forestengr

had one of my scouts call me one night crying telling me his mom and dad were getting divorced and needed to talk to someone, all he could think of was his Cubmaster (he first tried his den leader but she wasnt home). I think I'm set and staying until my son bridges.

we enter a float in two parades and do a xmas party

When I reorganized my Pckwhen I tookover 2 years ago, w had 8 boys and 1 leader, now we are at 85 boys and 38 adult leaders. My biggest advice is to take into account when developing your program is to make it interesting to adults as well as kids. If you do events that are interestig to them, they will be come vested and take part

This is a litle different but we ride the boys on a float the pack makes when we go on parades. It is easier to manage the boys and we had a blast building it. It caught the attention of the judges as we won a $600 first place prize for best float at the last xmas parade.

On the virtual cub leaders handbook webpage there is an automated record spreadsheet that we use to keep track of all the boys and the Academic/Sports program.

There are den flags available for purchase but we use custom made den flags as we have a logo we have developed specific to our Pack. Each den flag is coor coded as to rank, i.e. tigers/orange, cubs/blue, and webelos/red. They have the logo and den number on them/ It cost us $5 for each one and we attached them to the walking sticks you can get at a scout store.

My Bear Dens joined together for a joint outing their first den meeting of the scout year and went to Montana De Oro State Park in Los Osos, CA and had a hike led by the Park Ranger. They visited areas of erosion on coastal bluffs, waded through a tide pool picking up starfish and sea urchins and ended the day visisitng a beach where hundreds of seals were feeding on a sardine school in the surf. the boys spent hours trying to save fish by throwing them back in the water when they got stranded by the waves beaching them!

There is alot of disagreement on the meeting frequency. However, the one common trait I have seen in successful packs and ones that hadtrouble getting going was the quality of the den meetings. If a den leader is motivated and wants to provide stellar meetings eek after week thats great. The reality is that can be an overwhelming burden and can lead to leader burnout. Our boys dont forget what they learned but sure do hunger for that next meeting. Leaders have other lives in addition to scouts and that has to be respected.

Our dens shut down for the summer (of which the den leaders are very thankful) but the Pack holds a monthly event. Next years summer events are: June : Cub Scout night at Dodger Stadium of which our Pack is sponsoring July: Camping trip to Yosemite National Park Cub Scout Day Camp for our District is also in July. August: Induction Campout at BSA Camp(This message has been edited by forestengr)

What Boy Scouts need to do is not worry about boy's SSN's but start fingerprinting and background checking new adult leaders like the Girl Scouts do.

See my post in the trait of a successful Pack message string. It says it all on how to develop a good Pack program. I was just like you 1 1/2 years ago when I took over a Pack ready to collapse. It took alot of hard work and learning and just plain creativity but it works. Lots of good advice here but one thing that wasnt said is format a program of interest to YOU and fit the scout model into it, not the other way around. My Pack is heavily involved in forestry because I'm a forester. Talk to every parent both existing and ones that will come into your Pack about being a leader. De

I have 3 webelo dens in my Pack. They use standard patrol names but I give them a nickname based on the patrol they use. My Flaming Arrows I call the Flaming Sparrows (They get a chuckle out of it and call me Flubmaster Dave in return) My Flying Eagles I call the Flying Beagles My Dragons I call the Whiskily Wagons

Sorry, I mistyped our URL in the last reply, it is: http://lospadrespack93.tripod.com

I took over as Cubmaster of Pack 93 in Orcutt, CA 1 1/2 years ago with 8 boys in the Pack, my 3 included. Today we have over 80 boys, 27 registered adult leaders, 14 certified rangemasters, 5 certified water safety instructors and a waiting list to join so I consider our Pack successful. Here's what we did to change the Pack and create a highly desired program. 1. We switched from an indoor style Pack/Den meetings to almost exclusively outdoor oriented. Our total amount of time we spend in an indoor setting is 2 pack meetings a year. I cant stand indoor meetings and dislike cutsie songs

Atually, we have found it more useful to develop our own committees specific to the needs of our Pack. We maintain an executive commitee which is the Chair, Cubmaster, Secretary, Treasurer, AWards et al.However, we have all den leaders in the committee as well. Branched unde the executive committee are "operating committees" which adminster main functions of the Pack. They are: Outdoors Committee: Develops the yearly pack program. We are a field pack and spend most of our time in outdoor activities. Community Service Committee: Media reps, develops comm. service projects, scouting