Training first, and there are only two that matter now
Youth Protection Training. Required for every registered adult, done online at my.scouting.org, and renewed every two years. Do it before your first meeting. Councils enforce it, and more to the point, it is the training that explains the rules you are about to live by: two registered adults at every activity, no one-on-one contact, no private messaging with a Scout.
Position-specific training for den leaders. Also online, an hour or so, and it is what earns you the Trained strip for your sleeve. It covers the den meeting structure, the advancement method and where the program materials are. Do it in your first month, before habits set.
Everything else is optional and can wait: Basic Adult Leader Outdoor Orientation if your den will camp, Hazardous Weather, and whatever your council asks for on a tour plan.
What to wear
Adult Cub Scout leaders wear the tan uniform shirt with olive trousers or shorts. Some packs are formal about it and some are not. Ask your Cubmaster what the pack actually does before you spend money: many dens run weekly meetings in a pack T-shirt and save the full uniform for pack meetings, ceremonies and Blue and Gold.
If you buy one thing, buy the shirt. Scouts read the uniform as a signal that this is a different kind of Tuesday, and a den leader in uniform gets a quieter opening.
Where the patches go
Left sleeve, top to bottom: council shoulder patch, pack numerals, your position patch, and the Trained strip once you have finished position-specific training. The World Crest goes centered above the left pocket. Your council issues the shoulder patch and the pack supplies the numerals, so ask before you buy.
The current Guide to Awards and Insignia is the authority, and it is worth a look once, because the answer to almost every uniform argument in a pack is in it.
The Den Leader Training Award
The Den Leader Training Award recognizes a leader who has been trained, served for a period of tenure, and done the job: meetings planned and run, the den taking part in pack activities, Scouts advancing, and some continuing education such as roundtable or a supplemental course. The exact tenure and the performance items are set by Scouting America and are printed on the current progress record, so pick that up from your council or district training chair rather than trusting a blog.
It is worn as a square knot on the uniform shirt above the left pocket. Two practical notes. First, nobody hands it to you: you fill in the record and turn it in. Second, the items on it are a decent description of a den run well, so it is a reasonable checklist even if you never apply for the award.
- Keep a simple record of the meetings you plan and run, from the start of the year.
- Note which pack events your den took part in.
- Note the advancement the den earned, which you already have if you record as you go.
- Go to roundtable, or one supplemental training course, and write the date down.
Roundtable, and the people who answer your questions
Your district runs a monthly roundtable for leaders. It is an hour, it is free, and it is where you meet the three people who have been doing this for a decade and will answer the question you are embarrassed to ask. Your council also runs a University of Scouting or Pow Wow once a year, which is a day of short sessions and is worth one Saturday.
Inside your own pack, the Cubmaster and the pack trainer are the first call, and the outgoing den leader for your rank is the best call of all. Ask them what they would do differently.
What the job actually costs
Plan on an hour a week: about twenty minutes of planning, the meeting itself, and ten minutes afterwards to write down what got done. The planning is the part that expands if you let it, which is the reason this site exists. If you want that twenty minutes to stay twenty minutes, DenBuddy builds the agenda from what your Scouts still need and keeps the record for you: how the planner works, or set up your den.
New to the role this month, start with your first den meeting and planning the den year.