CubPackComChr

Oak Tree,

These were store front sales, meaning we had boxes of fundraiser candy that we sold in front of stores such as Walmart in two hour shifts. The parents and scouts would earn an hourly rate for the hours they sold (after the sale is over the profit of all candy sold divided by all hours worked, gave an hourly rate). So each shift would have an envelope they should have been keeping the money in. In the past that envelope would be sealed and signed by the shift, turned in to the person running the event, and then that person would turn it over to the CC and the CC and the treasurer or CM (whichever was available) would count the money, record hours and money and then deposit the money.

This was not done this year, because this leader wanted to do it his own way.

The account he opened had his name on it, not Cub Scouts.

Do I really think he did something illegal? No, not intentionally (still not quite sure on the legalities of opening an account in your personal name and depositing a nonprofit groups fundraising money in it when they have a bank account in the groups name)

The person running the event is just supposed to secure storefronts and be available to bring extra candy to the stores if they run out. The first shift at each store picks up and brings enough candy for all shifts and the last shift brings left over candy back to the "home base". We never ask the person running to figure out or keep any of the money because it is a financial matter and financial matters are only for the CC and treasurer. I think that is why some of the parents were upset, they didn't understand why he was figuring everything out and keeping the scout accounts that they felt were private information. Some of these families have hit hard times and I work with them on rechartering fees and stuff and they don't want anyone other than me and the treasurer to know about it, so I think they felt uncomfortable him seeing and trying to be involved in something financial.

I finally received the full information tonight after a long battle of trying to get it.

Questions were raised because in the past the amount people earned was at the $7-$8 an hour mark, this year it was $6.28 an hour. Families that work this sale hard were shocked by how little they earned this year. So they wanted me to recheck all figures.

A quick look through and it looks to me what happened was that a lot more shifts were scheduled and more people participated in the fundraiser this year creating more hours and a less hourly rate.

However, his refusal to hand things over when all was said and done, and refusal to run it the way it had been run in the past with checks and balances caused a red flag.

It seems like it is always a battle of wills with him. I asked for something so he sent me something else, I point out it was the wrong thing so he sends me another wrong thing. All the while I have several families waiting on all of this information.

Just very frustrating.

Wow...Is all I can say to some of the replies, the Compassion, Positive Attitude and Respect that has been given to my by a few of the responders in this post!

Thank you to those of you who responded without blaming me for a situation that I actually DID NOT create. It is how the pack ran things when I became CC and I just followed through.

I did not ask for this man to refuse to give me the information, in fact after the first weekend when he first refused I did tell him that I didn't think it was a good idea that he continue running the event and that he should hand things over to me and I would run the event if he had a problem with it. I even had to call in our UC to talk with him. After the UC talked with him is when I found out he had opened an account to deposit money in. Another leader also found this out and asked me if it was legal? He told me after speaking wiht the UC he would be more cooperative but has not.

I had some families come to me and specifically ask me if I would double check everything and then have the CM triple check me because they felt that the totals he gave them for what they earned were a lot less than previous years. I am still in the process of trying to get him to give me all the information so I can do that. In the 5 years that this pack has done this fundraiser, no leader has ever been so controlling and refused to hand over money or information. I need the information now because resident camp money is due June 1st and parents use their scout accounts to pay for that event, and he is refusing to let me do the double check that other parents asked that I do, along with having someone triple check me.

I am not quite sure why I am being accused of wanting to flaunt my authority or "screaming RESPECT MY AUTHORITY" but as CC if something does not add up with all of this I am the one that the parents look to for explanation. If that is so I want to be able to have the answers.

I did not realize this forum was a place for people to bash others without knowing them. I am quite offended by some of the responses. Yes the guy volunteered, great, however his job is over, the candy sales is over he should hand in the information and we can say thank you!

LisaBob,

As I said we did inform him however he stated he would do it the way he wanted to do it no matter how it was done in the past.

Our treasurer is hard to get ahold of also, and she is not very happy to have the position, I am also on the bank account because we need two people, so that is why I asked him for the money so I could deposit it. He really had no need to open a seperate account, I had offered all along to collect it and deposit it.

I was frustrated with his lack of sharing the information so I stepped back because I just didn't want to deal with another problem from him, but now I have people wanting me to get the information from him and double check his work and now he is complaining that his integrity is being called on.

I asked if it was legal because a parent asked me, I had no clue. Him opening a bank account in his personal name and depositing fundraising money in it is in truth strange.

