mbscoutmom

I'm CC for our pack, and my husband did it last year. Basically, in our pack, the CC runs the whole thing, with the cubmaster, assistant cubmaster, committee members, and other leaders as helpers. It's up to me to make sure that everything gets done--not to do it all myself, but to delegate jobs and make sure they get taken care of. Since taking over this job, I've done the re-chartering, coordinated day camp, and run school night. With the other committee members, I've made decisions about how to earn money for the pack and how to spend it. I can write checks on the pack account. Now that school has started again, I'll be in charge of running the monthly committee meetings. To do that, I ask other leaders for items they want to discuss, add some more of my own, and make an agenda for the meeting.

I also plan ahead for upcoming events, enlisting the help of other leaders. Event planning is, I believe, the cubmaster's job, but in our pack the CC has always been in charge of everything. (Our cubmaster is chosen more for his ability to MC pack meetings than to plan events.)

If I had a more active cubmaster, I would expect him to do all the program planning. I would expect him to come to the committee meeting with ideas for the monthly pack meeting and upcoming events, and he would recruit the help he needs to run each event. I would do everything else.

I have one who's the right age and grade for Bears, but is transferring into our pack as a Webelos I. He had started school and scouts in California, and because his birthday is in October was a year ahead of kids his age here in Texas. The school insisted on putting him back a grade, so he's in 3rd grade now. But since he's already completed Bears, what point would there be in having him repeat it?

Thank you for the ideas. One question about Show & Sell Booths--we haven't been doing that because we were afraid we would get stuck with too much popcorn that didn't sell. How well does popcorn sell in front of stores? I've seen girl scouts selling cookies, and cub scouts selling discount cards, but I've never seen anyone selling popcorn.

Our pack account is so low I'm going to have to borrow money to pay some bills. We really, really, need to sell a lot of popcorn this Fall. Can anyone give me some tips on selling it?

Wouldn't it be nice if there really were different people for pack administration and den leaders? I'm Bear leader and Committee Chair, and took BALOO last Spring. I agree with Bob White that it will help me more in my administrative job than as a leader, but I don't think it's unnecessary for leaders. The more people that are BALOO trained on a campout, the better!

Jerry, the account sounds like a great idea. Can you explain more about how they work?

Jerry, I'm sorry if I didn't explain it clearly. To get the $3 per month figure, I divided the whole cost of re-chartering by the number of registered boys. The total includes the cost of registering the leaders as well as the boys, plus the quality unit patch. Also, Boy's Life has gone up to $12.00 per year. Still, the amount is approximate. The actual cost of re-chartering may be a little lower or higher than what we collect. Also, we'll be collecting that amount for Webelos II even though they'll be crossing over before we recharter. However, we'll only collect $21 for them ($3 x 7 months), and that's just about what their Arrow of Light ceremony costs.

Here's what I mean about applying profit from popcorn sales towards dues. Once all the money is in, we'll figure out how much each boy earned for the pack and apply some of that towards his dues, probably starting with January. If, for example, his popcorn sales earn $60, and the committee decides that half of that can go towards his dues, he'll have paid his dues for January-March. We probably won't give a refund of dues already paid.

Adult partners do not have to fill out an adult volunteer application, and they don't have to pay the registration fee. I just rechartered my pack a few months ago, and we did not have to pay registration fees for the Tiger partners.

However, the application does say that you need an adult application if the adult partner "is not the parent living at the same address." I guess that's so they can do a background check on them.

Scoutnut, we made about $800 on popcorn last year with about 30 boys, and averaged about that for the last several years. Most of the ones who participated in fund raisers crossed over last year, so I expect to make less than that this year. I wish I knew how you sell so much popcorn. Personally, we've been able to sell only about $200-300 worth in our family, neighborhood, and dad's work. Maybe you could spin-off a thread with tips on selling popcorn.

If anyone wants to know where the $10 goes, it's very simple: $3 for awards, $3 for registration, insurance, and Boy's Life, $2 for campout food, and $2 for den supplies. These are all costs that go directly to the boy, so I don't see why they wouldn't understand the need for it.

