ShutterbugMom

At what point do you draw the line? We are planning to repeat the 3 mile hike and cast iron cooking during a regular (extended) den meeting. But I guess my thought is if they miss it a second time, they need to do it on their own. After another month or so, the weather here will be rather unpredictable. We also only had 2 scout show up to do the grocery shopping portion of the Cast Iron Chef. I think for that they can make it up with their families. That should not be difficult for anyone.

I should clarify - we changed the day we meet as a den this year to try and accommodate more boys due to sports and the amount of homework in 4th grade, and the den leaders work schedule. The camp out we are having to finish several of the activities has been set in stone for months. We have a few kids that miss meetings however due to being at the other parents house (and the parent with custody will not allow the other parent on the e-mail list) or they chose a family outing instead. For the most part, we don't mind repeating requirements, as long as the kids / parents are making a

I agree. My husband is a den leader and coaches baseball. Twelve kids on a baseball field are much easier to control than 8 at a den meeting. For some reason, they seem to view scouts is a license to run wild. Maybe they should run a few poles before the meeting.

Back to the OPs question, can the Webelos II meet on a different night to accommodate all the boys? We've changed our Webelos 1 meeting to try and accommodate the boys playing sports (which includes my son.) About half of our boys also play a sport. Not only that, our parents that volunteer the most are also the parents that are volunteering to coach / help with the sports activities too. My 14 year old has played competitive baseball and golf for years. Sometimes it has conflicted with scouts and sometimes it has not. Thankfully, we have a super troop that understands. He may not

In our Webelos den we have 9 boys. We usually have about 7 in attendance at various meetings. We have changed days to accommodate what we believed to be the most people. (We had a couple complaints a month after the fact....they had a chance to speak up but did not.) So this weekend is the big pack camp out and we plan to do some of the Cast Iron Chef and Webelos Walkabout requirements, such as cooking a meal and completing the 3 mile hike. Only 6 of the boys are coming. So do we repeat the requirements at a den meeting or just tell them to complete them on their own? What do

Overall, I think the new requirements are pretty good. I do not like some of the requirements such as going grocery shopping as a den. It really doesn't work very well. We tried to do this as a den last night and only 2/9 boys showed up since it wasn't a regular meeting night. Also, I would like it if the tasks were separated for tracking a little better. For example, this task (part of Cast Iron Chef) included the menu planning AND going shopping. So what do I do? We menu planned at the last meeting, then went shopping a few days later. So some have only finished half, so I cann

Sports is really a hot topic. My boys do both sports and scouts and it is hard. Usually it comes down to the parents not being committed to both activities because in cub scouts, they CAN complete activities at home even if they miss the den meetings.

Our pack has a terrible time getting people to volunteer. My husband is the Webelos den leader and I usually send out the e-mails and help him plan. Last week we asked for a few volunteers (bring water for the boys, lead a game - already planned, just show up and lead it, and a couple other, equally easy things.) Out of 12 families, 10 who are active as far as I know, we got ZERO volunteers. So what do we do? Show up and do nothing? They know that we will just do it all, and nobody will help. I am beyond frustrated and feeling annoyed.

I had a similar question. We have only two Webelos 2, that have already done most of their requirements for AOL (did the badges last year.) However, we had a new 5th grader / Webelos 2 join this year. He would have to do all the new requirements of AOL in order to cross in February (which is what is normal) and it is different from what the other boys do. Alternatively, can he just join the Webelos 1? Or is he not allowed to since he is a 5th grader? We want him to enjoy himself and follow the rules / requirements of course. (I should mention or Webelos 2 leader is not very active and

This is exactly right. When the boys join in August / September, the fee is usually about $12 for 4 months (includes Boys Life) so since this year it will only go through October, it will be $6 or $9. Your $85 is exactly what I estimated for our pack (including the recharter fee and our CO actually pays for Boys Life also.) We are having our planning meeting in the next couple of days, so I'm sure we will have to decide something. My husband is on the page that we should not punish the boys (charge dues) because the parents lack of motivation, and I tend to agree with that. However,

Yeah, we have 28 that I would consider active....some are siblings, and some come from single parent homes. We have not had our annual round up yet. I do think we need to change our expectation -- we are having our planning meeting this weekend. I think we should tell them they sell "x" amount of popcorn (or for returning scouts they can have a combination of all three fundraisers) or they pay a yearly fee in October. I don't see how this is an issue. My kids also play sports. My oldest son's baseball team had a steep fee AND a big fundraiser. They expected everyone to participa

I like that suggestion. Not everyone has to be a den leader, but if you have an area of expertise, you can lead one meeting or activity per year!

That is exactly what my last e-mail told the parents. That the troop would cover, but they would receive that portion of the proceeds and we would need to cut back our program. I am fine with charging a fee, but I don't think those parents that have floated the pack the last couple of years should have to pay a fee.

