blw2

I was thinking more about the earlier comment that 5 trips is way too much.... For our pack, it's the trips that make scouting fun. The kids have fun at the meetings sometimes, but there is a lot of "book work" in there and some only so-so stuff too. The trips are the adventure.... the things they look forward to..... And, if you have only one camping trip a year, what happens to those families that have a conflict that one weekend? They just don't get introduced to camping. I think having multiple trips gives options, so it's not so bad if you miss one. As others have said, they don't really need to be a big production. Some hotdogs, chips, a camp fire, and some good camp chairs for the grown-ups. Let the kids see what a tree is planted in..... DIRT!

Interesting thread, thanks for starting it Renax127! Planning to bring this very topic up at our committee mtg this week. We too, need deeper support for the parents Also the side trail about number of trips per year is good. We usually do 4 to 5 trips..... mix of 2 (maybe sometimes 3) state park type reserved site trips where the pack provides the food. We're lucky enough to have a guy that loves to stand in front of one of those towable pig cookers all day and smoke meat... we try to do 1 council camp such as cub-o-ree, but the pack still does food and 1 trip, not really camping, more of a sleepover - we did Patriots Point last year and slept on the USS Yorktown. I'm actually thinking the catering does tend to be a little much, and it might be good to reduce this, but it is nice focus and a good way to encourage getting together as the group.

ok, if I must..... I say wait.

Yes, the age and grade thing doesn't synchronize...... My son is an August birthday, and so he's among the youngest in his class. Should be 9 years old as a Bear, but he's 8. Part of me says wait But then another part of me says take him now, he won't be as bored with some of the requirements. If he's mentally a 1st grader, then he can handle the material. Wait until next year, mentally he might be a second grader doing first grade stuff..... But then there's yet another part of me that asks, is he mentally a first grader? there must be a reason he was held back!

I would suggest poling other boys. I can totally imagine a story, where you go out shopping and pick .... let's say a really nice sleeping bag. You put a fair bit of thought and research into it and got a really good one that will suit his needs perfectly and last. He opens it, and while he may be a good kid and act pleased, he might be thinking.... shoot! This one looks like it will last forever, so now I'm stuck with this thing. I really wanted the cool one with the watchamawidget zipper pulls and the high tech perpetual air conditioned micro fiber liner and the built in NFC charging pad for my tablet. All the guys will think I'm such a looser with this ugly thing!

Yes, Jblake, That's an interesting approach. I actually like the idea. Makes sense..... on paper at least. I tend to agree with Renax's response though..... most parents aren't there to be strong armed or pressured and would just assume to not be dragging their kids to scouts anyway. On top of that, many couldn't organize their way out of a box and would completely "forget" to show up. So, it still comes down to the 80/20 rule. You'll have 20% of the parents that put their names on said sign up sheets, most will likely sign up for multiple positions and for multiple events. Also of note, these are the same people that already are wearing a uniform in some role or another. You may get the odd parent here or there that's not a registered leader because they already have too much on their plate.... and they'll sign up for the odd event because it's the right thing to do. But the 80% will fail to hear the announcement and will not see that giant sign up table by the door as they walk in and out of the room. So you we cancel the even because we didn't have a name in the assistant dishwasher spot. Most parents will think, Yippe, I just got my weekend back! The boys are disappointed and miss out, but they get to stay home and play Minecraft so all is good in the world! Just my opinion based on my experience.....

I see this thread is still popping back up..... No more posts from ProScout ..... so I'm guessing he didn't turn pro after all. Yeah, I'm sure all that tedium adds up a good bit more than I see..... but I'm with you Basement, I have a hard time wrapping my head around full time. I do see a lot of after hours and weekend need, but not 40 hours a week x 50ish weeks a year. That is why I contend that the position really wants to be more involved with the stuff it's hard to expect from already stretched-too-thin volunteers.... such as training and 'direct' support of the units and volunteers.

It's always the 20% (or less.... around 5-10% in our case) that get the stuff done. I'm happy to say that I too am among the doers in my son's pack...... and I feel your pain Renax127 I have noticed that there's a lot of folks, leaders included, that are always conveniently gone by the time it comes around to folding up the pack kitchen, stacking chairs, or whatever..... We have one leader particular adept at playing hot potato. He is great about helping when asked. He may be chairing a particular event or chore, but as soon as another leader asks a question of steps in to help.... leadership suddenly shifts to that person, whether or not that 'helper' knows that they are now the leader. I think It's really bad in a way, but at the same time admire the smarts...... he gets "credit" for helping and seems like a hero, and yet skillfully gets out of a lot of nuisance stuff by sharing the load. Renax, maybe you need to start taking the lead from the 80 percenters, and at least from time to time, conveniently having someplace to be before it comes time to stack the chairs. I'm trying to figure out how to do this myself! Basement, unless it was me or my son that did the breaking.... if they refused to reimburse me for something like that, I'd be done with them too! Ridiculous! What was their reasoning for not reimbursing you?