I don't think we'll collect too much money, because I'm going to suggest that a lot of the money raised by popcorn sales go toward dues. That will give boys an incentive to sell it, and an opportunity to work towards paying their own dues. Families who don't participate in fund raisers will no longer be getting a free ride, because they'll pay the full amount of dues, while those who do participate will get a financial benefit from it.

Thanks for all your input. I decided to do what our Boy Scout troop does. They charge $10 per month, and they don't charge extra for registration and all the monthly campouts. Boy Scouts have to pay extra for the Summer camp, but other than that, it's just $10 per month through the school year. They also do fund raisers.

If my figures are correct, $10 per month will cover a Cub Scout's awards, registration, insurance, Boy's Life, food for the two family camp outs, and a little bit to give the den leaders for supplies. We'll still need a couple of fund raisers to pay for other pack needs, such as leader training and awards, and program costs. The treasurer and I had a horrible time keeping track of all the money coming and going last year. Bank deposits would consist of money for different things, and nobody kept track of how much was for what. I hope this will be easier to track, since almost all the money we'll collect from parents will be dues.

I still haven't figured out how to manage the money for den supplies. More ideas would be welcome!

Our pack has not been charging dues, either for den or pack expenses. The den leaders have to provide supplies on their own, and pack fund raisers provide money for awards, re-chartering, and other pack expenses. This year, however, our funds are very low. Some families are not participating in the fund raisers. I'm the new CC, and we're about to have our yearly budget meeting this week, so I need to decide what to suggest for the coming year.

First of all, isn't it a bit much to ask den leaders to give both time and money to the pack? I don't understand why the boys haven't been asked to pay den dues. If we start this, how does it work? Do they pay the dues directly to the den leader, who uses the funds to buy supplies, or does the money have to go through the pack account?

The other issue is using fund raisers to pay pack expenses. Some boys are getting a free ride by not participating, while others do more than their share. Is this the way it normally works? What do you do to make sure each boy (or family) is doing their share?

We have quite a few bilingual leaders in our pack. I'm one of the few who are NOT biligual, so I don't really think that's the problem with retaining hispanic scouts. The problems they expressed were that work schedules and lack of transportation kept them from the meetings. We could have worked out transportation if they had asked, though, so I think there are other problems that they're not telling us. One may be that they didn't understand how much of a committment they were making. Another may be that, because they were put into dens that were already established, they felt out of place. I think that rapport among the kids and parents in a den and pack is crucial to retaining them.

Vicki, I never said we planned to exclude any boys! We want to gain more boys and parents and not lose anyone, and I'm just trying to figure out the best way to accomplish that.

I don't understand the emotional reaction to the idea of special dens. I hope the other parents in our pack won't feel this way. I realize now that most of you don't have the same sort of situation we do. Aren't most packs chartered by public schools? So the situation we have, with a large Catholic Church as the chartered organization, is unusual.

Our pack used to consist mostly of boys from the parish school, but in recent years, we've been reminded that we are chartered by the Church, not the school, and we need to invite all the boys in the Church. Also, the school has shrunk in size recently, resulting in very small dens in our pack.

If your pack was chartered by a large public school, and you had a lot of Tigers, would you deliberately mix up the boys between the dens, or would you let them join dens with boys they know from school? It seems to me that if you put boys in dens with people they don't know, and whose parents don't know each other, it's going to make it harder to retain scouts. That's what's happened a lot since we've been inviting more public and home-schooled kids to join our pack. They dropped out, and I think it's because they felt out of place in their den. Wouldn't it be better to group boys in dens who have something in common, and especially whose parents already know each other?

ScoutNut, I hope that I don't have to choose between losing one group of boys or another. My goal is to build up the pack. Last year our Tiger den started out with 2 boys. We lost one right away, and had only one active Tiger. We let him join in with the Wolf den for den meetings, and his mom had to do all his Tiger achievements with him on her own. For this year I know of one non-homeschooling boy who's interested in Tigers, but I'm hoping he'll bring his friends from school. We're certainly going to do everything we can to get them interested.

I just found out that we have 7 homeschooled boys interested in Tigers. Isn't that just the right number for a den? I don't have to tell anyone that they're being excluded from this den--just that it's full. For the other dens, there are only 2-3 homeschooled boys each, so I'm encouraging them to join our existing dens.

