DenZero

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

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

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.

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.

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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

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.

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

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?

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

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

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

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.

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

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?

John-in-KC, We use it for the really big events den meetings and pack meetings. The way this pack has been struggling, its a big achievement that den and pack meetings are still happening. Over the last 10 years, its come within a hairs breadth of not rechartering about 4 times. The flag is a little worn in spots, but it's got character. And the pack is threadbare too.

Our tiny pack's flag has homemade letters that just say "PACK XX", without a city. It has a commercially made "CUBS BSA" logo in the middle. So at least at one time, the logos were available for homemade flags, and the flag police didnt care if the city wasnt on it. I did a little searching, and the "CUBS BSA" logo on our pack flag was superseded with a new style in 1948, so it was made before then, and things may have changed since our flag was made.

Ill second what GKlose said. Do whatever you can to build a real pack committee. It will add much stability to your pack and reduce leader burnout. The small pack that I had been involved with hasnt had a functioning pack committee for about 10 years. Back in the old days when it was larger, it usually had a pack committee. In recent years, the Cubmaster has ended up doing the duties of the Committee Chair and the rest of the committee by himself. The paper committee was just names on the recharter; they were either uninvolved, or were serving as den leaders. When the Cubmaster reac

After the popcorn sale I made up a simple Excel spreadsheet showing which portion of the popcorn profits were allocated to each boy, and sent it to the treasurer. When he issued a check, the disbursement was added in a column and the New Balance column would update by a formula. This pack was small enough, though, that I could remember each boy's balance. It was well worth it, because there were boys that would not have been able to go to winter camp without popcorn profits. To simplify things, one rule was that the only disbursement method allowed was a check payable to the council. This

When I saw the heading, I thought you were talking about the Council Popcorn Kickoff. In our council, this year to motivate attendance at the Kickoff, the unit gets docked 8% commission if they don't send a representative. Since our pack leaders are too busy to waste an evening on a popcorn kickoff, our commission would be less than 20%. Not much motivation to sell popcorn. Though we signed up, we probably won't bother with the popcorn sale and will look for another fundraiser that provides more value.

Ask your district executive. The recharter printout shows how many months since the last time the charter lapsed. The DE can look up when the unit was established. For example, our pack's recharter gives the tenure as about 55 years, but the pack was established about 10 years before that. The tenure bars you can put on your sleeve are only from last charter lapse, so we would wear 55, not 65.

Fuschiafox, To summarize, we had tried everything over the last 2 years to bring new people into the pack, without any success. Recently, however, there is a glimmer of hope. We have a new family in the pack, who are starting a Tiger den, and have already recruited 2 new Tigers in addtion to their son. The father was a Cub Scout in our pack in the 1970s, and both parents have been leaders in Cub Scouts and Venturing with other units. If these people can't help get things rolling again, no one can. denzero

Here are my thoughts on Cub Scout leader training. The way training is done in most councils is adequate for those who are Scouting / training junkies and have very understanding families. At this point, Im the only leader in my pack who has gone to basic leader training (the others did do the online YPT, though). When I did the BLT, I didnt really get much out of it that I hadnt figured out from the online training and reading through the Cub Scout Leader Book. Our council does a university of scouting. I looked through the syllabus, and there appear to be some sessions that would he

Yes, John-in-KC, I know how its supposed to work in theory. In reality, most Chartered Organizations are not enthusiastic about their Scouting units. Someone probably was enthusiastic 50-60 years ago when they agreed to take in some homeless Scout units. Now they continue to do it because they have always done it. Most are willing, and will continue to host the units as long as they dont cause too much trouble. What Im recommending is that a unit needs to judge how involved a Chartered Org. wants to get before you get pushy about them getting involved in the running of the unit. If most

You and the outgoing Cubmaster ought to sit down with the two dads and figure out what they would be willing to do. You could offer to remain as a committee member until next recharter to be available for consulting. Theres plenty of time for the new leaders to take at least the online training and read the books, and maybe go to the basic leader training if its offered in your area. If the Cubmaster is doing the job of Committee Chair as well, try to get someone else to do the duties of Committee Chair so one person doesnt have to do everything. When you recruit more boys in the fal