DenZero

Roundups should try to attract all Cub Scout ages, not just Tigers. While it's possible to recruit enough new cubs through roundups to sustain a pack if the competition isn't strong, it's not the most effective recruiting technique, just one of the tools. If the other packs recruiting at the schools where you do roundups are big and strong, roundups will not be successful. Our small pack has had zero success with the last few roundups we've tried.

Word of mouth is by far the best recruiting technique. A serious word of mouth campaign should be run year round. The families in your pack are your recruiters. They need to be inviting their friends and neighbors. Give them your pack's recruiting brochures to pass around. They need to keep talking it up. One invitation is not enough. Be persistent. Have everyone be on the lookout for parents that would make good leaders. Pack leadership should give extra attention to these people. Identify the parents that are influential in the school and community. Try to get these people to be your allies.

If you haven't started recruiting for next fall, it may already be too late. Rival packs have probably already claimed the easiest recruits.

Plan activities over the summer to keep the interest of those you recruit in the spring. Participate in community festivals, etc. in order to maintain visibility.

If your chartered organization has members with Cub Scout age boys, work hard to recruit them. They can turn out to be some of your most dedicated members. If they go to schools where you hadn't previously been able to recruit, they can provide a great foot in the door to expand your recruiting territory.

The better you do with word of mouth recruiting, the more people you will have to do word of mouth recruiting, and your recruiting will become easier and and more effective.

If you have more than 20% attrition, you need to talk to the parents to find out if there is some deficiency in the pack's program or organization, and whether they have lost interest or been recruited by another pack.

To summarize, successful packs use word of mouth recruiting year round. Packs that rely on roundups will likely fail.

What could our DE do for our unit?

At this point, its probably too late. The only thing that the district could do to save packs like ours would be to establish territories for each pack so that large packs cant so easily expand their recruiting range, squashing smaller nearby packs. But this would involve stepping on the toes of the largest pack in the district, and coincidentally the pack with the largest FOS contributions.

The futile effort to start new unneeded units took not only a lot of work from the DE, but also from the few commissioners in the district. If it werent for this, it might have been possible, while the pack was still big enough to be sustainable, for somebody to visit the pack and make a review of its organization and planning, or lack thereof. An improvement plan could have been put in place, and the pack might not have imploded due to poor organization.

While reading the thread titled DE Performance, this thought hit me, and I think it belongs in this thread instead.

Why is it that District Execs are under such pressure to start new units, while established units are left to die on the vine?

In the area served by the district my pack is in, there are probably 2/3 as many units as there were 40 years ago, just as there are about 2/3 as many schools in the area. Long ago it was 3 districts that combined to form one, but other than by combining districts, there has never been a real increase in the number of units. The demographics really dont justify adding more units. If anything, based on my lack of success with recruiting boys and parents into a long-established pack, there are probably still too many units in the district.

Still, the district expends a lot of resources trying to start new units where there is no demand. For example, they spent the past 3 years trying to start a new pack 1/2 mile from our dying pack because they had found a willing chartered org., but the unit hasnt gone far without any boys or parent volunteers.

Unless an area is actually underserved by units, wouldnt it make more sense for the DE to be evaluated by how well the established units are supported, and not just by wasting time trying to start unwanted units?

Our little pack has been doing its Blue and Gold banquet in late May or early June as a combined B&G and rank graduation. I suppose its been done this way because its easier to do one event than two. In the last few years there hasnt been a theme, just passing out awards and maybe a skit or game.

Im thinking of this years theme being The Last Blue and Gold, since it looks like it will be our packs last B&G. Im wondering if I should invite former Cub Scouts and leaders from the pack, and honor those whove kept the pack going for the last 65 years. I dont want to make it too gloomy, though. Has anybody tried this? Those who haaave probably arent reading this forum any more.

Does anyone know of any appropriate ceremonies for shutting down a pack? Think I ought to invite the District Exec?

You must get more points for starting a new unit than you lose for closing an old unit.

Our DE found a willing chartered org., and spent 3 years trying to start a new pack 1/2 mile from my struggling pack. He spent an awful lot of effort while were screamin for help. He wasnt able to get any takers at the new pack, and eventually gave up. Meanwhile, our old pack is likely to fold this year.

In our city, there is an "Adopt A Street" program, where groups can take on the litter pick-up for a city street. Our pack adopted the most littered street in our neighborhood. As it is a 30 MPH street with parallel parking, it is safer than a highway, and we pick up along the curb and sidewalks. It was an easier job back when there were more boys in the pack, it's getting tough now.

Yes, it has to be continuous. Our pack was started 65 years ago, but because the charter lapsed one year, our recharter form says 55 years (or whatever that is in months), so we wear the 55 year bar. When our charter lapses next year, if anyone restarts the pack, they will start over at one. Not that our scout shop cares, they would sell us 200 year bars if they had them in stock.

Here are my thoughts on how we might maximize benefit from limited commissioner resources.

