SeattlePioneer

Hello BadenP,

Hello Scout Nut, Right out of the book. Nice and neat. But the fact is it doesn't work that way. The CORs don't attend, the district leaders tend to be isolated and lacking in resources, and the units where the resources are are isolated from the district leadership and issues. My intention is to start by INVITING CORs to attend --- every month. Perhaps some will, and perhaps some units will start appointing CORs who will attend. But absent that, I don't give a hoot if a Cubmaster or a COR attends a district meeting. They are both welcome as far as I'm concerned. In my view, the book is a good guide. But if it isn't working you had better find something that does.

Hello Scout Nut, Large dens should split because people tend to be neglected until they drop out, which usually cuts the den down to size. That's a poor method in my opinion. Sorry, but my experience is that putting together a quality den meeting takes training, experience and time to do well. I've done our district Tiger Twilight Camp the past three years. I devise the plan of activities for the evenings and on the first night boys choose up the dens they want to be in and a parent is expected to step forward each evening to be the den leader, with a different parent getting that experience each day. Part of my aim is to prepare those parents for taking charge of their new Tiger Cub Den in the fall. Those new parents are handed a prepared program and they just need to lead the Scouts through the program. That includes making den flags and a den cheer the first evening. A competition between the new dens is fun for boys and sharpens den identity. Pointing people to a canned program is not a formula for a quality program in my experience. As I noted, my recruiting meeting was last Wednesday and the first den meeting is tomorrow. People need some guidance in how to make the program work, and a canned program in a book doesn't do that. Let people DO a quality den meeting and they can begin to understand. It also helps to sort out those with the skills and ability to do the task from those who can't or wont do it. > Great advice! But how do you do it? For example, I called a family yesterday to get their correct e-mail address. But no one there spoke any English, and I don't speak Spanish. I've sent out an e-mail to Spanish speaking families asking someone who is bilingual to take charge of communicating with Spanish speaking families. I already made that appeal to one excellent person who wasn't able to fulfill that role at our recruiting night meeting last Wednesday.

Hello Scout Nut, Well, I just handed over the Cub Scout Roundtable to someone else after two years as Commissioner. My Roundtable program usually aimed at addressing the issues units needed to solve in the upcoming few months, such as a program on selling popcorn effectively, spring or fall recruiting, rechartering, or whatever. That's quite a different objective than attending the district committee meeting, where you can learn about the nuts an bolts of how the Camporee will be organized and carried out, or getting help customizing a recruiting plan for your unit or whatever. The Roundtable is a package plan that is top down. The Roundtable program is what the leaders think the units ought to know. The district committee meeting ought to be a bottoms up program --- where unit leaders tell the district leaders what they need and co-operate in providing those services. After all, that's why the Chartered Organization Reps are members of the District Committee and are supposed to be there participating in the program.

I have a strategy I've been using for several years to get parents to help, and to get NEW parents to help RIGHT AT THE START in particular. That begins with our recruiting night, held last Wednesday. We do an activity that pretty much requires the boy and his parents to work together to complete the task at hand --- building stomp bottle rockets, a simple Raingutter Regatta boat or whatever. Parents then get to experience the fun of seeing their boy compete with the project they built together. At our first den meeting Monday, parents will be working with their boys on making a customized hot dog roasting stick, which will be used on our hike next Saturday. At the Monday meeting a simplified family survey is handed out for parents to complete, asking the parents to identify the kinds of things they would be good at doing, or that they would like to do, to help the pack. The Saturday hike is to a fun location, where we will be introducing parents and boys to how to sell Cub Scout Popcorn so that new families are encouraged to participate. The conclusion of the hike will feature a fun hot dog roast with Cub Scouts using their new roasting sticks to roast hot dogs over an open fire. The following Monday (two days after the hike) new parents are the invitees to our scheduled pack committee meeting, which is held in part as a reception to introduce new parents. We have some treats as part of the reception, and will be using the parent survey sheets to ask parents to help with particular things they have already indicated they would be interested in doing. Our aim is: 1) give parents a powerful reason to support the pack, by engineering some excellent activities and experiences for boys, parents and families. 2) Use the family survey to identify things parents are good at doing or WANT to do. 3) Make the reception an attractive thing for new parents to attend, and ask people to fill as many positions as possible at that time. 4) Get people into the HABIT of attending pack committee meetings by scheduling them as part of the pack meeting plan, getting brand new families to attend right away, and keeping meetings short (an hour or less) and fun for adults.

Hello Ltfightr, Something like what you suggest is what I had in mind. One of my aims would be to encourage the transition of Webelos into Boy Scouts by minimizing or avoiding the fees families pay.

