pack561

http://pack561.com/

Still work in progress. Though Yahoo. Glad I found this thread, will look forward to checking out everyones sites.

For a Blue and Gold Ceremony - I need the proper pronunciation of "seeonee" wolf pack from jungle book. (is it "C * one * E)?

Also found Mowgli is supposed to be pronouced - Mow (like "cow")* gly (like Ugly) - is this correct.

My wife refuses to read it if not correct.

Thanks

Our main fundraising is port-a-pit chicken sale. You don't list your location but in our area it is the primary fundraiser for alot of packs. Net is in the 2,000 to 3,000 range. Just be carefull of over ordering (we have donated a couple hundred chickens quite a few time because someone panics we will run out) and watch out for shady part time operators.

We have leaders and parents who smoke, the rule is you don't do it around or near the scouts. Lets face it, people smoke, if a leader or parent smokes then the scouts already know they smoke if they come within three feet of them. But it is just common sense that you don't smoke in the middle of a scouting event. Although at day camp I ran into a parent who was doing it around a bunch of boy's helping them with a fish. I politely and quitely told him not around the scouts and he more than willing to comply.

The best way to avoid the problem is to publish it on your flyers and notes for events and in your round up information. Having been a serious smoker for many, many years I am very sympathetic (plus the smoke still makes me jones something fierce). Very few smokers would take offense as long as they are aware ahead of time. As for location or distance it is out of site and far enough away so no second hand smoke drifts to the boys.

I started something similar with our pack this fall. We do a port-a-pit chicken sale in the spring as our major fund raiser for the pack. We never really did popcorn because it was a PIB since in the fall there are so many fund raisers going nobody participated. For those Scouts who sold popcorn I split half the 30% profit with those who sold and am giving them "council gift certificates" to use for any scouting related activity at our camp drive next month. We had rather poor response, but I hope when the parents see those who sold getting something they will be more resopnsive next fall.

If you are chartered through the elementry school the EO would be the principal. The COR could be anyone who represents the schools interest in the pack, which is that the pack follows the charter agreement,it could be either a staff member or someone in the PTO. Why don't you volunter for the postition.

In regaurds to the pack meeting, it sounds as if they are incorporating a pack meeting into a bowling outing to qualify for the Monthly pack meeting requirement, which is acceptable. I would question the timing of the event. When we have an event that runs into a Sunday (like camping)I started having a short service included, which runs into a snag as we have Christians, Jews, Muslims, and offshoots of all.

To avoid this in the future attend the committee meetings, as they are to be open to all involved parties, and voice your opinion.

I was wondering and asking around our area, I feared they lost funding and were closed down. USSSP and Cumbmaster.org were my primary resource. I recheck to see if they are back almost daily. I am very sorry to here they had a massive failure though.

If you are not happy with the way your pack is being run the only thing you can do, other than finding a new pack, is to get involved. I was new to scouting in September 2003 and ran into what sounds like a similar circumstance. I went to the the meetings (our committie constists of adult leaders or their reps and we have no charter support which is very common)and became more involved and probably more annoying. Go to your district round tables and get info for your district, etc.

Be careful or you will be asked to be Cubmaster, which you don't need to be qualified for, just have the heart for. Since becoming Cubmaster last spring I tried, begged, pleaded, and finially assigned committiee members, tried to increase involvement, asked for people to step up, run it with more professionalism, etc. I wound up assigning the old cubmaster the committee chair and doing the committie chair stuff along with the CM duties and den leader duties. It wasn't long before I realized he was not a do-nothing, scatter brain but some one who had stepped up and filled in longer than he wanted who was tired of running something more than half the people didn't really care about. Also almost every positive change I made to solve a problem had an adverse effect on some else who was upset.

Also on a side note, although the committee requirements are part of the charter, they normaly only work if there if the charter org. is actively involved, most of the time people just fill in people's names.

To summerize, STEP UP. It's your son's pack, you are a member of the pack, if it's not being led, then step up and lead. It's the Scout thing to do.