jc2008

I'm not so sure from my perspective that we are loosing people solely because of the paperwork and training, but I'm sure that it's a factor that turns some folks off.

I'm all for training, and I guess I can't help but to agree with CYA paperwork....

but there needs to be a serious re-visit of this stuff in the BSA for sure.....

 

Required training such as BALOO. I've been trying to find a course for going on two years now. Not many are available, and the ones that are conflict with pack outings. how am I supposed to check that off?

 

Tour permits. They make sense as they are for a troop where you have a SM and ASM taking a bunch of boys in one or two cars or vans.

Make absolutely no sense when you have a pack with maybe 30 or 60 different families heading to an event. Each boy has at least one parent or guardian with him and that parent is driving, 30 or 60 different vehicles.... and that parent is holding complete responsibility for that kid during the whole of the trip.... The requirement just looks kinda dumb.

 

Ditto the medical forms..... kinda dumb when mom &.or dad are standing right there beside little Jr.

 

Oh, and I will say that we have had multiple... like in more than I can count on one hand.... issues of lost or misfiled applications at council in my year and a half of adult scouting.

 

and then there's the nightmare of on-line recharter.

Medical forms are for EVERYONE that is attending your event, not just little Jr.

 

Is little Jr going to be able to tell you all of Dad's allergies/insurance info/medical conditions if its Dad laying on the ground passed out or in trouble and unable to tell you himself?

We are actually on track to beat last year, which I didn't think possible.

 

We are using a new incentive scheme that awards money towards our big campout or uniform. The kids incentive is the learning and council prize list.

 

 

All our scouts pay their own dues, so the fee is not the responsibility of our Pack.

 

As for them mailing out flyers with YOUR info and this "wrong" price, that is something that your DE should not be doing.

 

We have 23 or so units in our District (troops and packs), and the Pack flyers that go out for recruitment are all specific to one of our 12 packs in our district. So the prices reflected on the flyers are what it will cost for the scout to join that Pack. In our area, some packs have no dues, some have $10 dues, some have $50 and one even has $150 dues. Each pack's dues covers different things and are highly dependant with how motivated they are during fundraising. (ie the $10 dues pack hits the popcorn sale hard, while the $50 due pack just really does takehome if the kids want to).

 

So our flyers that are specific to a pack do say the exact amount for that pack to join up.

Make your meetings more kid friendly and see if that makes a difference. If it doesn't, well then these parents just don't want to be involved and are giving you excuses.

 

The playground idea someone mentioned is a good idea. Or a food place with a play area (like McDonalds).

 

We are up from last year, but last year was down from previous year.

 

It seems to all work out though. We were down last year in Tigers and this year we got an entire new den of Wolves (ie the Tigers who I guess didn't show up last year).

 

If you are low this year in Tigers and you dont attempt a "second chance join night" to fix that, I would expect a higher than average turnout of new wolves next year.

As for Artist, remember that Art covers a wide range of subjects. In cub Scouts for our art belt loop we did cupcake decorating, mixing the primary colored frostings to see what colors you could make with them. A Cake Decorator is an Artist, they just make edible art. A chef is also an artist and can probably explain how artistry is part of the work of a good chef (presentation, color, texture etc).

Trust me, that was the quietest den meeting ever! The kids were so involved in mixing their frostings to see what colors they would get and frosting cupcakes. It was eerie how good and quiet and involved they were with it. We just had a few moms volunteer to bring a dozen cupcakes or so each unfrosted and another mom made a huge amount of frosting and added the blue, red, yellow food coloring to it.

Do you happen to have a Freecycle group in your area? I post there sometimes when I need something for scouts that most people would throw away (ie wood scraps).

http://www.freecycle.org/

As for Artist, remember that Art covers a wide range of subjects. In cub Scouts for our art belt loop we did cupcake decorating, mixing the primary colored frostings to see what colors you could make with them. A Cake Decorator is an Artist, they just make edible art. A chef is also an artist and can probably explain how artistry is part of the work of a good chef (presentation, color, texture etc).

 

If you don't have a BALOO you can do "family camping". The difference is that you are not covered by BSA insurance if its a family camp rather than a cub scout camp trip.

 

There are good reasons to do the training. I hope your leaders are at least Youth Protection Trained!