I wasn't sure whether to post under Issues & Politics, Cub Scouts or Fundraising. We have a huge issue with our cub scout parents not wanting to volunteer to help at den meetings / outings or with fund raising. We are a pack that has been around for over 50 years and I have been involved for over 8 years now with my boys. This has really just happened in the last 3-4 years. We have three fundraisers per year -- popcorn, selling Scout Expo Tickets (for units that haven't done this you sell $1 tickets with many coupons on them in front of a store...it's super easy) and we sell bott

Historically, our cub scout pack has never charged any sort of dues, and was able to completely function off fundraisers. Our charter organization is kind enough to pay the recharter fees each year. However, since the fee went up last year, the CO amount has not been able to cover the fees. Normally, this would not be a problem, but we are having a huge problem with fundraising also. We plan to start charging a set amount at recharter each year. Part of this is due to the fact that kids get re-chartered and then disappear. For example, 4 kids in our pack were at the 12/2 meeting,

Thank you for all the replies. I guess I try to much to be a people pleaser....I do not want any of the boys to be disappointed at Blue and Gold. In response to having 14 in our den....we started the year with 9, and had 5 new scouts sign up! In addition to a DL, we also have an ADL and a Den Chief. Typically, we open together and then divide into two groups and do two different activities, or two groups doing the same activity...one with the DL and one with the ADL. It works out fine since several of the parents are willing to help, and we have a large meeting area with plenty of in

My husband is the bear den leader and I do lots of "behind the scenes" preparation. What do you do about boys that miss meetings? For example, we had 2/14 boys miss when we did the Whittling Chip. My husband stayed late to do it with those boys at another meeting. However, our last meeting in December (which was the 11th) we had only 4 boys out of 14 there. We knew 3 would miss for basketball practice and had made arrangements to get them the stuff to complete the requirements since we knew ahead of time. However, we were making bird feeders which required preparing the seed ahead o

Maybe your charter organization could help you with expenses until the pack gets on its feet?

My sons are 5 years apart, so my youngest became a Tiger 6 months after my older one became a boy scout. They are now bears and he has basically been their den chief the whole time (although he did not need it for advancement at first.) It has helped him learn leadership and it is very helpful to my husband who is the den leader. We thought it as a natural fit for him since he was going to be at the meeting anyway. We did confirm this with our Scoutmaster. He keeps a journal each week of what he did in the meeting and I am sure to take pictures in case there are every any questions in th

In reference to ScoutTrack, we still sign off the boys book and have them look through it. As both the person that enters everything for our den and the former Advancement Chairperson, ScoutTrack is totally awesome! Especially for wolves and bears, it is hard to keep track of all the achievements and electives on paper and ScoutTrack makes it so easy. When I was the Advancement Chair before ScoutTrack I had to practically beg the den leaders to send me their advancements and many of them would call at the last minute even after my deadline. It was so frustrating. With ScoutTrack they s

I agree with the above poster. Many new parents don't really know what is expected of them, and honestly, a first grader is only minimally in charge of what they complete. Where we live, none of the boys could attend a meeting without an adult bringing them, so honestly, I think it is on the parents as much as one the boys. I guess I was mainly wondering if I send e-mails to parents about what the boys have missed, is that enough? We also remind them at meetings of stuff they need to do at home (for example, practicing a fire drill with your family which is one of the bear badge requi

Both my sons are in scouts and in various sports year round...mainly baseball. My oldest is in 8th grade and has been in scouts since he was a Tiger and he plays competitive baseball. It's a juggle during the main part of the season (spring). We have had times where one parent has taken him to baseball practice and the other went to scouts to make sure we knew what was going on and sign him up for anything that needed signed up for. By his age, it seems like most of the sports kids have left scouts. The ones that are left have parents that are very involved with both activities and think

Wow....there are so many different opinions! I do what someone else suggested and send out an e-mail after each meeting. I do have people saying that people just don't read e-mails (which I know is true, but that's their problem.) We do almost everything at the meetings, but there are just a couple things to do at home. I just don't want sad kids because their parents didn't read their e-mail. I expect this will be even tougher when they move to Webelos next year.

I think this drop off is very common also. My older son's group transitioned to Boy Scouts with 14, and that was totally abnormal for the pack which usually had 3-6 each year. My younger son's bear den currently has 14, so we will see what happens. I truly think sports plays a huge issue in this. By the time they get to middle school, many of the boys that want to play sports will drop out of scouts. And on the flip side, by then many other kids have quit sports and focus on scouts. We have encouraged our boys to do both because they both offer so much. Also, truthfully, most childr

My husband is the den leader for Bears and I am the committee chairperson for our pack. We recently combined with another pack and have gone from 7 cubs to 14 in our den. It's a bit big, but we are managing since most the parents are fairly helpful and we have a den chief, and a large area where we can meet. The question I had is what does everyone do if a scout misses a meeting and the activities that were completed? Nearly all the activities can be completed at home, so I normally send an e-mail to the parents of the scouts that misses and tell them what they missed, ask them complete a