As for pushing him into handling this fundraiser, it was something the committee voted on years ago that each den leader handle an event, (ie pinewood, popcorn sales, spring candy sales, etc.) they chose the candy sales as the Tigers event since it is the last one and they would have a full year of being in the pack before running an event. He was not pushed into it because as I tell everyone if they do not want to run it or can't I would take care of running the event. This leader has also been around for a while, as he has an older boy in the pack and so he was not surprised by any of this.

I am not trying to accuse him of illegal things, I just want to be able to pass on answers to the questions that have been asked of me.

There are, unfortunately, other things going on here, he has a personal thing against me and whenever I ask for any information he questions me back with a question of his own, I answer and he still does not give me the information I originally asked for.

We had to cancel our pack going to daycamp because none of the parents would volunteer (at our council we need to send 1 adult as a volunteer for every 8 boys attending) I sent message after message to parents informing them we needed the volunteers or we would have to cancel in order to receive our money back (council's suggestion to me and they were backing me). This leader did not have his sons' signed up for the event, nor was he coordinating it or have anything else to do with it. He found out it was canceled, demanded to know why and why he wasn't informed and then called council to inquire why I canceled it, he didn't get far with them since they explaned to him the same thing I explaned to him.

So I am quite frustrated with him, however my question was solely to be able to answer to someone else. I didn't think it was necessarily illegal, however I did think it was wrong. After the first weekends sales I did ask him if I could pick up the money so I could deposit it in our account right away and he refused to let me do so (it was soon after I found out he opened an account for the money) If he didn't want the money sitting around his house the solution was simple, turn it in so it could be deposited.

We do a spring candy sale fundraiser to build up money for the scouts own accounts to help pay for resident camps and such.

Every year we ask the Tiger leader to run the fundraiser (each leader has a different event that they run each year since we have such a hard time getting volunteers)

This year, this particular gentleman refused to share information with me, saying that he is in charge of it this year and will run it the way he wants and that he doesn't care how it has been run in the past. I then found out that he also opened up a bank account (seperate from the one the pack has and also in a seperate bank) that he planned on depositing the money in. He has since closed the bank account but all the money handed over to me has come in the form of cashiers checks from that bank (in all years past the cash from the weekend was handed over to be double checked by me and the cubmaster and deposited weekly), which makes me wonder if the bank account was actually closed.

He also refuses to hand over any of the information now that the fundraiser is over and proceeded to try to be in charge of all of the scouts accounts (I have a few parents that were uncomfortable with this).

My main question is whether it was legal for him to open this account at all?

Moose,

Honestly no the webinar did not explain how to make the core values fun and exciting. I have in the past gone to baloo's bugle to get ideas to plan my pack nights and I am kind of hoping that the person that creates baloo's bugle will incorporate the new delivery method into the bugle because as of right now I just do not have ideas. It was asked what happens when we have special events i.e. pinewood, raingutter regatta and such. They said that we should and could still fit in that months core value into our event. It is going to be interesting figuring out how to plan pack nights around values rather than themes.

The new delivery method has basically all your den meetings planned out for you. It says that it is flexable and you can move them around, so you probably can plan your own instead of working off of them. The main thing is that they want all boys at all levels to rank up at the same pace and to all get their ranks by a february blue and gold. The themed arts and crafts months are gone and now the months are dedicated to each of the 12 core values.

You know what? I did not go through the book with the meetings, I just looked and saw that there were 16 meeting plans and assumed that the rank was completed with the 16th meeting, not earlier. I had not had a chance to actually go through the book and the meeting plans together. Thanks for pointing that out, it makes more sense now.

So what does everyone think of the new delivery method? Awesome? Hate it? Okay?

My one question (I did not get an answer at the webinar because we ran out of time unfortunately) is how can you get the den meetings done by February if you do two meetings a month starting in September? I was looking specifically at the Bear meetings and I think you can only get the main meetings that get you to rank done by February if you start in June and do two meetings a month. You would be done in the second week of January doing this. The only way I see it being done is if you actually did three meetings a month or more. Do any of you out there hold that many meetings? How do your parents handle that if you do? I just informed my parents that we would be doing two meetings a month (I am going to start in June because we have our Pinewood in January and the last two planned meetings for the Bears are pinewood themed meetings, so those meetings would be just in time for our pinewood) and my parents seemed overwhelmed by the idea. Before we did one meeting a month, a Pack meeting and a Pack outing.

So what does everyone here think? How are you going to work the new delivery method?