Given that there are not enough commissioners to assign commissioners to all units, and that commissioners may already have too many units assigned, or be suffering from scouting burnout; we need to assign commissioners temporarily where they are needed and capable of helping.

I am proposing that councils have units submit a unit health questionnaire at least a couple times a year; at least in autumn and spring. This questionnaire would ask about things like leader training, communication, planning, advancement, recruiting, leaders serving multiple positions, functioning committee, meeting and outing frequency, etc. These could be scored to identify units that have problems that can be fixed.

Once savable units are identified, unit commissioners could be assigned.

Three years ago, the pack that I am currently trying to run looked to the district like it was doing well. It had grown substantially for three years in a row, and participated strongly in popcorn sales. It had earned a strong reputation in the past, with more than 50 years of tenure. Digging deeper would have revealed that the Cubmaster was doing the committee chairs job as well, there was no pack committee, only a couple leaders had any training, and some were not even registered. Parents were frustrated by lack of planning and poor communications. The Cubmaster was not able to delegate, and was in burnout.

In this case, while there were still enough families in the pack, a commissioner could have stepped in and recruited parents to form a functioning pack committee. Small improvements could have been made to the program, and with a good looking program, new cubs and parents could have been recruited.

In our case, the district exec. didnt notice until the pack was late with recharter the following year. By that time, too many people had left, and since then, we have not been able to recover. We will likely fold this year.

With early detection and intervention, units like ours could have been saved.

ScoutNut,

Im not saying that a normal pack would need to spend anywhere near that much per recruit. The response to our recruiting attemps has been very poor. Our pack is in a desperate situation.

We're not talking a huge amount of money. Over the past 2 years weve made signs and posters, done mailings of large packets that took multiple stamps, given away pinewood derby and raingutter regatta kits, rented booths at community festivals, provides snacks at recruiting events and lots of other stuff. During this period, we recruited 6 new boys. The other pack in the area has probably spent nearly that much, but as they are much much larger, they have more boys to spread the cost over. As a small pack, we cant use word of mouth, and need to resort to other means of publicity. We are chosing to spend our reserves on recruiting as part of a last ditch effort to save the pack.

To clarify a bit further, our small struggling pack has spent the money from this years fundraiser directly on activities for the boys. To keep dues low, we are operating with a negative cash flow. We can engage in deficit spending this year because of surpluses in the past. All of the active boys in the pack have a parent on the committee, and all decisions are by consensus. This is probably the last year of operation for the pack, though we might try one last recruiting drive.

To clarify about high recruiting expenses, our pack is small and struggling. We get a lot of help from the district; otherwise, our expenses would be higher. Our publicity costs are high because the response rate is so low. Fortunately, our pack has a good balance in the treasury from popcorn sales in years past. We could spend it on providing lots of freebies for the boys in the pack, but I dont think it would be fair to the former Cub Scouts who sold popcorn to support the pack. We believe the best thing to do with the packs funds is to spend it trying to build the pack back up. Saving the pack would be a good legacy for the popcorn sellers of the past. For this reason, we spend more on recruiting and publicity than anything else.

I didn't see recruiting expenses in your list. For each new boy who comes to check out the pack we spend about $50 on recruiting and publicity.

So, if you're supposed to wear the most recent Quality Unit Award for your unit, can you order, for example, 1998 Quality Unit Award patches for the unit to wear? I guess you can find them on Ebay, if you just need a few.

The Lane Brain uses photocells in holes in the track with a light bar above. A reflective car should not affect it. Ours will trigger falsely if the photocells are not straight and level, and if the light bar is not straight and square above the track at an optimal height. It works best with the tubular bulbs. I suspect that it would be easily confused by strong ambient light.

If someone is not doing their job, and there is someone willing and able to take over, don't wait any longer. In our pack, the former Cubmaster was not able to do his responsibilities, but did anyone who wasnt happy try to replace him? No, they all left the pack. The pack was never able to recover, and will likely fold. If someone had come to him offering to take over, he would have welcomed it, as he was totally overwhelmed.

This is probably beyond the scope of the original thread, but I have some thoughts about Cub Scout Basic Leader Training. Im wondering if it would make sense to combine the break-out sessions. Yes, it would make the training take longer, but there is probably still some overlap, and something else might be able to be shortened. When I took it, everyone had to choose a break out session for a specific position: den leader, cubmaster, or committee. The problem is that within a few months, a good portion of the people in each subgroup had switched to different positions in their packs. Unless youre a training junkie, youre not going to retake the training just because you are holding a different position. Besides, its good to know the other positions duties, tips and tricks for when you need to fill in, or for those of us who are doing the responsibilities for multiple positions.

I've given up trying to contact my Unit Commissioner. I got quite a bit of help from my UC last year, but this school year I have yet to have an e-mail replied to or a phone message returned. There have been sightings, however. The District Exec. saw the UC at a meeting, and a mom in the pack saw the UC at a supermarket. So the UC is still alive.

