DenZero

The too many hats syndrome is certainly a problem at the district level. As Cubmaster of a struggling pack, Im happy to have a unit commissioner who is enthusiastic and helpful; this poor person doesnt know how to say no. In addition to being unit commissioner for too many units (about 10); my UC holds several other district positions, most of which are very demanding. With that kind of schedule, its tough to get a phone message returned or email answered. I usually call the District Executive first, rather than bother my UC.

I did this last summer. Fortunately we had an outdoor booth with more space, and were able to set up the Pinewood Derby track (except for the last section) and borrowed some boys cars from last year. Without this, it is unlikely that we would have got any boys to stop at the booth. If you can't do that, you need some kind of game, maybe with prizes (marked with contact info). A video probably won't draw people to the booth. We also had a quick craft project that they could take home, and set up a small tent. Though it won't be a problem indoors, the first time I tried this, I had a

Why don't you just put the activities on the calendar as Tiger Den activities, since the Tigers are half of the pack anyway. You can put out word that the older boys are welcome to come as guests of the Tigers.

Yeah, I got one too. Maybe because my pack is in such bad shape they thought some extra training might help. I'm holding out for BALOO training instead. I also got "Scouting" and "Boys Life" for the first time on the same day. Maybe it's what we get for rechartering on time. Somehow I suspect everybody is getting the invitations.

This sounds a lot like our pack 2 years ago. The new Cubmaster started out with enthusiasm, but was soon in over his head. Since there wasn't a functioning committee, no one stepped in to help him out or raised a red flag that there were problems. At the end of the year the pack lost two thirds of the members, and almost didn't recharter, hasn't recovered, and is still likely to fold. Don't wait. If you want the pack to continue, offer to be assistant Cubmaster or Committee Chair, and help out the poor guy. While you still have enough families, talk with all the parents and see if yo

I think this is probably a good time to do recruiting. Last year I started talking with Kindergarten families in March to recruit as Tigers for the following year, but discovered I was already too late, that some had already been recruited by the rival pack. Now is the time to recruit enough families that you will be able to keep the pack alive over the summer. When our previous CM didn't keep the pack active during the summer, more than half the pack dropped out, and the other pack trounced us in recruiting in the fall. The tough thing is whether to concentrate on program, or on r

Ccrumpton, From my perspective, youre in pretty good shape. Just take it easy. Youve got a Chartered Org. Rep. who is willing to get involved, and some parents who are willing to get involved. Just cause youve got 8 boys doesnt mean you will be able to get 8 leaders, but hopefully youll be able to get a couple. For our B&G last year, we reserved a back room at a local pizza joint. I decorated it with some stuff celebrating the 75th anniversary of Scouting (OK, a little late, but its what I found in storage). Just try to have some kind of an award for each boy so nobody fee

It looks like one of the next things I should do is have a chat with the Institutional Head. The Chartered Org. went through some leadership turmoil, but things have settled down. The current pastor seems supportive when we spoke briefly. Ill try to put out a request for assistance to the congregation. Maybe we can find someone who can help us improve our program until we get large enough to be self-sustaining. We might even find a new Chartered Org. Rep. who is willing to get involved. There must be some people in the congregation whose sons went through the pack or troop years ago, and

Despite what you read in old postings, the program this year is much better than last year. Despite the low numbers, it's not that much worse than the average pack, we are trying to Do Our Best. Still you are probably right, it's hard to buck progress. 40 years ago there were 4 packs in our area, now there are 2, before long there will be 1. It's probably time I give up and stop wasting my time.

Thanks, Beavah. To do some joint events with the nearby pack we need to get over the rivalry resulting from many years of competitive recruiting. 10-15 years ago the small pack was larger than the big pack, and the big pack, though probably not deliberately trying to eliminate the small pack, has worked very hard to expand its recruiting territory. The PTA at our school is not cooperative, stating that they don't want to open up their events to outside organizations. Though this could be influenced by the top PTA leaders having boys in the large pack. I'll have to infiltrate the P

>Who is the Chartering Organization? The Church where we meet. They are hands-off, have an aging congregation and an indifferent Chartered Org. Rep. They also charter a Boy Scout Troop, which has also been shrinking, in part because we havent had Webelos IIs for them to recruit. >Why do you believe families left one pack for the other? What is it doing better than the pack you are trying to save? They have the resources to do almost everything better. They can certainly put on some big splashy events that we wouldnt consider. They have a better den program with a den leader

Making a Case for a School to Have a Pack of Its Own The Background: I'm trying to make a case for our school to have a pack of its own. Our school has had a pack since the 1940s, and it was pretty strong in the past, but over the last few years weak leadership has provided an opportunity for a neighboring pack to recruit quite successfully. Now the neighboring pack is huge, and the pack traditionally associated with our school is hanging on by the skin of its teeth. We did manage to recharter again, but don't have enough people to offer a really good program. We recruited a few

Around here people do it all the time, for instance if you are from a small pack that can't get other families interested, or for a larger pack when you can't go the same weekend as the other families. You might want to find out who you are sharing a cabin with ahead of time so that you can introduce yourself, as you will probably want to hang around with them much of the time.

