Who purchases patches and awards for your pack?

[briveigh 10]

In our pack, the parents purchase all patches and rewards except for the rank badges. I have heard of other packs where the pack purchases all awards, patches, belt loops, and pins. So what does your pack do?

[Tampa Turtle 1011]

We had a very successful Popcorn fundraising campaign so we pay patches, rewards, and belt loops (only once on the beltloops), no pins. Also camp-outs and some other stuff.

 

As the pack has grown my old Pack may revisit the beltloop policy.

 

I do not think many of the parents would do it if we did not--the Council store is a bit of a pain to get to.

 

The main goal is to get the boys awards in their hands as soon as possible.

[howarthe 42]

Our pack purchases all the awards for the boys. Years ago, when I was in an LDS pack, that pack also purchased all the awards for the boys, but we had a tiny budget and they didn't want to buy belt loops, so we weren't supposed to use the academic and sports program. That annoyed me a great deal.

[ScoutNut 147]

Briveigh, how does your Pack manage with the parents doing the purchasing?

 

How do the Cubs receive their awards? Do the parents give them to the den leader who then gives them out at a Pack meeting? Or, do the parents simply give them to their sons when they get home from their local Scout Shop?

 

Does your Pack charge Pack dues, or do any kind of fundraising?

 

How many boys are we talking about here?

 

In our Pack, den leaders keep track of what each of their Cubs have completed over the month since the previous Pack meeting. At our Pack Committee/Leaders meeting (about two weeks before the Pack meeting) leaders are reminded to get their awards lists into the Pack Advancement Chair by a specific date (usually one week before Pack meeting).

 

The Pack pays for, and the Advancement Chair purchases, all of the awards for the Cubs. The Advancement Chair then sorts the awards by Scout, and den, packages them according to the theme of the meeting, and brings them to the Pack meeting.

 

The awards are then presented by the den leaders to each Scout in their den in a ceremony of some sort.

 

 

[briveigh 10]

The cub master purchases them, and then either the parent reimburses him, or it's taken out of the scout's account from fundraising. They are handed out a few meetings, not at every pack meeting as per BSA policy (which I just learned a few weeks ago, son is a wolf). Most pack meetings are business meetings which really bothers me now that I know that's not how it's supposed to be. I may be becoming the CM at the beginning of the calendar year, so hopefully I can get some changes in place, and maybe even before then.

 

We do the standard popcorn sales, and a camp card fundraiser. A certain percentage of sales goes into an account for the scout, and the pack gets the other. The parents are resposible for dues, again, if the scout has $ in their acct, it can come from there. My son was the top seller for the pack last year, so he was able to do a lot of things with the funds he accumilated (probably spelled that wrong).

 

We have no pack council, again, something I'm hoping to change. We have about 25-30 boys, we lose quite a few due to the disorganization of our pack, and it's almost gone, so needs some drastic changes.

[Basementdweller 608]

Pack purchase them all.....We charge a program fee and a portion of it is designated for patches and such....

[frankpalazzi 62]

Our pack buys all advancement. Monthly dues is allocated for that ($5/month for awards, $2 for supplies for den leader.) The CM usually makes the purchases, he goes by the Scout Shop on a regular basis.(This message has been edited by FrankScout)

[tgrimstead 11]

Pack does all the purchasing except the fun patches my wife and I give our boys. Advancement chair handles all the rank and awards. Some Dens have dues we do not. Pack pays for stuff through the fund raisers.

 

Yours In Cheerful Service

Tim

 

 

 

[CCbytrickery 10]

Who picks them up at the store and puts them on the pack credit card? the AC or CM.

 

Who pays for them? Our dues, popcorn sales, and camp card sales help to cover. We don't restrict awarding them--if a boy earns 5 belt loops in one month, then he earns 5 belt loops.

 

We have dues and an advancement fee. The dues are dependent on the den level ($45 for Tigers, $55 for W/B, $65 for Webs). Advancement fee is optional--they get a necker, slide and book for $10 for T/W/B and add colors to Webs ($15).

[5yearscouter 52]

Well the way I believe it should be done is that the pack works up a budget of what awards, and pinewood derby cars, events(even just pack meetings at the local school often costs something for craft or game materials), leader materials, printing, patches for special events, etc. Then figure out what that costs per scout for their part of it, add in their yearly registration fee, insurance, boy's life magazine. You then know what a year of scouting costs per boy.