We are a big T-Shirt or jeans with the Field Uniform shirt pack. I am full uniform down to the socks, sans hat. I don't always were necker, but have started lately sometimes. I somehow ended up with the T-Shirts to pass out after the latest order of them by another leader. I still don't know how that happened, since I am very anti T-Shirt. I figure I spent $100+ on my son's uniform the pack spends around $50/year on bling for it. The uniform method relies on the kids seeing their bling, and being proud of it. Working towards it. With the exception of the religious medals and other pin-on bling, I see no reason that it can't be worn for any scout activity short of painting, or maybe football. I also concede that for winter activities when it would be buried under coats, there's not much point. Then a T-Shirt or such makes sense. I was happy to see a photo of some scouts in the latest magazine, on a hike with packs and in their field uniforms.

Good points everyone, thanks. Makes total sense logically to do the open invite to maintain transparency, knowing that you wont get much out of it. I like your practice DeanRx of publishing committee mtg minutes to the parents. Not something we do, but I'm going to suggest it at the next mtg. Since our CM and old guard of the committee believe I keeping things "small and efficient", this should be an interesting conversation!

I'm feeling that our committee needs a few more bodies + some new energy. What have you found to be the best way to recruit into the committee? Open invitation to all parents? or Specific targeted encouragement and invitations to only certain folks? Does your committee look for people that would be a good fit, for personal invitations? Do you just look for willing and able for invitation? We have a full compliment of DL's + a few other members. There's not a lot of depth or energy though. People are willing to help, but only so far and are quick to pass or drop the ball. Our current acting CM is only handling the pack meeting "show component and plans to stop after this school year. Acting as ACM, I am doing all of the paperwork stuff, secretary, registration, webmaster, advancement, etc.... well at least partially as best as I can. I'm not really up to fill in the CM role, especially with no help to take over all the rest and honestly getting a little "tired". We haven't had a lot of good result in the past, such as from efforts to recruit such as den coordinators to help our popcorn kernel. I'm thinking the good fit is not something we should be worried with, but I'm sure others in our group wouldn't agree. I'm of the opinion that new energy and ideas are what we need. BUT I'm also thinking that we couldn't survive a lot of negative energy brought to the committee either, and I think folks with a lot of gung ho new ideas would drive away the current core of the committee that doesn't really want change. Would you ask your DL's to start thinking about which parents might be a good fit, and then let the committee discuss/decide..... or just send an open invite to all parents?

My dad was a Master Chief Boatswains Mate in the Coast Guard. If you don't know what that is, the Boatswains Mate is the guy that among other things, handles the ropes, chains, etc..... lashes stuff down to the deck, handles the boats, etc.... He knows all the knots, but in practice always uses a half hitch for almost everything. He used to show me the bowline in a few different variations, and a couple others, but when it came to actually tying off anything, it was a half hitch or multiple half hitches, or one of the variation of that theme.....

Just to get a feel of your perspective and the level of this question, what's your previous exposure to scouting? I think somewhere in the top two or three questions would be this....what kind of person is it that you will be reporting too?... or working with at council. I think the guy that supervises our DE's is very gruff and demanding, and runs the DE's off. For the most part, the unit leaders will be decent folks just trying to do good, but I'll be you'll run into some interesting personalities...... and maybe a few irrational parents along the way. I'm rolling into my 3rd year volunteering as a Unit leader at the Cub Scout level. From my limited perspective, the DE is a confused position. I've already seen one guy come and go, and a new one take his place. I say it's confused because form my perspective what the position wants or needs to be is very different it seems from what it is. In my opinion, the position WANTS to be: -a support role for the volunteer unit leaders, facilitating paperwork and other council issues -facilitator and trainer for the unit leaders -sort of an all around technical support contact and mentor for the unit leaders -facilitator or support for the various cuborees, day camps, and countless other Boy Scout level events that I know very little about What the position seems to be: -Sales director for the various distributorships in the territory, with enrolment being the sales goal and the units being the distributors or sales reps. -chief fundraiser, asking for donations I've seen our DEs at most every district round table meeting which for us is one Thursday night a month. They are, as you have mentioned, involved in the round up visit to our CO's school. I think this entail calls to the school to coordinate, then a short visit to the classrooms x the number of schools in your district They also seem to be somewhat heavily involved in the cub summer camp week, so 1 week during the summer ......and the cuboree weekend camp, one weekend a year They seem to show up at our B&G to give a sales pitch for some donation program.....and maybe sometimes one other pack meeting through the year, so 1 weekend day for a couple hours + maybe one week night evening for the pack meeting x the number of units in your district I've seen them at a couple of the district level training courses, so maybe 3-6 Saturday mornings a year if you were to go to all of them. and I really have no idea how involved they get with all of the boy scout level camps and activities......