Most Scout leaders remain buried in their units, often with little contact with district and council leaders. Maybe they participate in Roundtables, but often that doesn't happen either. The result is a lack of information for units on what is happening at the district and council level and lack of information at the district and council level about the needs of units. I would like to propose that more unit leaders attend district committe meetings, usually held once per month with the time and location to be found on district web pages or by request from the DE or District Chair. District Committee meetings are where district issues are discussed, such as planning various district events such as camporees, organizing recruiting nights, Commissioners. organizing rechartering, district training events and so on. In my experience, anyone is welcome to attend district Committee meetings. At our last District Committee meeting I suggested that the Chartered Organization Reps, who ARE supposed to attend be sent an e-mail invitation each month in hopes that at least some would attend. Longer term, if CORs are asked to attend perhaps units and Chartered Organizations will appoint people as CORs who WILL attend. In my district we have a desperate need for more district level volunteers.

Most packs recharter as of the first of the year and charge the same dues regardless of den level. For 2nd year Webelos, that tends to mean paying for a full year when most will be completing their AOL in February-April with boys hopefully moving on to Boy Scouts and the Webelos program dissolving when that happens. That seems inequitable. Does anyone do things differently or have ways to deal with that? I'm thinking for example of striking a deal with Scout Troops over joining fees so that Webelos could transfer into the Troop at no out of pocket charge to families --- the pack paying any fees or reaching an agreement with the Troop to waive fees for AOL Scouts, for example.

> Hello CC, I can't recall other packs charging different fees by den level. May I ask why you choose to do that?

I've seen packs that have dens that are way too big 15-18 boys sometimes. Usually that's because of an inability to find additional Den Leaders. I've had success by having one "Den Leader" who devises the program and then several "Assistant Den Leaders" who carry out the same or similar programs for dens of 5-8 boys. It takes more ability to devise a program than it does to present it, and it's generally a lot easier to find parents who will take charge of 5-8 boys and present a prepared program than finding several who can devise and then present a program on their own. Each den can have it's own name, flag and personality. Part of the den meeting program usually features a competition between the various dens, which the boys like a lot and which is usually easy program to devise and present. I also favor letting boys form their own den to the extent possible, in particular putting friends together in the same den. At present I have ten Tiger Cubs after our recruiting night last Wednesday, including three who joined in the spring. That will very likely continue to grow. Six are from English speaking families and four from Spanish speaking families. My inclination is to put the Tiger Cubs (and partners!) from the four Spanish speaking families together as a den. While the boys usually speak English well enough to get along, several of the parents would likely be left out and isolated in an English speaking den. My hope is that forming a Spanish speaking den will be accepted by all and will allow parents to participate in leadership of the den and activities. Comments on this last idea are solicited.

> So... It's as easy as that, eh? > The strong survive and the weak fail, eh? How profound.

One of the most common complaints of pack leaders is that parents are unwilling to help with pack leadership. What methods have you found that help with that? What methods have you tried that DON'T work?

So---- How much do you charge to join your pack, and what bang do people get for their money?

All right! You've had a recruiting night for your pack and you've signed up a number of new boys. What next? I suspect a lot of pack leaders haven't given a lot of thought as to how to answer that question. I see lots of packs who recruit new boys but fail to get new Tiger Cub and other dens started. Of course the new boys and families are disappointed and disappear. So what are your methods for developing new dens, new Den Leaders, and getting new boys and parents involved in your pack and it's program?

Hello fauxc, So how is the recruiting night plan going? One key thing you didn't mention in your opening post was how you plan to promote your recruiting night. The most effective means by far that I use is visiting schools, usually during lunch. I invite Cub Scout age boys, especially those in the 1st-3rd grades to attend our sign up night. I appear in uniform, wearing a backpack and with a "Join Cub Scouts" flag on a stick. I talk to each group of boys while they are seated for lunch. My usualy spiel is "Do you like to go HIKING and CAMPING"?! "Would you like to shoot BB GUNS and BOWS AND ARROWS?" "Would you like to make a model rocket and shoot it to see whose ROCKET will go the FARTHEST?" When I'm doing the rocket launch, I carry a small rocket launcher and a rocket to show the boys what they will be able to make if they attend the rocket launch. Half the value of the rocket launch as a recruiting tool is to be able to show boys an activity that is intrinsically VERY attractive that they can do if they attend the sign up night. I give any interested boy a sticker that they can put on their shirt with the Time, place and location of the sign up night. These tend to survive and get home for parents to see. And example of the stomp bottle rocket launch can be seen at: In our rocket launch, the boys make their own rocket from a sheet of paper, which works quite well enough to be exciting. I have six launchers and it's a lot of fun to see six launches at once! I'm thinking about adding some additional elements, such as shooting at a target rather than just going for distance. (This message has been edited by seattlepioneer)

Hello BadenP, > I think that's too easy of an answer. It's usually a lot easier to keep an existing program going than to start a new one. A LOT easier. And it's unlikely that you are going to be able to let a unit fail and then reconstitute it as a new unit. It's probably going to just disappear. I suspect that the issue boils down to the resources available to the district to help and deciding where to spend those limited resources. It may be better to spend time helping better situated packs do fall recruiting than pouring in resources to try to keep a marginal program going at the expense of other uses of those resources. And at least at my council, the expectation of starting more units has been reduced. Keeping existing units going and growing is probably more important these days.

