jc2008

Doesn't your troop have a treasurer who can explain the budget or what the troop pays for vs what the kids fundraise/parents pay for?

Finances should not be a secret

We have large vinyl banners that can withstand the weather and all that jazz with the grommets in all 4 corners. We ordered ours from BuildaSign.com and it was very nice quality. They often have coupons that make their 3x6 foot banners under $20 shipped. We also have a smaller 1.5x4ft banner from Shindigz.com they also have regular coupons that come out to make their banners inexpensive.

Both banners are of very good quality and have been out in the elements at our events/camp outs for the past year.

If the kids get a belt loop/pin/whatever with each adventure and they have to complete 7 adventures or whatever that is, its not too bad of an expense. Right now our kids are earning 1-2 belt loops every 1-3 months. We do the combined program and all work together on awards so we can control how many the kids get at every awards ceremony budget-wise. If the kids want to do more than we do at pack meetings then teh parents can pay for those extra ones.

We are doing $35 this year for new cub scouts and $25 for old ones. The extra $10 is for the Class B Tshirt they all need since we are big into being uniformed. The other $25 is the council/national fees. Most of the old ones will probably be buying a new tshirt anyways as everyone gets bigger every year. Boys life would be $12 more.

Kids earn everything else by how much fundraising we do. And we have a group of parents who love to fundraise. If they don't fundraise they are welcome to pay out of pocket for events etc.

You need to sit down and figure out WHAT your pack needs money for and where it will come from before figuring out random amounts of dues.

Agree with ScoutNut as well.

We say NOTHING, we just stand there with our signs up until everyone quiets down. And our signs go up when its parent noise just as much as kid noise going on. So without saying anything, but just stopping the program and standing quietly with signs up, the parents get "called" out and usually start to behave.

Also our signs up doesn't alwasy come from the person up front talking. If you are sitting next to some loud people in the audience, you will see signs up coming from that area first and it spreads around the room from there.

Sometimes our Cubmaster doesn't realize how loud it is in the room and others need to help out by doing the signs up.

My son is a Bear (going to Webelos 1) this year and we will just do what we need to do to get his Den the Arrow of Light in 2015 under the new program.

Its not that hard to do, just embrace the program and get it done. Scouting is more about the journey and community for us, not about what bling and awards they earn along the way and if we have to blaze a new trail to get my son's final award, well that is exciting, not awful. Someone has to do it!

According to this article, they are staying, just getting revamped.

http://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2014/05/21/looping-you-in-on-the-cub-scout-2015-updates/

So you will use it for pinewood derby maybe a recruitment night. What else do you use it for?

Recruitment event in the fall

Pinewood in the Spring

District Pinewood

and we are trying to expand our horizons to council pinewood next year

If you fundraise all $1500 is not such a great big deal to spend. Our pack sold around 10k worth of camp cards (50% to pack, 50% to council) and we got about $3k in donations at the show and sell locations (100% to the pack). Paid for all the kids to go to cub scout summer camp, paid for the start of our program next year, paying for the kids to go rock climbing, skating, bowling, picnic and a bunch of other things and still have plenty of leftover money to get the nice 4 lane aluminum track and timer. We are very frugal with events so our money goes a long way and this is the one big splurge.

EDIT: The reason we are spending so much is because we can afford it and the kids did a great job fundraising, had participation of 28 kids out of 30. If you do not have such big numbers look into the smaller tracks or building a track. The event is fun for the kids no matter how they have to run it. We want to do more official things and our parents enjoyed helping us run the District Derby so we wanted a nicer track.

We are also buying a new track this summer. We are a first year pack and we borrowed a track from a pack across town for our derby this year. We also run the district derby so we used that same track for that. But we did really well with our camp card fundraiser so now we have enough money to buy a pack track and we decided on the 4 lane 42ft Best Track + a microwizard timer. Its going to run just under $1500 for the entire setup.

We plan to use the track 3-4 times a year including the fall which is why we are getting it this summer.

If you do not need your track until the spring time, like normal, figure out how much its going to cost and set a fundraiser goal. I would find out the entire cost, ie track costs $800-1100 + timer costs 300-400$ and set the goal for the entire amount.

Then if you only make $800 of what your goal was just buy the track this year and fundraise for the timer next year etc.

I wouldn't do any sort of loan or pay over several years. If you are going to do that you need to SAVE for several years then buy, not buy then pay over several years.

Graduation from one rank to the next rank. We don't have any Webelos 2s so we dont have a cross over this year. Our graduation is a celebration of the Tiger become a wolf, a wolf becoming a bear, a bear becoming a webelos and a webelos 1 moving over to arrow of light webelos 2 path.