Our dens keep the same number until they merge or graduate out of Cub Scouts. Last week at the recruitment meeting I listed the available den numbers between 1 and 10 to our two new tiger leaders, so now we have a Tiger Den 5 and a Tiger Den 10. Only Den 8 and Den 9 are available now before we have to go to 11 and above

I agree with Basementdweller. If you want to actually make contact with these families you need to call. Have some options open for the parents. Especially if they want to continue in scouting but their reasons were time commitment or issues with their den.

 

Have options for the parents, they can come back to the pack, perhaps they need to swap dens due to the meeting times or just not getting along in that den.

 

Perhaps the kids need to swap packs due to the same above reasons if your pack has no other alternatives.

 

Also the kids can also work on their rank badges/etc with their parents if they really have no time to attend organized scout structure, since there is the Lone Scout program.

 

I would approach the issue with the attitude that you want keep kids in scouting, it doesn't matter if they are scouting with you, with another pack or by themselves. Its about the kids.

I cannot actually think of a Cubmaster in our District that is not also a Den Leader. Most Cubmasters are Den Leaders aren't they ? Or are we just an odd district?

 

My husband goes by the theory of wearing as many hats as you want to until they start to fall off, that is the point where you need to relinquish some jobs/titles.

 

The other thing is, if you look at the Pack structure or "pyramid" of leaders, where you have the COR and CM and CC etc at the top and den leaders at the bottom, you need to invert that pyramid to realize what the most important positions are in a Pack.

 

Your pack will still go even if you have a cubmaster who isn't so great. But your pack will go no where if you have den leaders who are awful. Den leaders are really the most important position in the pack and you should not step back from being a den leader if you don't have a great replacement.

 

The 70% is what goes back to your council. The council then decides how to split it with the Units. Usually, with incentives, it ends up being a 50/50 split or near to it. (35%/35%).

We do the prize list put out by council (we would only get 3% back if we opt-ed out and you can't get a BSA knife for $3.75, which is at the $125 prize level).

 

We also do pack incentives too since the kids actually make more money at show and sells due to donations that are not counted towards council prizes, so we try to reward the kids for that as well by offering pack prizes that take into account everything they sell + donations they receive.

A bit late, but my 2 cents.

 

I would start to think about what is most beneficial to the kids. That should drive every decision you make. Having constant leadership turnover and no strong backbone of leadership to build on would mean to me its time to move the kids into the larger packs in the area. You don't want people to quit scouts because of the constant upheaval or there not being things to do because no one is planning them. Or adults to quit and take their kids out of scouting because the pressure/atmosphere is too much for them.

 

Even in a larger pack the kids should be able to maintain their current dens, just do pack things together with the larger group.

 

I would start a dialogue with the leadership of a close by pack and let them know your situation and see what your options are to merge with them if needed later on this year. Maybe you will get lucky in your recruitment and pick up some enthusiastic parents though, you never know.

First responders to a medical emergency at camp would be the camp medics. They can typically make it there faster than an ambulance from a hospital. And its always good if those guys know that you have a latex allergy or something else before they treat you if you are passed out or something. Asking little johnny if his mommy is allergic to something they want to give her isn't always the best way to find out.

Donno, personally I would blame the council for ordering that many boxes for a troop that hasn't had orders like that in the past. I know our council calls to speak to the popcorn kernel if they see an unusually large or odd order from a troop/pack that doesn't normally ask for that much.

I did this last year and nearly burned myself out. My recommendation is don't try to do too much.

 

If you have a really small Pack, where the three groups together are less than 10 boys, then you can use the combined program. Of course, National has taken the PDF down for the combined program from the Den Leader Resource page.

 

If you've got more than that, you should have dens of 6-8 boys. Anything more than that is an injustice for the boys. If you don't have other leaders you can count on, you're going to need to get the parents to step up. Break down the list of requirements. Have a meeting with all the parents, and make up a calendar of your meetings. Have each parent commit to run one meeting with the goal of getting one Wolf or Bear requirement done, or a decent fraction of a Webelos activity badge. If you don't have the time to pull that together, then use the BSA den leader program pages and just hand those out.

 

If the parents balk, remind them that Cub Scouts is a parent/child program. Remind them you are a volunteer, and don't be afraid to tell them just how busy you are. Give the "

if needed.

