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We do the 30% as well. We put 15% in the pack account to cover awards and expenses, and the other 15% goes into each scouts Cub Bucks account. I like the idea of the head light gear and such. We have an Army Surplus in our area. I think I will go look around and see what they have. They are sure to have lots of things that the boys (and parents) will like. One of our den leaders suggested the backpacks with the water bladder and drinking tube. It looks like it would be great for hiking. Another leader suggested giving them their pinewood derby kits.

I agree that everyone MUST file a unit money earning application no matter how small the fundraiser or how fast it is put together. I always do this. Our council gives approval while you wait and it provides extra peace of mind (something we all can use). I also insist that every den leader file tour permits for every outing (something they didn't do before I became CC).

On the carwash/bake sale, we had contacted our Lowe's store (in person) at the same time as our Wal-Mart. They said they had to get approval from HQ and would call us. Lowe's never called back, and they never returned our follow-up calls. We even tried to catch-up with the manager in person on two different ocassions. In all fairness, the store is also less than 6 months old. Maybe next year they will be more receptive.

One thing we always do in our pack is to state the reason for a fundraiser. If we can't give our parents and scouts a reason, we don't do one. Some of the outings we wish we could do, but need funds for, are Sleeping With The Sharks at Wonders of Wildlife (affiliated with Bass Pro), Boy Scout Weekend at Silver Dollar City (affectionately referred to in these parts as Steal Your Dollar City), Scout Day at the Discovery Center (a hands-on science museum), and any of the classes given by Mad Science. It would also be fun to take our boys to Fantastic Caverns ride thru Cave, but they would have to give us an exceptional discount to ever be able to do that.

I like the Pizza Hut idea. We will see how it goes with Wendy's first - if we have a good turn out of both scouts and customers.

We did do Show & Sell this year for the first time. It helped increase the sales but became an accounting nightmare for our Popcorn Kernel. We have ideas on how to rectify this in the fall.

Being from a small town, setting up in front of stores is very difficult. They are bombarded with requests and find it easier to say no than to pick one group over another. We might try approaching a few of them over the summer, while requests are down, and asking them about dates in the fall.

We actually do better on sales by going to the outlying neighborhoods in the city just north to us. There never seems to be any scouts covering that area otherwise, and the Show & Sell works really well here as we don't have to go back later. Besides, people just like getting what they pay for, when they pay for it. :-)

In the past our pack gave gift certificates to the scout store to the top seller in each den, and the overall top seller in the pack received an additional gift certificate. It worked okay in the past, so I'm told. But, our first year in, the pack had dwindled to 18 boys and the outlay of funds for the gift certificates was the same as the pack's portion from the sales. Needless to say, that was one of the first things to go to the wayside last fall. After buying an aluminum pinewood derby track to replace the wooden one that someone's cats ruined, we couldn't afford to do much.

Now we have 30 active scouts and are starting our spring recruiting and will have our fall recruiting finished before popcorn sales start, we want to do something really special that the boys will all have fun with. We have discussed another post-popcorn party. I thought maybe at the Petra Indoor Climbing Walls where they provide the professionals and the gear. Then I thought some sort of prizes to the top sellers and down. I just don't know what they would be. I kind of prefer to stay away from game boys and such, as I would prefer to see these boys active. I thought about doing full-rides to day camp, but that kind of excludes our Web II's. We already provide the book, neckerchief and slide as part of graduation. And if a boy sales at least $200 we waive pack dues.

We don't really have a popcorn kick-off party. We just do announcements and coordination at the pack and den meetings. It's not a very exciting way to kick it all off. We get the attention of the adults with the scout accounts and the dues waivers, but that doesn't get the kids pumped. What do you all do?

You may be overlooking the return on your investment of time and money. Is your son out there doing things? Enjoying life? Too many children these days sit on the couch watching television, playing video games, mindlessly sitting at the computer for hours on end, doing drugs, having sex at way too early an age.

Is your son happy? Busy? Content at being allowed to enjoy his childhood? There are so many bad things in this world today. Scouting allows for a safe environment to explore and grow at his own pace.

If your child is growing in knowledge of how relationships work among his den mates, he is learning how to work with others and that will carry over to his adult career. If your son is completing advancements and getting recognition for doing so, then he is gaining confidence that will help him in all aspects of life. If your son is helping to teach others, serving as a denner, leading flag ceremonies, etc. then he is learning what it takes to be in charge of a group of people with a common goal. That is going to help him in work, home, church, anything that requires a leader.