Wow, I just about fell off my chair reading that a pack would turn down a willing volunteer. We'd throw a banquet in your honor if you showed up at our pack. If you stick around, a vacancy will turn up before long. If the pack is as successful as you say, it may experience some growth, and the den may become too big, and they may want to split the den up. It's not uncommon to recruit some new Wolves, so next year your Tiger den of 10 (or whatever) may be a Wolf den of 18 and be ripe for splitting, and in need of a new den leader.

Thanks, eolesen. It must be part of the Navisite outage. Not really DWM's fault. An estimated 175,000 web sites have been down for more than 3 1/2 days, and they're still down. Just an inconvenience for my pack's site and e-mail to be down, but a significant hardship for the thousands of small businesses that rely on their web sites and email.

My unit's web site has been on DWM hosting for a couple of years, they offered a pretty cheap rate for non-profit web sites. However, it appears that they have been completely down for the past 2 days. Is anyone else using them, and have you been able to get a hold of them?

Wow, you guys are dedicated. As Committee Chair, Cubmaster & Temporary T-W-B-W Den Leader of a small pack, I'd be burnt out in no time if we tried to have more than 2 meetings a month. When talking with prospective parents, many of them would not consider signing up for Cub Scouts if it required taking their kid to another meeting every week, with all the other sports and activities. For now we are doing one pack meeting, one den meeting, and one outing per month. It's hard enough to get den leaders willing to hold one meeting a month. The large, successful pack nearby follows a simil

Thank you, GS-CS_leader. I looked at the online version of the "Program Helps". The monthly themes seem awfully complicated. They might work for a big pack, but would be way too much work for a small pack to attempt. I think we can improvise meeting themes that can be as much fun, but a lot easier to implement. I've already looked at the other documents you mention, and they would be useful if someone would step forward to be den leader. I'll try your suggestion and try to find out who the Kindergarten room mothers are, they will be useful allies for recruiting. The PTA leadersh

Thank you GS-CS_leader for the suggestions. The large dens at the large pack can be awkward, but work reasonably well, and they have a set of good dedicated den leaders. They have been trying to split up the dens, but it isnt easy. Your packs situation does sound similar to mine. When I said 5 leaders to recharter, I was referring to the requirement for a Cubmaster, Committee Chair, 2 Committee Members and 1 den leader (also 1 Chartered Org. Rep., but we share him with the troop, and hes a name on paper only). In the past, the actual den leaders usually registered as committee mem

Hi newcubmaster07, I'm new to this too myself, having recently ended up as Cubmaster, but my pack is in much worse shape than yours. I'm sure you will get better advice from the experts, but here's my take. The Cub Scout Leader Book is an excellent resource, I read it and then went to basic leader training, which, except for youth protection, was mostly a repeat of what was in the book. I'd be cautious about trying to increase the frequency of meetings, my small struggling pack and the large successful pack nearby both have one pack meeting, one den meeting and one or maybe tw

Thank you GS-CS_leader for your lengthy reply, so heres a lengthy answer. As an update, we held a parent's meeting a couple of evenings ago, and though the turnout was sparse, everyone who was there agreed that we _need_ den leaders, but no one was ready to take on the job. The treasurer agreed to plan the next Webelos den meeting with something advancement related, and a new mom agreed to do the same with the Wolves. I'll try to come up with something for the Bears to do that tries to fit with advancement for the Tiger(s) as well. I've warned the parents that we do need 5 registered

You guys are lucky. Our council's base commission is only 15%, If I somehow get my login working and get the orders in on time, and manage to get the money in on time we can get a whopping 23%. It was possible to get additional bonuses for early bird sign-up last spring and if I had been willing or able to go to "popcorn training". There's also a bonus for increased sales, but we aren't elgible because the previous cubmaster wasn't willing to run a popcorn sale last year, an increase from zero doesn't count. Most units around here only sell the popcorn as a last resort if they can't co

So far this year weve be holding combined den meetings in our small pack (about 10 to 14 boys about half are Wolves) due to the fact that we dont have any den leaders. Im trying to do some arm-twisting, and know that I need to get at least one den leader to recharter. Meanwhile, I am looking for ideas on meeting topics that can fit into advancement for multiple levels with 4 dens combined? If we are able to split into 2 dens, what works for other combinations (Tigers/Wolves) & (Bears/Webelos) or maybe (Wolves/Bears) & (Tigers/Webelos) or even (Tigers/Bears) & (Wolves/Web

Our small pack has received a lot of help from our Dist. Exec., going to school and talking to the boys and sending them home with flyers and stickers. He spends a lot of his day doing this around the district. Without his help, our pack would have folded some time ago. Large units can get enough parents and scouts to recruit for them, but small units can''t compete without help from the D.E. I suspect that in districts where the D.E. doesn''t help, there is a higher attrition of units.

Yours is a more extreme situation, but this helped for us last year. The ex-CM''s son (a Web I) was quite disruptive, my younger son (a Tiger) tends to emulate him. So what we did was swap responsibility, I worked with his boy and he worked with mine, so the "showing off bad behavior for dad" motivation was gone. Both boys were much more willing to behave once their parents weren''t involved. We had a similar situation with a Bear den leader''s son, being disruptive because it got him attention from mom.