If you use partial perfect n instead of double elimination, the number of heats will be the same regardless of the number of lanes, as every car has to run in every lane. I recommend using PPN, as it is generally more fair, and keeps the interest level up. Having more lanes keeps more boys in the race at any given time, making the race more interesting.

Talk to your District Executive and see if he can put you in touch with the packs that didnt recharter this year. They probably have tracks that someone is tired of storing, and would be glad to give it to you.

We did this last year by asking the scoutmaster of the affiliated troop if he could get a couple of the experienced scouts to do this with us. They used the Webelos book as a guide, and it went quite well. The cubs liked having the older boys doing it. We went over the requirements at the next den meeting and picked up a couple of things that got missed.

Ill reinforce what most of the others have said, but from a different perspective, in the form of a cautionary tale.

When my son joined Cub Scouts, I knew nothing about how a pack was supposed to be run. The cubmaster should have, since he had taken basic leader training. The pack was small but was growing again, and no one asked me to take on a position in the pack. So all I did was set up a pack web site and help with an occasional den meeting. On the surface, it looked like the pack was improving, but what it lacked was a pack committee. What I found out later was that the cubmasters wife was registered as committee chair, but served as treasurer. The cubmaster did the responsibilities of the CC. The other 2 people registered as committee members were actually serving as den leaders. The chartered organization was uninvolved.

This worked more or less OK until the cubmaster wanted out. Another dad took over, and handled the ceremonial parts well, based on his having been a Cub Scout and Boy Scout as a youth. However, he started working very long hours, and fell behind doing the things that the committee should have been doing. Since there was no committee to notice, nothing was done about it. Pack meetings didnt get planned or announced until the last minute, spring roundup didnt happen, etc. During the summer, frustrated with the disorganization, 2/3 of the families in the pack left, many going to a nearby larger pack.

The following fall, I offered to help out, and became committee chair. My hope was that we would be able to recruit a few new families who would help get things rolling again. Unfortunately, it was too late, the families that moved to the nearby large pack along with our small packs diminished resources, gave such recruiting strength to the large pack that it was impossible to compete. The large pack grew enormously, but the small pack was withering.

We continued attempting to rebuild for two years, but this year will likely be the last year of our packs operation after 65 years. We were not able to recruit any new families this year, despite significant efforts. You can't compete with 100 families engaging in word-of-mouth recruiting.

The moral of this story is, that having a functional pack committee with regular committee meetings is critical to a packs long term success. Dumping all the responsibilities on one guy is the path to failure. You should never get complacent, continually work on recruiting and strengthening the unit.

I have been thinking that it would be a very good district function to do an annual audit of unit organization at recharter time. It could be a questionnaire similar to the old quality unit award application. Units with problems in several areas could be assigned unit commissioners to help them reorganize properly before it is too late. When our pack looked on the surface like it was doing well; there could have been intervention that would have turned the pack around while there were still enough people to do it.

I think that one of the most important things is to be willing to communicate with the units. Our packs UC, who is also ADC, was quite helpful last year, but this year, when the pack is in worse shape, and likely to fold, I cant get our UC to return e-mails or phone messages. I wouldnt mind a call saying the UC is overwhelmed, but its frustrating being ignored. So as a first order of business, call back the Cubmasters asking for advice and offer a bit of sympathy.

I did the RGR single handedly for the last two years (If we had a bigger pack I would try to get someone else to cook the hotdogs). Be sure to check out where you are holding it well in advance, figure out how you will support the gutters. Don't try to hold it indoors unless you want a big mess. Be sure to bring blocks of wood to use to level out the gutters. Make sure that there is a source of water. Be prepared for rain and wind (My first one it poured, the second it was sunny, but we nearly blew away). I used the 2 lane version of the partial perfect n charts similar to what I used for Pinewood Derby. Using these charts keep all the boys in the race until the end, and keeps the interest level up. Pre-print the charts for various numbers of participants. The scout shops have participation ribbons you can give to everyone. I think that plastic gutters work better than metal, and the sawed-in-half drain pipe works best of all.

Did you list your unit in the net roster? If you put an e-mail address in there, it will be searchable by spambots.

I used an e-mail address there that is not used anywhere else in machine readable form, and I've been getting spam that I never got before I listed it. After I added my unit, I realized that the address was openly readable, but I couldn't figure out how to edit my listing and remove it.

Since you're short on den leaders, I would sign him up as an assistant den leader, and use that as leverage to get one of the parents to take the main den leader position, explaining that it will be easy with an experienced assistant.

I've been using Netscape Composer for several years. It's pretty basic, and generates clean code that can be optimized by hand if you desire. It's now part of the free Seamonkey download from Mozilla. I've played with Front Page and Page Mill and a couple of others, but keep coming back to Composer. Of course until about 10 years ago, I edited my web page using vi.

By keeping the HTML simple, it makes it easier to transfer maintenance of the site to someone else, if you should ever be that lucky.