This pdf you mean?

http://www.scouting.org/filestore/multicultural/pdf/523-006_web.pdf

Interesting note on the guide. They have vertical wall or tower climbing as Webelos or above but, our council day camp has that for all ranks. Interesting how the District Exec doesn't follow the guideline. IMHO, these are safe for the younger ranks if operated properly with the correct equipment.

 

My son has the cub scout branded swiss army knife and it works well for him so far. It is basic and doesn't have many tools. It did take him a while to be able to open and close it but he finally got the hang of it. Gave me more grey hair teaching him though.

We have a climbing tower at our scout camp and when we are there for cub scout camp its webelos and above only. I would wonder why your district allows younger than webelos on that verticle tower. Younger cubs can go climbing in an inside commercial facility though.

BasementDweller, why would she feel guilty about ending BSA programs in her state? She doesn't like the program, doesn't like being involved, doesn't like her district executive, I think she'd be okay with the PTA throwing Scouting out, it might make her feel better that she showed the BSA for giving her a mean phone call.

I think she just started off wrong starting off with the negative. It should have been a more positive discussion with her asking where she should give her numbers for tax purposes, or how that was handled. And if she was told it "wasn't handled" just inquire as to why. Without throwing up all these legalities and penalties.

 

Your charter org should be the absolute last resort of anything after speaking to your pack first and then council. You don't want to cause any waves or trouble for the entity that is nice enough to let you fall under their umbrella if at all possible. You don't want the pta to think there is a bunch of crazy people running the cub scout pack.

 

Stuff does happen with packs and it does make organizations reluctant to charter a new pack. Dealing with this now in our district with a school whos old pack, 6 years ago, had a messy divorce between the cub master and his wife who was the assist cubmaster. The pack fell apart since those two did everything and lots of confused and upset parents calling the principle (not even the pta) about the situation.

 

If you want to make a mess you better be sure it is worth it because you could burn a bridge. If it was a child safety issue and your pack or council wouldn't help (i doubt this but it could happen), then yes make a mess.

 

But finances and taxes, try to handle it in house positively. People respond to positive things better than negative accusations.

Dear KDD:

 

Re: the BSA policy about not requiring parents to help. I asked our district exec this by email earlier in the spring based on my contact with American Heritage Girls for my daughter, which does have a policy that every parent volunteer in some way. So does our church music group, and my kids' AWANA class. This was his reply:

 

"BSA does not require, or even ask, that parents commit a certain amount of volunteer time as a condition of their Scout joining the pack. I can easily see why that’s the case. Consider households where, because of family or work situations, parents simply cannot volunteer – that would mean their boys would be excluded from Scouts.

 

It’s also worth noting that BSA does not even accept all parents who do volunteer – it’s rare, of course, but that’s why the background checks are conducted. All volunteers with the Pack must be registered leaders, and all must take Youth Protection Training."

 

In other conversations, the general tone has been that our BSA Council is all about signing boys up. They truly don't seem to care if we have enough parents to put on a quality program, or if the small contingent of parents running our pack is totally burned out. The attitude seems to be: "all boys have a right to enjoy Scouting". It doesn't seem to matter if the parents drop and run, complain constantly, bounce checks, whatever.

 

I actually had one parent this year get mad at me as treasurer because I wouldn't accept a second check from her after she had failed to reimburse the pack for a prior bounced check for popcorn nor had she paid her dues. This was in March, after she always had time to waste my time at Scout events listening to her sob stories. Like I have time for this. I'm there to be with my son, lady, not listen to excuse after excuse from you, and certainly not to hear her anger when I couldn't take another check from her.

 

Our pack is a mess. The standard procedure all year has been to plan events, beg for volunteers 1-2 weeks before the event, not get any volunteers, and then kick the responsibility to one of the very few of us already volunteering so that we don't disappoint the kids. I volunteered to be treasurer only, but I've been caught up in almost every event we've done. Not because I have time or because I want to, but out of guilt. As a result, I have firmly told the pack leaders that for the upcoming year, I am webmaster only. Absolutely nothing else.

 

I volunteer on a total of five programs between school and church in which my kids are involved. BSA doesn't seem to get that. Their attitude is that volunteers are there no matter when, no matter what, for whatever the BSA and the boys need. No thanks.

 

I have never heard our pack leaders come out and even ask the dozens of parents that do absolutely nothing to volunteer their time. And yet, they will keep coming back to the same 5 or 6 people over and over and over again because we're all suckers, apparently. That's lazy leadership.