Its not a party for us, its a ceremony. Its done alongside the awards and the few rank ceremonies for the kids who missed the last awards (where they actually get their rank patches). We only do awards every 3 months so each ceremony has to have something special for the boys.

So its like another awards presentation, just we have the boys swap to their new neckerchiefs and do something special. I am asking here if anyone has something cool or neat or special.

Thanks for the candles idea. Fire should catch their attention!

For Rank advancement we did the jar with the food coloring on the lids and the kids shook the jar to see if they "did everything they were suppose to to earn rank" and all their clear water turned colors. I was looking for something interesting like that to use for graduation. Anyone have any fun or cool things they do for graduation that they could share?

TIA!

I just don't even understand how anyone can even define a Scout Account. I mean we set money aside for use by the boys based on their fundraiser participation and success. That money is not "theirs" to keep, but if they need something we will buy it for them or reimburse them if they buy it out of their own pocket.

I mean instead of calling it a Scout Account (which is what we do call it because of ease of explanation) I could just say that I am the treasurer and if you need to pay for something ask me and I will decide if the pack will pay or not (basing it on those fundraiser numbers and how much money the boy brought in that i know about). But at the end of the day it wouldn't be an ISA, but just a random decision of mine if we paid for it or not.

I really don't see how the IRS could tell the difference ? After all the scout account stuff is one page in my spreadsheet which doesnt need to be there for my bank account and records to be correct.

Somewhere you have to give back to your council and popcorn is really the easiest way to do it. if you do "other" fundraising, yes you seem to make more or as much money as you would with popcorn, but that is usually because you are keeping 100% of the profit, rather than splitting it with council. If you don't do any of the council fundraisers your unit is basically freeloading off council at that point since the registration money you pay a year goes primarily to national for registration.

I would prefer to do camp cards over popcorn, and indeed our group does both. The way we motivate our boys is that they get allocated the majority of their profits for fees/things they need for scouting like uniforms, camp fees etc. This makes them actually sell more than if the pack just kept it all and the small percentage the pack does keep for operating expenses turns out to be quite a good chunk of money.

It helps our boys, helps our pack and helps our council all at the same time.

Make sure to check if there are any Cub Scout day camps you can attend this summer as your son will be a Tiger on June 1st.

I posted elsewhere on this. I'm a little surprised at the lack of clarity in this thread on BSA policy, because it's posted pretty openly on their web site:

http://www.scouting.org/filestore/fi..._BSA_Units.pdf

 

If you look at the last page of that, you'll see that individual scout accounts are pretty clearly prohibited. I admit it stinks but it's difficult for me to look my Webelos in the face when reviewing the Citizenship badge and tell them that as law-abiding citizens we all need to follow the law and pay our taxes - and then turn around and skirt IRS regulations.

 

Has this conflict come up with any of you in dealing with your Councils/Districts? Any exceptions?

Our kids love getting things at the Awards ceremonies. But we don't necessarily need belt loops. Heck, I go to town on the Fun Patch Section at the Scout shop.. We went to the nature reserve and went on a hike? bam hiking patch.. We helped clean up our charter org? Bam service patch etcetc. They can be worn on a brag jacket or if they make a blanket or something. They are like half the price of a belt loop too or less lol.

 

The kids just like feeling like their are receiving things. I am sure they will replace belt loops with something, I hope its some type of patches as the kids like the badges/patches better than belt loops here anyways.

 

I mean no boy joins cub scouts saying "I want to earn belt loops". They join saying they want badges and patches because that is what scouts get, what the heck is a belt loop?

Thanks for the suggestions. I LOVE the idea of a "leave of absence". I hadn't thought about that. I genuinely COULD use the time for the new job, home, etc. Our Troop is good-sized for our area (soon to be 13 boys) so to be sure SOMEBODY will step up. If not...well, I don't know. That's what I'm afraid of, my Son is the reason I'm doing this anyway and if the Troop folds I'm going to feel like I destroyed one of his prized possessions, for my own benefit. Darn, this is hard...

Then the parents/boys would enter the troop by your rules, which makes expectations a lot easier to demand.

RE: ISA & 2014

As for what fundraiser counts for how much into a scouts ISA, that is totally up to your troop/pack. The ISA is a privilege, not a right, and troops/packs could discontinue them at any time. Tracking multiple fundraisers a year for ISA might just be too much for the treasurer, or they maybe give a lot back to your boys for their ISA in popcorn that they need 100% of the other fundraisers to help run the Pack/Troop. Whatever the reason, it is something that the committee should know and be able to communicate to parents.

