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DenZero

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About DenZero

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  1. What I did was personally address the letter to the boy, inviting him and his family to an upcoming event or events such as pack meetings, picnics, etc. I then went on to explain about the pack, and about Cub Scouts in general. I enclosed the letters in a large envelope with a miniature copy of Boys Life and a recruiting brochure (I got these from the district exec.) with stickers with pack contact info on each. All this stuff required extra postage, but increased the chance of being looked at. I sent these to all the first and second grade boys at our school for two years in a row. I did
  2. While a good program is important to keep the recruits, the most effective way I've seen to build up membership is to have a strong feeder pack. Troops with large and strong feeder packs get 20 Webelos dropped on their doorstep each spring. Troops without strong feeder packs end up having to work very hard to recruit very few boys, and are usually struggling to survive. Packs go through leaders faster than troops, and a period of weak leadership can kill a pack. Once the Cubs are gone to a larger pack, there's no getting them back. For this reason, a troop should take an active interest i
  3. The Question and Answer page doesn't address Chartered Org. Representatives. The COR of the pack where I was CM took the position providing he wasn't bothered more than once or twice a year for signatures. If this includes CORs, this unit, and many others are going to be scrambling to recruit new CORs when recharter time comes around.
  4. You might try finding an old struggling troop to partner with. They may have plenty of equipment that you can borrow and they could benefit by being able to do some joint activities.
  5. [Deleted - double post](This message has been edited by denzero)
  6. A small pack has the flexibility to do things that a big pack could never consider. Take advantage of that. Meetings and activities could be scheduled when it was convenient for all the families. Individual attention is a plus, too. None of the boys was able to fall behind on advancement. When you have more lanes in your Pinewood Derby track than boys in the pack, you can run lots of extra heats. An outing doesn't take a lot of planning, and things can be rescheduled on short notice. We moved our Blue & Gold banquet several times due to sports conflicts. You will need a strong
  7. Most of the really old units in our area have changed chartered orgs once or twice in their history. Often, they were sponsored by schools that don't charter any more, another was chartered by an army base that closed after WWII. One of the exceptions is one of the oldest units around, which is self chartered.
  8. That sort of thing happened in my son's pack. I was a small pack that had been recovering and was up to over 20 boys. Unfortunately, they never got to the point that there was a functioning committee, so the Cubmaster ended up doing almost everything. When he started working longer hours, events didn't get planned properly, and things got disorganized. No one was there to back him up. Over the summer, several families were frustrated with the lack of organization and decided it was easiest to move to the very large pack nearby where they wouldn't have to get involved. By fall
  9. In my son's Webelos den in the large pack, about 12 of the boys haven't done the Citizen requirement yet. I would like to plan a special den meeting to get as much of it done as possible. Does anyone have any suggestions for activities that the boys will think are fun, and will fulfill requirements for the Citizen pin?
  10. The most important thing is to have a Committee Chair who is activiely involved and is not the same person as the Cubmaster. You are supposed to have 3 committee members on the charter (including the CC); ideally they should not be den leaders as well. Regardless how many committee members you have, someone should be in charge of publicity and recruiting (maybe the CC?). You have to keep recruiting or you will be back down to 7 boys. It is critical that there be leadership meetings on a regular basis (at least quarterly, but preferably monthly). There needs to be an expectation that these
  11. It's probably inevitable that large units get larger and small units get smaller. A large unit has more people to engage in word of mouth recruiting, and at least appears like a better unit to prospective Scouts. Having a big feeder pack is a key to growth for troops. Where I live there are 2 packs and 2 troops, a pair at each chartered org., and each about a mile apart. In the 1990s, the units were all about the same size, about 40 boys each. Starting about 10 years ago, the North pack started having weak leadership. The South pack was able to step up its recruiting to take advantage of
  12. Reading about the scout at the beginning of the thread reminds me of my own son. He is very similar in his pickyness. He is a second class Scout, and at summer camp and weekend campouts he is able to get enough PBJ and Pop Tarts to subsist on. I worry about him going on longer backpack trips, that he would get bogged down once his poor nutrition catches up with him. He might be able to pack enough of his own foods to make it, but his load will be heavy and his nutritional variety will be limited. At home he ends up making his own meals after refusing to eat what is prepared for the fa
  13. Jon - I suspect that almost any den that you visit will have some aspects of what you obeserved, with a few rare exceptions. Most den leaders are doing the job because no one could be found who really wanted to do it. Since you are concerned about doing things by the book, I think you won't be satisfied unless you are the den leader. You ought to ask around to find a megaden that needs to be split, or a den leader who wants out, and offer to take over the den. That's my $0.02 anyway.
  14. In our council, the recharter period runs from January to December. The District Executive tries to pass out recharter packets at the October roundtable to any units that have representatives there. Not having been to a roundtable myself, I don't know what the attendance is, but having spoken with other unit leaders, I suspect it's pretty sparse. Then, the DE makes arrangements to drop off the packets with the unit leaders. The rechartering is mostly online, but the signed recharter and leader applications need to be turned in to the DE. The units are supposed to be done by the end of Nov
  15. If your organization already is Chartered Org for a pack, won't this new pack draw members away from the pack you sponsor? By sponsoring them (even if only on paper), you are furthering the demise of the unit you already charter. I suspect the leaders of the existing pack won't be happy to hear your organization is chartering a competitor. Does your organization provide meeting space? If so, will you be able to handle to competition for meeting space? Or are the units on their own to find a place to meet?
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