 

Our pack leader had the nerve to ask "someone" in our little pack committee to organize a pack activity promoting Earth Day and recycling, complete with materials, in April on two days notice. I didn't even bother to respond to the email. And then he complained when no one stepped up. Finally, our Bear den leader, who has four kids of her own, dropped everything, put together an activity with materials and led it herself. God Bless her, but I'm just sick of enabling our pack leaders this way.

 

The CM and CC started the pack so they could do great things with their kids. And they do. All the fun stuff like Pinewood, etc. While the 3-4 other leaders (almost all moms with small kids) do everything else. I'm tired of enabling these two. Maybe by putting a very firm boundary on my time this upcoming year, they will be forced to either insist that the other dozens of do-nothing parents step up, or do more themselves.

 

As an adult, I hate Scouting. There is no joy in it at all. I have spent practically no time with my son this year. During all events, I am stuck off at a table somewhere accepting payments, writing receipts, and trying to explain activities and signups to everyone. I barely saw my son's car race. The way they handle volunteering totally eliminates any opportunity to enjoy Scouting with my son.

 

So next year, I will be webmaster, and that's it. Whenever anyone has questions, payments, forms to hand in, whatever, I'm just going to smile and send them over to our CM. :-)

 

So, KDD, as much as I wish the BSA would support a policy like other groups use of requiring parents to volunteer, the BSA is evidently against it. I hope you work things out with your pack.

 

GeorgiaMom

Yeah, my husband is a unit commissioner and the variety and structure of nearly every pack in our city is unique. Also the number of people ready and willing to step up is unique to each pack. You can tell the packs who have the gung ho leaders and parents since they are always doing events beyond the traditional pack/den meeting things. Its all about the leadership and people in the pack.

 

I do not think that council should regulate this, it would be impossible to regulate this. Some packs run with one family who does everything for a small pack. And some families like this. Some run with a bunch of families working together and those are generally larger and have good rentention. Its really up to the Pack about what level of volunteer they require out of their parents.

 

I know for all of our council's daycamps, its written into the guidebook that parents must volunteer 1 day of the day camp. Its mandatory and if you don't sign up for a day your kid just doesn't get to go. Of course you can get another adult to substitute for you if you have friends in your pack. But one adult for each kid must work one day of the camp. If we left it up to "volunteer if you want to" I don't think we would get barely anyone to show up LOL. And when you got 120 kids in your day camp, that would be a bad bad thing!

The end of the discussion is, if you do not feel comfortable doing something, don't do it. A lot of cub scout packs don't have much in the way of assets. I am not exactly sure what our treasurer does (another discussion entirely ) but our pack made about 5k off popcorn/camp cards and got another 2-3k in donations from companies matching volunteer hours. We don't "own" expensive equipment as it would be our PTA who would have to own it, we can't as far as I am aware.

 

Our PTA does file tax returns as we are in a well-todo school district so they get lots of money and grants throughout the year.

We had tigers at day camp this summer. And there is a HUGE difference between these kids (who JUST got out of kindergarden) and the wolves (just crossed over tigers).

 

But like I said before, if the program is tailored to them, then it should work. My only fear is that instead of gaining more people you will end up losing people earlier as the program for Lions is only twice a month and its easy to have dropoff when not much is going on, especially the camping etc that parents expect when joining scouts with their kids.

Dear KDD:

 

Re: the BSA policy about not requiring parents to help. I asked our district exec this by email earlier in the spring based on my contact with American Heritage Girls for my daughter, which does have a policy that every parent volunteer in some way. So does our church music group, and my kids' AWANA class. This was his reply:

 

"BSA does not require, or even ask, that parents commit a certain amount of volunteer time as a condition of their Scout joining the pack. I can easily see why that’s the case. Consider households where, because of family or work situations, parents simply cannot volunteer – that would mean their boys would be excluded from Scouts.

 

It’s also worth noting that BSA does not even accept all parents who do volunteer – it’s rare, of course, but that’s why the background checks are conducted. All volunteers with the Pack must be registered leaders, and all must take Youth Protection Training."

 

In other conversations, the general tone has been that our BSA Council is all about signing boys up. They truly don't seem to care if we have enough parents to put on a quality program, or if the small contingent of parents running our pack is totally burned out. The attitude seems to be: "all boys have a right to enjoy Scouting". It doesn't seem to matter if the parents drop and run, complain constantly, bounce checks, whatever.

