So how big is your pack?

[Scoutfish 16]

My entire scouting experience can be summed up into a hair more than 2 years of being active.

 

I started out as a reluctant Wolf parent who became an active Wolf parent who became a Wolf volunteer who became a Bear ADL who planned and trained to be a Webelos ( first year)DL, but became CM instead.

 

So my point is, I have not hung out with a bunch of other packs through the years. I had no concept of what a "normal size" or "average size" a pack was.

 

At roundup last year, we had around 120 active scouts AFTER figuring in those who would cross over to Boy Scouts.

 

Of course, as the year goes on, you lose some scouts to other activities, you lose some who were expecting something different, lose some to another pack that is actually closer to where that scout lives, or those other reasons: Somebody owes over $500.00 in popcorn money - so you never see them again, somebody did not like what someboidy else said, did or proposed, politics, etc...

 

Anyways, Like I said, we had around 120 active scouts due to roundup. Our Tiger group went from 8 or 9 boys to 40 boys Wolves , My son's den alone had 24 boys.

 

 

Now, I figured this was normal until I see pictures on various web sites or read posts in here. I see dens with 4 or 5 boys. I see packs with a total of 20 boys.

 

Now, I am not knocking any size in any way at all. I just figured ours was normal sized.

 

Matter of fact, we( our pack membership) are spread over a wide area and surrounded by 3 or 4 other packs.

 

One of our den leaders is breaking aay as I speak and creating another pack. I really, really hate to see him go as he was a great leader, but honestly, having our membership drop some is actually a blessing if you ask me.

 

Okay,I am rambling on ( big surprise huh? LOL! )

 

So how many boys are in your pack?

[OwntheNight 10]

Right now we are at about 50 active boys. Our pack covers the boys from 4 of the 5 elementary schools on our side of town. That's actually how I found this pack, I was the CM for a pack that had just graduated 3/4 of the boys and parents into Boy Scouts, so our numbers dropped to about 5 boys spread out over 3 age groups. I ended up being the Wolf and Bear DL, plus the CM...Not a good situation to be in. I knew I couldn't deliver a quality program myself, and found this other troop surprisingly, through our CO, of all places. It turns out our CO had 2 cub scout packs and a troop. Same meeting place for the boys, the only thing that changed was the number on our sleeve. It worked out great for everybody. The boys have friends all around the area, our leadership is top notch, and we have a great program in place for the boys. It just cuts our recruiting efforts a little thin since all the schools do JSN on the same night. What a good problem to have. Our district has some greatly varied numbers in packs. There are some "Super Packs" with well over 100 active boys and some smaller packs that have 15-20 boys.

[perdidochas 658]

We have about 100 on roll, probably 50-60 "regular" customers. We are among the biggest packs in our Council. We have a bigger pack between November and March (in between fall soccer/baseball and spring baseball/soccer).

[Frank17 10]

Our old pack has one of the largest memberships in the area and has about 80 cubs now. Another pack that feeds our troop only has about 15 scouts total. Both seem to work fine, although I will admit the larger packs have a momentum of their own and it is hard to change their direction once they get used to doing certain activities. We were generally doing the same things and going on the same trips year after year, because the scouts liked them in the past.

 

My biggest concern about what you described is not the overall size of the pack, but the size of the individial dens. The 80 cub pack I mentioned has several dens at each level, and tries to stay with 6 to 10 cubs per den (webelos dens can be a little bigger). This makes the den meetings more manageable and less zoolike, and is able to get the scouts to focus better. If you are having trouble getting the attention of your cubs during the den meetings, you may want to try splitting the dens to a more manageable size. Or, if everything seems OK, leave it alone. Many times it depends more on the quality of the adult leaders and the personalities of the cubs than it does on any specific size or ratio.

[Basementdweller 608]

6-8 is a great den size.

 

 

24 is to big to effectively engage each scout.

 

A story.

 

My son and I left a Pack over the CM laying hands on the young men and taking money from the pack and buying the Troop Tents. I reported the Abuse to the DE and nothing was done.

 

The point.....

 

In our shopping for a Pack we visited a number,

 

The first one had 3 boys in each den and they were brothers and cousins. Not enough boys to have den games

 

The Second Pack the dens had 20 scouts. The night we visited they were sharing their collections......It took an hour and 15 minutes. After 20 minutes of collecting dues. Plus all of the parents and siblings in the room. It was crowded and way too hot. The Pack was 200 cubs strong.

