Re: CM Decision-Help Needed (long response)

In a message dated 5/30/98 6:45:26 AM, mbates@BORG.COM wrote:

<< I am losing sleep over this and fretting about it daily. >>

Hello Linda,

Here are some suggestions. Before reading them, sit down in a comfortable
chair, close your eyes and slowly take a deep breath. Now slowly take another
deep breath. Feel more relaxed? Ok, read.

Let's say that something happened which kept you from being the Cubmaster and
kept your husband from being Cubmaster either. What is the worst thing that
would happen? The pack would go out of existence. But the sun would still
come up! The birds would still sing! The trees would still be green. The
snow in your area would still be 12 feet deep in winter :) In the overall
scheme of things, no tremendously dreadful event would occur.

Now you may say that your sons would miss out on Cub Scouting. But you can
always sign them up in another pack. And even if there is no other pack, you
can sign two boys up as Lone Cub Scouts and provide the Cub Scout program on
an individual basis. So there is no reason why YOUR boys need miss out. What
we are talking about, therefore, is whether other people's kids will get Cub
Scouting or not. And that places some responsibility on the other people.

You have been trapped into a box and as long as you allow yourself to feel
personally responsible for some of these things which you cannot control and
for doing more work personally than it is fair and proper to expect you to do,
you will still be in the box. But you can take your self out of the box any
time you wish. Just go back and reread my second and third paragraphs. You
may need to reread them fairly frequently. But ask yourself "What is the
worst thing that happens if I quit?" It is a very empowering thought and will
enable you to get things organized as they should be.

The first thing you need to do is to make a realistic time budget of all the
things you want to do and which you will enjoy. Decide realistically how much
time you are willing to devote to Cub Scouting in addition to your other
activities. Don't plan to do any more than will be FUN for you. Any leader
who is not having fun is a short term leader and we want you around for a long
time. You may decide on 2 hours a week or 3 or 5. Realistically, 5 hours a
week is a large number. Planning on more than that is begging for burn out.
Now you know how much time you, on the average, will spend.

The next thing you need to do is to get some allies. Maybe there are some
adults from the pack who will still help you; maybe not. But you need to get
away from what I think of as the television set attitude which many parents
and kids have. They regard Cub Scouting as a little like a program on TV. It
is going to go on whether or not they are there. If it sounds interesting,
they turn on that channel that night and watch. If not, they do something
else. But they regard Cub Scouting as being someone else's ( your) program
rather than theirs.

Get some help from an expert. This means your paid professional. You said
that you haven't had much involvement from the district committee and the DE.
Time to change that. Call up your DE and say words virtually identical to
those that I will write here," I am calling to get your help in reorganizing
our pack and recruiting some leaders. I just had the committee drop the job
of Asst. Cubmaster on me and then have the Cubmaster resign in the same
meeting. I don't want to get to the point where I say 'chuck it" but I do
need help quickly so we can put together a working committee and recruit other
leaders. I don't want to be expected to put in more time than I realistically
can spend and I don't want to be the person who is expected to keep the pack
alive while everyone else can come and go as they please. I really am
concerned that the pack will die if we don't get this additional leadership.
Can we set a time in the next couple of days to get together?"

The DE should meet with you within that couple of days. If he/she doesn't, if
their mind is elsewhere or they are at training or at camp, contact your Field
Director or Scout Executive (I believe yours is a small council) and say the
same thing. Make it clear that you aren't threatening; rather, you want to be
sure that you don't get burned out.

Perhaps the DE will ask the Commissioner to help you and that is OK if you
have a good Commissioner. However, if you meet with the Commissioner and that
person doesn't know what they are doing, or won't get personally involved, go
back to the DE and don't allow yourself to be blown off.

When you have the DE or the Commissioner supporting you, the psychological
dynamics of recruiting become very different. It is one thing when you call
the meeting and have to be the person saying "I need help." It is very
different and much easier recruiting when someone else runs the meeting and
says "We need to provide help for Linda."

The key thing is this. As long as you take the monkey on your back so that
others can say to themselves "I don't need to get personally involved; Linda
will handle it" then the box you are in becomes tighter. But when you make
it clear that you have drawn a personal line and if others don't help you and
take some of the monkey on their backs so that it becomes a joint
responsibility rather than a personal responsibility, and that you are
sufficiently removed emotionally to allow things to stop and allow the pack to
die, you are much more likely to get the help. And if you don't get help, you
have given very fair warning and with totally clean conscience can go to
another pack or to Lone Cub Scouting or whatever.

I could write much more and I am sure you will get excellent counsel from
other members of the list. But I don't want to write more because it will
reinforce the feeling that it is your problem and you need to solve it. As
said above, when it becomes "our problem", then everything else will be much
much easier. I would suggest that is where you should focus all of your
attention.

Best wishes, and keep us posted on how it is going.

Neil Lupton

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