RE: Participation.

Again, this is up to your committee how to handle this. In our pack we have an Awards Chair. If you earn something outside of a Den/Pack meeting, you let the Awards Chair know and she actually will speak to the child about what was done/earned. Also there is a hard and fast deadline for awards to be handed in for each ceremony. There is no scrambling right before a ceremony to get last minute awards, since any awards handed in after the deadline have to wait until the next ceremony.

RE: B&G

I believe this should really be kept as cheap as possible, with possibly even the Pack/Troop kicking in the money to make the event "go". Our B+G is potluck, costs nothing for parents/kids to attend and the pack dedicated $200 of our fundraising money towards it.

Keep your head up and try to ask for clarification on things you don't understand (ie why 1/3 fundraisers count towards ISA, there may be a very good reason). And committee meetings are committee for a reason. It means you can vote and change things if the majority agree right?

This seems more like a bully issue instead of a harassment issue. We try to encourage our kids to let us know about bullying so that tragedy doesn't strike like you see in the news. Here your son is telling you and the SM etc that there is a bully problem going on and nothing is being done about it. That can make a kid feel even more powerless than not telling anyone it was happening.

If none of the adults in this troop can fix this bully issue you need to leave ASAP. Your child's mental health and self esteem is not worth trying to stay with any Boy Scout Program. And you said your son found another Troop that he is happy with, so just totally move him over to that Troop and leave the bully behind.

Your #1 priority should be the wellbeing and happiness of your child and protect him from this unnecessary, mean and hateful treatment. Kids learn from their parents, and this bully kid obvious learned from his mom that this is acceptable behavior. Your son needs to learn from you that he does not need to subject himself to this sort of treatment and leave this situation behind him and move on.

Our kids love getting things at the Awards ceremonies. But we don't necessarily need belt loops. Heck, I go to town on the Fun Patch Section at the Scout shop.. We went to the nature reserve and went on a hike? bam hiking patch.. We helped clean up our charter org? Bam service patch etcetc. They can be worn on a brag jacket or if they make a blanket or something. They are like half the price of a belt loop too or less lol.

The kids just like feeling like their are receiving things. I am sure they will replace belt loops with something, I hope its some type of patches as the kids like the badges/patches better than belt loops here anyways.

I mean no boy joins cub scouts saying "I want to earn belt loops". They join saying they want badges and patches because that is what scouts get, what the heck is a belt loop?

The reason like others have mentioned, is because the Blue and Gold is a special celebration with a lot of hoop-la attached. So it makes it a special time for a special rank advancement award. Not just a normal everyday Pack Meeting that you have every other month of the year.

If you are aiming for the Blue and Gold to be a rank advancement ceremony, it is in your favor to have it as late as possible in the year, perhaps even moving it to March as a belated celebration.

Our troop is doing better than last year. All scouts have exceeded their goals except 2; however sales are not over. We sell at Frys and Safeway grocery stores the first two weekends and this year we added Lowes. They also go door to door and sell to family and friends. The scout earn 38% since they do not want the prizes and it all goes into their scout account. This year the scouts decided to take 10% and put into the general fund. I have gotten donations from various businesses to use a prizes for top sellers etc and it works out well and keeps them motivated. The one thing I don't like about popcorn sale is the tracking. Wish I had an excel file that tracks all the popcorn, when the scouts exchange different kinds of popcorn etc. It is a nightmare to keep track of.

I guess the thing that bothers me the most is that you said "Its never buttoned and they ignore me when I ask for them to button."

A child not listening to an adult would never merit a "prize" from me for doing what they were asked to do in the first place. The "prize" would be for the kids who were already doing what they should be doing and trying to do it well, going above and beyond.

Fair enough if they just aren't showing up in uniform, but if they are sitting there wearing it in a manner you deem sloppy, they need to fix that. I think I would rather have our kids show up out of uniform than in uniform and sloppy about it.

After seeing the prize selection, my son made a goal to hit $1000 in sales. He made $250 the first weekend, none of that to family/friends/coworkers. Its nice to see some ambition (and gives me something to hold over him when he feels like slacking).

Last year he did just over 1,000 mainly from show and sells and around $200 from going around his dad's office. We never went door to door in our neighborhood.

Starts first of October for us.

 

So far, I'm not very optomistic at all. The ONLY store to allow Packs and Troops to set up a show and sell is Lowes Hardware. Sure, there's 3 in the county, but by the time you divide that among all the packs and troops, each unit might get 1 day to sell.

Time for door to door show and sells if you really only have ONE place that lets you sell in front..