 

I actually had one parent this year get mad at me as treasurer because I wouldn't accept a second check from her after she had failed to reimburse the pack for a prior bounced check for popcorn nor had she paid her dues. This was in March, after she always had time to waste my time at Scout events listening to her sob stories. Like I have time for this. I'm there to be with my son, lady, not listen to excuse after excuse from you, and certainly not to hear her anger when I couldn't take another check from her.

 

Our pack is a mess. The standard procedure all year has been to plan events, beg for volunteers 1-2 weeks before the event, not get any volunteers, and then kick the responsibility to one of the very few of us already volunteering so that we don't disappoint the kids. I volunteered to be treasurer only, but I've been caught up in almost every event we've done. Not because I have time or because I want to, but out of guilt. As a result, I have firmly told the pack leaders that for the upcoming year, I am webmaster only. Absolutely nothing else.

 

I volunteer on a total of five programs between school and church in which my kids are involved. BSA doesn't seem to get that. Their attitude is that volunteers are there no matter when, no matter what, for whatever the BSA and the boys need. No thanks.

 

I have never heard our pack leaders come out and even ask the dozens of parents that do absolutely nothing to volunteer their time. And yet, they will keep coming back to the same 5 or 6 people over and over and over again because we're all suckers, apparently. That's lazy leadership.

 

Our pack leader had the nerve to ask "someone" in our little pack committee to organize a pack activity promoting Earth Day and recycling, complete with materials, in April on two days notice. I didn't even bother to respond to the email. And then he complained when no one stepped up. Finally, our Bear den leader, who has four kids of her own, dropped everything, put together an activity with materials and led it herself. God Bless her, but I'm just sick of enabling our pack leaders this way.

 

The CM and CC started the pack so they could do great things with their kids. And they do. All the fun stuff like Pinewood, etc. While the 3-4 other leaders (almost all moms with small kids) do everything else. I'm tired of enabling these two. Maybe by putting a very firm boundary on my time this upcoming year, they will be forced to either insist that the other dozens of do-nothing parents step up, or do more themselves.

 

As an adult, I hate Scouting. There is no joy in it at all. I have spent practically no time with my son this year. During all events, I am stuck off at a table somewhere accepting payments, writing receipts, and trying to explain activities and signups to everyone. I barely saw my son's car race. The way they handle volunteering totally eliminates any opportunity to enjoy Scouting with my son.

 

So next year, I will be webmaster, and that's it. Whenever anyone has questions, payments, forms to hand in, whatever, I'm just going to smile and send them over to our CM. :-)

 

So, KDD, as much as I wish the BSA would support a policy like other groups use of requiring parents to volunteer, the BSA is evidently against it. I hope you work things out with your pack.

 

GeorgiaMom

The BSA has very little to do with how you run your Pack. They put forth the best practices and what they think you should do, but at the end of the day the program is volunteer run. Now, that being said, its volunteer run and these Packs can make rules that you must participate etc in order to be in the Pack. That is up to the Packs themselves. We have a pack in our district who requires that every parent help plan/organize one event and they get that all sorted out at the beginning of each year. I spoke to their cub master last night in fact about this, and I asked how its enforced. He says they do have the parents who go back on their word to run something, but the majority of the parents pitch in and do their part since the expectations to be in that pack are laid out before them.

 

Of course in our town you have 12 packs or so to choose from (town of around 30k people), and that Pack will just tell you to choose another pack if you don't like the way its run.

Err you have shelter to take? dang, we are out under our Easy-ups or inside our tents yelling back and forth when it rains lol.

 

Some people don't want to camp in rain. If its a 20% chance of rain do you cancel ? Not usually, but you could still be in that 20% chance and have rain.

 

If its going to be tornado weather or severe thunderstorms 90% chance, well that is another story.

 

We went camping a few weekends back with a bunch of cub scout families (not an official campout) and we got rained on during the day for about 30minutes and then it started raining again about 9pm at night and made us all have to go to bed early :/ Woke up in the morning and the bottom of our tent was dry but it felt and acted like a water bed lol. Tent was in a pool of water. Just make sure where you put your tent isn't going to be a pond lol. But we had fun during the rain with our flashlights and watching the racoons make off with the bags of chips we hastily threw on the table under the easy-up. The chips were not opened at all but the racoons fixed that..