Scouting is not about first aid, tying knots and flag ceremonies. It is about growing confidence, teaching leadership, accepting responsibility for self and others, making relationships work, being good stewards.

When one loses their focus, they shouldn't overreact. Step back and re-assess your goals. See if you've lost sight of the overall benefits. Then ask your son about his goals. See where he wants to be in a year, five-years, ten-years. Don't assert your views on him, let him make his own decisions. That is one of the things scouting helps him learn - making the right decisions for himself.

It is a great program if you are in it for the boys - not just your own son, but all the boys. When you invest your time and energy into a program based for children, you have to be in it for the right reasons.

Be careful about your demeanor around the kids. Children are much better at reading people than we give them credit for. Everything a person, any person does, that connects in any way with another person, will directly affect the outcome of the other person's life. Skepticism and negativity are things we don't want our boys to learn. The world teaches them that lesson way too well.

Everyone gets tired. Especially if you're not getting any assistance. Talk to your District Executive about ways to get more out of scouting. Attend Roundtable to get the resources you need to find badge counsellors in the community.

Scouting is a life-long community of friends. Your son will find doors opening to him as an adult just because he was in scouting as a youth. My brother received three different community scholarships over other applicants because he was an Eagle Scout. Then he went on to be chosen to be a Federal Bank Examiner over another more qualified person by the federal government just because he was an Eagle Scout. The world looks at Eagle Scouts as being more trustworthy, loyal and reliable.

Scouting is a program about life-long learning. The mode of teaching these lessons is up to you.

Hang in there! Things will become clear to you in time.

We checked with our Walmart. They require a one month advanced request. Our fundraiser was put together one-and-a-half weeks prior to the event.

Back in the fall I started our pack on a local fundraiser that our Price Cutter Grocery Store offers. Shoppers earn Community Bucks that they donate to nonprofit organizations. We turned ours in back in January. We had designated the $193 that was donated to use toward camperships. We thought this would be enough to support the families in our pack. We were mistaken.

Until now, our leadership was unaware of the great needs our families have financially, many being way below the poverty level. So, I quickly put together a fundraiser to raise funds to help every boy in our pack that wanted to go to camp - get to go to camp.

I was unaware at the time, as a fairly new Committee Chair, that camperships had never been available in our pack before. The leadership was fully behind me on offering this, and I assumed it had been done before. That was the only mistake I made - one good mistake. The kids that had never been able to participate in camp before are thrilled! One of them told me he finally felt like he was now truly considered a member of Cub Scouts and not just looking in from the outside.

Being that the time constraint was there, and the Walmart in our town is less than a half-a-year old and being bombarded with requests, I felt the next best thing was setting up across the street. The access in and out of the lot was easier anyway.

Next year we will have the car wash/bake sale planned from the beginning and perhaps Walmart can accommodate us. But I feel very comfortable with going back to AutoZone, as they were so great to help us on such short notice and invited us to come back again.

Our pack planning meeting is just around the corner and one of the items we will be discussing is incentives to offer that will increase our units popcorn sales. Currently we place 15% of a scout's sales in a cub account for that boy. They can use that money to pay for registration, Boys' Life, derby kits, camp, etc. The parents really like this but the boys, especially new members, don't get really motivated.

We want to add more incentives, but our pack doesn't feel the incentives offered by Trail's End are a good value. This past year we told our boys that if we average $200 in sales per scout we would hold our post popcorn party at Incredible Pizza (they have an indoor fairgrounds), and this doubled our rather poor previous popcorn sales. We still need to increase our sales though, so we can offer a richer program with more outings and perhap start bringing in special guests.

Does anyone have something that works well to get these little guys motivated?

Our pack recently held a car wash/bake sale. We simply stated on the signs "Free Car Wash - Donations Accepted." We had people paying upto $10 to $20 per car. We did the same thing with the cookies and brownies our families baked. We had donations of $1 to $20 per baggie, which contained one big brownie or two cookies. Our car wash/bake sale was held at our local Auto Zone, who provided the water, soap, sponges and brushes. We only supplied the hose, buckets and labor. The event was held on a Saturday morning from 10 am-Noon. The weather turned cold on us, but I don't think it really hurt the profit. We made $200 in two hours. The one thing we decided we would do differently next time was to hold it from 11 AM - 2 PM and grab the lunch crowd from nearby restaurants and shoppers from the Walmart and Lowes across the street.

Our next fundraiser is going to be in conjunction with Wendy's. We bus the tables from 5 PM to 8 PM and receive a portion of all sales during that time.