Scoutnut, that's just the attitude I'm afraid I will encounter. Is there a way I could present this so that the special den is not seen as excluding others "not like them"? I want our pack to become stronger and larger by welcoming, and making accomodations for, other groups. If it's not really a homeschooler's den, we won't get them at all. What will the two or three non-homeschooling Tigers do then?

I am a homeschooling mom myself, so I can easily see the advantages of having a den of homeschooled boys, especially for Tigers. "Go-see-its" can be scheduled during the day, and can include the other kids in the family as a school field trip. The family activities can become part of the school day. Besides, homeschooling moms are natural den leaders because of their teaching experience. When I took over as den leader last year, my assistant was amazed at how easily I came up with den meeting plans. It's just like planning a school day, except for 8 boys instead of 1! As far as interacting with others, the den itself provides social interaction for the boys with each other, and they would also be attending pack meetings and other pack activities where all the other dens would be present.

Your responses show me that a lot of people won't understand them wanting their own den, so I guess I'd better be ready to do a lot of explaining.

Do packs ever have separate dens for special groups within their pack? For example, boys from Spanish-speaking families, or home-schooling families, or who go to school together? Our pack is chartered by a Catholic Church, so we get kids from private, public, and home schools. We also have a growing Spanish-speaking population here, so dealing with parents who only speak Spanish is becoming a problem.

Last year, we added several boys from Spanish-speaking families to my den, but I don't speak Spanish. They all left after a few meetings. I'm wondering if it would have worked better to have them form their own den. (Assuming a couple of the parents would be willing to be leaders.)

Also, this year, several homeschooling families are interested in forming their own Tiger den. If they have the leaders to do it, I think this would be great. (Without their own den, they're not likely to join the pack at all.) The only problem I anticipate is if we don't have enough non-homeschooling Tigers to have a separate den. Do you think we'll have a big fuss if we don't allow public or private school kids to join the homeschooler's den?

Your boys won't run around and get into trouble if they have something to do. I plan the meeting so that they are busy from the moment they walk in until their parents pick them up. They start with a gathering activity to do while we wait for everyone to arrive. Then we do our main activities. We end with a game.

Plan on devoting the entire meeting time to the boys. Don't get distracted by parents or pack business unless you have other leaders who can carry on with the planned activities. When their parents come to pick them up, make sure they know that they are to keep their sons with them at all times and not let them go off and play while they wait for mom or dad to finish chatting with the other parents and leaders.

Our Webelos II den that just crossed over had 4 assistant den leaders. They needed that many with 11 boys. Those leaders were the most active members of the pack. I wish all our dens had that many involved parents!

15-20, I think. The kindergarten class at the school has a lot of boys, so I'm hoping for a good-sized Tiger den. I'm also working with a homeschooler's group to set up separate dens for them. There are enough interested for a homeschooler's Tiger den, at least. I hope we'll get some more for our regular Wolf and Webelos I dens, too, because they're very small right now.

I'm dealing with that kind of situation now. We had some very active leaders in our large WII den that recently crossed over. With them gone, the pack is quite a lot smaller, with very few leaders. Most of the parents are used to sitting back and letting others do everything, but that has to change.

I'm taking over as CC this month with day camp as my first big responsibility. I've sent several e-mails explaining the need for volunteers at day camp. At signup, I was happy to see that two families volunteered who had not previously helped with anything. This is progress!

When school starts next year, I plan to have a meeting with all the parents. At this meeting, while handing out the calendar, I will remind them of the requirement to volunteer for something that was announced in March, and give them a chance to sign up to help with the year's activities. I've been thinking about other ways to encourage more involvement, especially ways of enforcing this requirement, which I'll have to discuss with the rest of the committee.

Can't they advance and have fun at the same time? We have loads of fun at every den meeting, but we also get several requirements or electives done. Just look in the handbook--it's full of fun activities.

At tonight's meeting, we're going to wrap ends of rope, practice tying knots, and tie two cords together (electives 17a, e, and g). Then we'll tie the ropes to make rings and play ring toss (elective 4c). We're also listening to reports on books they've read about pets (14c), making Indian spears to use in a skit (2d), and if we have time we'll learn to say hello and count to 10 in another language. (22a and b)

It's our last meeting of the year. Yeah!