lesson plan
 * [[Image:doc.gif|MS Doc file available]] Letter to Scout Leaders
 * [[Image:video.gif|16px|Video available]] Coastie the Safety Boat on YouTube
 * [[Image:htm.gif|16px|Website]] Coastie the Safety Boat

Gallery
Coastie: Photo gallery

Contributed by
[mailto:jackmorrison@uscga49.com Jack Morrison], 5th District (Northern Region), Flotilla 4-9