Many packs need to be reorganized for the new school and Cub Scout year. I'd start by setting out an exciting program for the September-December period. Plan a recruiting night, den and pack meetings and a monthly outing. Schedule monthly parent meetings as part of that plan. Perhaps you district or a neighboring district has some activities for Cub Scout packs you can use as some of your outings. Personally, I favor having a first meeting of the school year serve as the pack recruiting night as well. You should have an event which will attract the interest of new and current Cub Scouts and parents both. Read through the currently active "Scout Signup Night" thread for some ideas: http://www.scouter.com/forums/viewThread.asp?threadID=364833 The next week have your first den meeting, with fun activities like making name tags and preparing to go on a hike and hot dog roast the next weekend. One of my projects will be for boys to make hot dog roasting sticks from handles cut from tree branches and steel wire glued in a hole drilled in the handle. Boys get to use the hot dog roasting stick on the hike. If you have a quality recruiting night, followed by a quality den meeting and a quality outing, your next meeting should be a parent meeting that will function as a reception to which you can invite new and existing parents to plan out your next months program and to talk turkey about the help you need. Four years ago I took to rebuilding a pack down to a single Scout. It took me a year to get up to seven boys! (This message has been edited by seattlepioneer)

"Do you want me to pay for that new Scout membership with cash or a check?" District membership chairs tend to be pragmatists.

We did our stomp bottle rocket launch recruiting night exactly as described in my earlier post. We probably had seventy people out in the church parking lot watching as our six rocket launchers launched volleys of rocket attacks on the far end of the parking lot. About a half dozen Boy Scouts from the neighboring Troop were kind enough to show up and run most of the rocket launch competition. The principal of the elementary school where I will be repeating this event Tuesday drove by and spotted me among the crowd. She was very interested to know when her school would have this featured event for her students. We had eleven applications completed, eight of which are paid. That's the best result ever for this struggling pack. It's getting VERY busy! I spent a good deal of today working on getting those new applications processed, then visited the school open house where we'll be doing the rocket launch Tuesday. Monday and Tuesday I'll be doing school visits at lunch. Monday are den meetings for the pack and Tuesday the second rocket launch.

Shucks, if a particular Scout or Scouts want to set a goal of rapid advancement, that's certainly fine. I just think it unlikely that a group of Scouts are likely to pursue such a goal without an adult setting that as a goal and facilitating achievement of the goal. Self motivation is fine and to be encouraged. Pushing boys along to First Class in a hurry by adult leaders seems like misplaced effort to me.

> This kind of thing is obviously a goal set by adults, not boys. I would expect that adults analyzed the book to see how fast and efficiently it could be done with a minimum of extraneous camping trips and "fun." Then engineered the program to frog march Scouts to the goal. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see this continued until boys are carried in to the Eagle nest at something less than age 13. Frankly, I don't think it's much of a program. But if that's what parents want for their children --- help yourself.

My personal bias is the First Class is the most important Scout rank. Those who have achieved First Class have achieved the promise Scouting makes to boys -- to learn to be competent hikers and campers and to appreciate the Scout Oath and Law. After that, you ought to be polishing the same old apple by and large. So I'd favor having an "Outstanding Scout" award for those who achieved First Class or higher and have distinguished themselves as adults. A couple of years ago Bill Gates was awarded the national "Silver Buffalo" award at a well attended $100,000/plate dinner. I believe Gates got First Class as a Scout. That didn't seem to impair National from deeming him to be a worthy recipient of Scouting's highest adult award.

> If they did ---- still no tax revenue.

> Someone must have hacked Basement's account!

The formalities of survey research is wasted on small groups of eight or a good many more. You are in a position to talk to boys directly about the kinds of things that interest them. Also, the skills leaders have and the resources available to troops guide the program. A program that offers hiking and backpacking will attract boys who like those things. If you have enough money you can buy high adventure activities from BSA, but my aim has always been to work with troops in low income areas where the program offered by the skills of troop leaders is going to largely determine the content of the program.