 

Then figure out how much of that you expect from history or best guess to be covered per boy from the fundraiser(s).

Then charge the rest as recharter fee to the boys. If you do better on fundraisers, lower the recharter fee, if you don't do as well, raise your recharter fee. adjust accordingly.

 

we keep scout accounts only to cover summer camp costs. the pack takes their % of the fundraiser to cover the awards. that way we set aside enough $ for the boys to get their stuff even if their parents can't afford to, or they don't participate in the fundraiser for some reason. Cause in cub scouts it's really not so great to not have the money for awards.

 

We budget $5 per scout per month for awards. We cover most of that straight from our fundraisers. That's our goal. Fundraisers cover awards as first priority, leader materials and registration second, events as third--as we can pass on a fee to cover pinewood derby or a campout and parents will pay it, but parents don't want to buy awards or leader materials.

 

As we've worked upwards in our budget so we have more discretionary funds, we cover more out of the pack budget and keep the cost to parents low.

 

Right now when you join our pack you pay the boy's life, registration, insurance (for August thru Dec), and leader fee for your parent(for that background check), your first rank award(Bobcat)and your first book--rounded up to the nearest multiple of $20 so the change is easier for everyone to grab $ a the ATM. That comes in at $40 for August. That gives us a little bit extra to cover awards until after popcorn sales and we get some $ in from you and your family's efforts.

 

Every year after popcorn sales we vote on recharter fee, right now set at $50 a year. That covers registration, boy's life, insurance for scout for the year ($28.20) plus a pinewood derby car, a rank book in May, a rank award at blue and gold and something toward adult yearly fee or other awards.

 

The fundraisers cover the rest.

 

Then advancement chair or cubmaster does the internet advancement forms and go buy the awards to be awarded at virtually every pack meeting or pack event(campout)etc.

 

[ScouterAdam 11]

In our Pack, it's either the Den Leader or myself (Cubmaster) who picks up all the awards/bling. Parents are not allowed to buy awards. Pack pays for all awards and receipts are required for payment.

[Basementdweller 608]

For those who simply use popcorn or fundraising to pay for them some food for thought....

 

 

What do you do with those who don't/won't/refuse to participate???

 

 

Is it fair to the boys that do???

[Tampa Turtle 1011]

In my old Pack boys were encourage but not required to sell. 10% of the boys sold 80% of the popcorn--1 or 2 supersalesman and the remainder of the 10% were parents who were lawyers and business owners who made large orders from their own boys, gave them to clients, and charged it as a tax deduction or business expense. As we are in an affluent part of town I see this pattern over and over for school fund raising, too.

 

So if you are a boy who has unsupportive parents, a bad part of town, or are a lousy salesman a fixed quota seems a bit much.

 

At our Troop there is increased pressure for the boys to sell Popcorn though the Troop gives all "the Troop cut" to the boys for scout accounts. The rationale is it "sells the Scout brand". All scouts are expected to help with the main Troop fundraising dinner (by selling tickets, cooking, serving, clean-up) which I think is more fair--some boys are better workers than sales persons. My philosophy is everyone should do something.

 

I have seen sometimes the "Popcorn Colonel" who is an adult gets over zealous in making the Popcorn sale THE focus of the scouting year. It is not unlike other areas where the adults can muck things up.

 

 

[BSA24 10]

The Cub Scout Leader Book assigns the job of actually purchasing the badges to the Advancement Chair. That is the big thing that they do - go to the trading post and pick up the badges.

 

In a well-run unit, the CM should be receiving the badges before the Pack meeting from the AC with a list of who is to receive what that he can use to award them during the meeting.

[briveigh 10]

We don't really have an AC, we only have a CM and ACM. I am working on possibly taking over the CM position at the beginning of the year, and if I do, I hope to change a lot of thing, including have an AC. Currently, the boys are only given their awards at various pack meetings through the year, not at the next pack meeting like they are supposed to. Also, (and this really bothers me) when they get their awards, they are handed to them in a ziplock baggy (mostly because there are a ton for each child due to the lenghth of time) and pretty much just told what they are receiving as they are walking up to the CM. I am in a position right now of working on taking some things over, so hopefully I can get some of these things changed over the next few months. Our kids don't really have the fun that cub scouts are supposed to have, nor do they have the sense of acheivement like they should, and our pack is slowing suffocation. I'm hoping to help bring it back soon.