To those that say that this is a program for the boys just let them have the award I ask then, well what is the point in having the program? If they don't have to actually do the work to receive the rank why is there a book at all with acheivements. If parents can just sign off that a child did something when you know the chances are nil why have the 10 purposes of scouting? If there is no inforcement that the program be run a certain way, why have the program? Why not just have kids show up once a month and just hand them out awards for just showing up once a month? Or just have them show up once a year and hand them an award. Perhaps I am just a stickler to rules, but if a program is set up, shouldn't it be followed and have some kind of enforcement?

Thank you all for your replies. First off I am the committee chair, I am also the wolf leader, and the advancement chair, my husband is the cubmaster. I have seen other posts here where someone who hold more than one position gets blasted and told how that is wrong, but let me assure you that our council is well aware of our situation, have been to pack nights, blue and golds and pinewood derbies, along with leader meetings to help us try to pull in more volunteers. Our parents just won't step up. I took over com. chair because the last one had to leave, and I can't get anyone to step up. This is another problem all together.

So with me holding those positions, and my husband being cubmaster you can see how if we really stick to our guns it could look like my husband and I just hold a grudge against him and don't want to award rank to his son. That is not the case at all, I just want the boy attending the den he is supposed to attend instead of this man finding a way to have his sons in the same den. Their are age levels for a reason. I just can't seem to reason with this man. I spoke with our District Commissioner about this and he offered no help, when I asked if council would back me up in standing up to him and saying his son had to go to the appropriate den meeting he told me that the council can't act as a shield for us. So I was curious what other people would do in this case. Next year our two bear dens will be combining and we will tell this man he is going to have to step down as an assistant leader while the other leader (who is completely competant) runs the den as the den leader. Hopefully that will help.

I went this whole year trying to communicate to this man and his exwife about the boy showing up to meetings with no responses until just yesturday when he told me that his son fulfilled all acheivements, plus enough electives to earn a gold arrow and 4 silver and he expects his son to be awarded this on our May pack night on the 21st. It is just very frustrating.

I have no problem giving the boy the wolf rank, even though the rest of the den and the rest of the parents have pointed out that he does not attend anything. I don't want to hurt the boys feelings. It is the dad (who is the bear leader) that I wish I knew how to deal with. I do not believe that the wolf did the requirements at bear meetings. I awarded the boy his tiger badge because our commisioner told me that we could not hold advancement from a boy and that hopefully this year would be better. Unfortunately it has not. I had not watched the webinar yet (scheduled to do so tomorrow) so if it is true and den leaders are to sign off for everything for now on then the dilema will be solved, if not, I don't know how to keep this man from bullying me into just giving awards to his son without him participating with his own age group. It is frustrating because he never comes to leader meetings, barely comes to pack nights so it is hard to talk to this man and tell him how it should be. Plus he is just one of those kind of men who is, well, very bullyish. He tells you whats going to happen in a manner that means that its his way or he will find a way to make it go his way. I just wish there were strick guidelines that we had on such things in the program, and that council could back up the decisions and say "yes the committee says that a boy has to show up and do the work or they don't get an award they didn't work for".

It would be best for the pack if we did not have this man for a den leader, but in times when it is hard to get volunteers you can't really tell someone you would rather they not be a leader, can you?

I know it would seem that it should be as easy as just saying no, but I can't seem to get a straight answer from our council, some people say its not right to hold a badge away from a child and that we should just give the badge to the child, others say check the book and see if the dad signed off everything in the book, but lets face it the dad could sign off the book even if the child did not do the acheivements. This man is a very forceful and pushy man and makes people feel uncomfortable. Its hard to know how to handle it when there really is no written guideline that says "a boy must attend meetings to rank up, or his leader must approve acheivements" especially when the book says that parents are the ones to sign off that the boys do the work.

Hi, I would like other people's opinions on this topic...

We have a den leader that has two boys in the pack, boy #1 is currently a bear and boy #2 is a wolf. Originally when he was signing up boy #1 as a tiger he wanted us to let him sign up boy #2 as a tiger too even though he was too young still. We told him we could not do that. During boy #2's tiger year he only came to one or two meetings but the leader insisted that he went to all of the Wolf meetings and made his requirements and insisted he get his tiger badge. Now in the second year the boy again only went to 2 wolf meetings, 1 wolf outing and only maybe 3 pack nights. The leader recently emailed the Wolf leader and said that his son went to all the bear meetings and has completed all of his wolf achievements along with enough electives to get him 1 gold arrow and 4 silver arrows and expects his son to receive his wolf badge at the next pack night. Essentially he has found a way to have both his sons in the one den even though they should be in two different dens.

How would some of you handle this, the wolf and bear books are not the same, they do not work on the same acheivements, so how did the boy do wolf acheivements at bear meetings? The wolf leader has never seen the boys book (because he is never at meetings). What would you all do???