 

Third Pack......roughly ten boys per den. Had a DL and Assistant. The boys were engaged and enough scouts to play team games.

 

Four Pack.......roughly ten boys per den......They treated it like school. Boys were quite attentive and very disciplined. No fun was being had

 

 

Our current Pack is 50 on the charter with 30 very active.

 

 

The problem with mega sized packs 100+ in my opinion is that everything begins to take too long. Pinewood derby would take an entire Saturday, which is longer than most cubs would enjoy.

 

Pack meetings are longer than they should be, with a Pack that size.

 

I think that it diminishes the scouting experience. Just my opinion.

 

 

 

 

[bear dad 13]

Well our has about 11 total, this is our starting of 2nd year, we had couple cross over to BS, but mainly right now we have webelos 1 den, and couple 2nd year ones as well. We have 2 wolfs.

 

Our problem is lack of help to run dens, I am basically only fulltime perment dl we have. The other WDL is having scheduling problems do to work hours changes, he still wants to do it , but I fear it will come down to me. No one wants to do the wolfs den. and quite frankly not lot of support from council all the way down to our parents of our pack. Like everything else people wants someone else to do it.

 

I would like our pack to grow, but with the way things go now, be lucky to get thru this year.

[ScoutNut 147]

We average about 35. Have not gone below 30 in the past 15 years, or above 45.

 

All of our families are active. Some might not be as active as others, but we are flexible, and try our darnedest to accommodate all families schedules. The boys, and their families, seem to have a good time, and they keep coming back for more!

 

 

Bear Dad stated - >>" quite frankly not lot of support from council "

[bear dad 13]

Scoutnut,

"I am a bit confused as to what, exactly, you want/expect your council to do about your Pack's lack of leaders",

 

Nothing as to help with getting leaders, that another problem all together. Our problem has been lack of quailty training, or lack of any there of.We just seemed doomed from the moment we started. Never see our UC, understand that they others to deal with it, their time is important as well as mine.

 

Our pack would be better with more help, but you can't force anyone to do it.Hard for us to promote a JSN and get more boys and no leaders, hard to run a pack with 1 dl.

[Scoutfish 16]

My bad...let me rephrase something:

 

Our Tigers went from 8 or 9 to 40, but we created more dens. Same thing for Wolves and Webelos I and II.

 

The Bear den had 24 in one den. I wanted to split it and had the blessing of the pack minus the Bear den leader ( specifically his wife).

 

Well, due to that DL and his wife starting another pack, we will now have 3 Dl available for the (now) Webelos.

 

Didn't mean to imply that all dens were of a great number.

[Pack212Scouter 10]

Our Pack is one of the larger Packs. We had 172 boys last year. I anticipate around 180 after roundup this year. There are many advantages and disadvantages for Packs of this size. Large Packs can leverage the numbers, making quality events cheaper per Scout. Large Packs can usually afford better event locations because of the numbers. Large Packs also often have more infrastructure and equipment. Large Packs have a wide variety of volunteer skills to draw upon. Large Packs may also have more ability to scholarship a youth's costs. There are definitely disadvantges also though. Anything done can become a large chore with a Pack this size. Additionally, events that involve awards run longer. It can sometimes be a challenge to find locations large enough for events. Additionally, while the Cubmaster knows every boy, you really don't get a change to interact with every one of them at every event.

 

Some people say a Pack this size should be split. We looked into that at one time and found alot of issues in doing it. One of them is that we estimated a need for 40% more volunteers if the Pack became two, most of them in the more difficult to fill positions. Also, at this point we refuse to cap growth, although it has been discussed. We are very open about the advantages and DISADVANTAGES of joining our Pack. Most come because of the quality of our program and we will not turn a youth away from Scouting.

[Austinole 43]

After cross-over our pack is 13 scouts, 5 Wolf, 8 Webelos I.

[Knot Head 10]

I saw the title and figured this was a backpacking thread. :-0

 

Anyway... it's a Kelty Red Cloud 6650.

 

 

 

 

[jamist649 10]

5 Tigers (Brand new, "rising" first graders)

6 Wolves

5 Bears

5 Webelos I

9 WebelosII

 

Pretty much all active, just some more than others. I'm hoping to add to this come fall Roundups.

 

Thanks

[MarinesWife 10]

We have 28 right now. We'll gain some more at round up. Usually 10. But we will lose some of the 28 that I don't know about (already had 8 or so move). We lose approximately 1/3 of our pack every due to military moves. We just keep plugging away each year.