I'm in the cubs now as a leader, so this is all just "entertainment" for me at this point.... If a troop camps often, I can't imagine them wanting to stay local for the big summer event. Especially in these parts of FL where the topography is in my opinion BORING. As a scout when I was a boy in coastal NC, we went to a camp in a neighboring council.... still not far from home but different enough. We had fun. Still, if given the means I would much rather have gone to some mountains and a nice change of pace.

I'm saddened when I think about uniforms. I feel that the boys have really lost something key to scouting. The uniform method has no chance. The BSA really screwed this up somehow, a long time ago.....

We do it sometimes, but mostly no.

plausible point. That is an advantage..... BUT based solely on my limited perspective 2 good years is all we seem to be able to expect out of most folks anyway..... not all, but most. After that, they may still well be volunteering, but for the most part the energy is gone and in fact they are soaking energy OUT of the group.

I have a hard time with the Scout Law too. I did as a kid as I recall, too. My son was so excited when we started Tiger, he was chompin at the bits bringing the book to me (wish he had 25% of that enthusiasm now) He had the law and the promise down cold, I think before we had the first Den mtg. I worked with him to memorize it, but probably no more than 15-20 minutes, Then I would quiz him on it for 30 seconds a pop over the coming days when we were driving or whatever.... I think his balloon deflated by the end of the year when the leader would still break out the book and tell the boys to turn to page x, we're going to do the promise now.... Over time, and even now in the bear den, I've noticed that he confuses them.... I'll ask him, "what's the law?", and he'll say "which one is that?"..... I say "A Cub S...." and he's off and running.

I think it's good to have one law, one promise.... but I think the little tikes will have an awfully hard time memorizing the scout law as it is now.

We're not approaching that, but personally I like the idea. I think we'd be just about as well off putting no effort into the Tiger year.... perhaps better off. From what I can see the burn out is real with scouts and parents. We had a light year this year with tigers. Recruited 5, but one dropped before we started, due to sports conflicts. The one that dropped had an older brother in WEBELOS..... burned out. Dad a former den leader, coaches several teams so he didn't have "time" to lead. Obviously sports is more fun for that family and scouts was a burn out. I had a terrible time getting a parent to lead the tiger den. We recruited 6 new wolf cubs.

For what it's worth..... Our pack has a plastic track District race last year was a wooden track Council race was an aluminum track. From the standpoint of how the cars ran on it I think plastic wins with wood maybe in the lead if the joints are good. I didn't like the look of the metal track, didn't like the sound from it, and it looked like a lot more work to set up. Also, on the metal track, the transition form slope to horizontal is a relatively tight radius and not a smooth transition. I think it affects how the cars run.

Here's a side question..... There's a cost associated with the background check. Do you reimburse with pack funds or let the volunteer pay?

Yep, required by the parish (CO) also yep, entertaining.... er distracting, na.... I'll say it..... BAD videos. also agree with Nealonwheels..... not a total waste of time as it discussed identification and some good detail.... but yes, could have been condensed for sure.... maybe 20minutes tops? The more valuable part of the Protecting God's Children volunteer application process, in my opinion, is the background check. At least here, we have to submit to fingerprinting and an independent background check. Can't really say I know if it's worth it, but it does give a level of piece of mind I think..... Regardless, it's gotta be much better than whatever the BSA is doing with just my signature...... Do they even do anything with that? handwriting analysis perhaps?

car camping = camping from an automobile, bringing so much stuff along that you can't hike with it, when a camper sets his tent up near his car so as not to have to carry his stuff.

agreed, NOT a cash cow. I think I paid $15 or $20 for the BALOO..... included a binder with notes and info, and lunch. Seemed about break even to me. As far as I know the leader specific next weekend is a freebee