Moved and had to put son in different den and pack, problems with old den and pack

[Put Your Family First 10]

We paid all of our yearly dues in September 2004 for the year 2005 in our previous den. We then bought a new home and moved in Jan. 2005. We had to pay our yearly dues again in our new den for 2005 and then went back to the old den to get reimbursement for the months we will not be with them and were told that we will not get any money back. How do we get reimburesed for what we are owed? We were only with the old pack for 5 months.

 

Another problem we encountered is our son did not get 5 badges he had earned at the old pack, the new pack did get him those badges. But then our son has also earned many of the belt loops too and he only receieved 1 from the old pack. Our new leader has said we have to get verification and signature from old leader to get all the belt loops our son has earned. We spoke to the old leader and he will not allow our son to get any belt loops he has earned. The old leader stated that most of what our son did was with his family and he said the only way he will sign off on anything is if our son did all of the activiies in the den meetings or at special events with the den or pack. But that is not what the rules state to receive the belt loops. The belt loops are for the scout doing their best to learn about the sport or academic activity, and by putting the new techniques to practice with fellow scouts, in their community, or working with an adult. Does anyone have any advice on what we need to do or should do?

Our son has worked so hard from Tiger Cub, Bobcat, Wolf, Bear until now, he is close to finishing his 1st year of Webelos. He now has earned 14 badges out of 20 and has a great time working on each one. Our son is so proud to have also earned his Compass Point Emblem too. He feels so bad that his scouts/friends have all kinds of awards that he himself has earned and does not get himself. I am a mom and a teacher and this just breaks my heart every time someone earns an award and he does not receive one himself even though he completed the requirements. We have had many conversations with his old leader before we moved and after and it is almost like he doesn't have time and just doesn't care. Please help us help our son. Thank you for any advice or suggestions.

[Laurie 10]

The belt loops are not a restricted item. You could buy them yourself for your son. They cost about $1.25 each. If that is all he is missing at this point, perhaps it would be worth the expense to you to get them for him?

 

As for reimbursement, I'm afraid I can't help with that one.

[Put Your Family First 10]

That's what we thought but our new den leader said we had to get a signature from his old den leader to purchase the belt loops our son has earned. I think we will just go down and purchase the ones our son has earned and see if we can do that without the old den leaders signature. Our son is still working on the other belt loops he hasn't earned and the 6 badges he hasn't earned. He has so much fun learning the new activities and working on new projects.

 

Thank you so much for the reply.....

 

[FScouter 24]

Sad to hear of your involvement with two dens with either untrained or rogue leaders.

[Laurie 10]

I'm happy to help and agree with FScouter in being sorry to hear of your experiences. Encourage your son, and use this as a teachable moment. I don't say this lightly. We've had some tough times, and your situation echoes some of what my own sons experienced, and I encouraged our sons to be sure to understand responsibilities that they may have in order to avoid disappointing others in the ways in which they've been disappointed. Good luck, and welcome to the forums.

[ScoutNut 147]

When you say "yearly dues", is that the yearly National registration of $10, or are there other Pack & Den dues that you have paid also?

 

Your son's National BSA registration does not have to be paid more than once per year as it is good all over the country. All that you would need to do is to fill out a transfer form and pay a $1 fee. That would transfer your son's membership from the old Pack's Charter to your new Pack's charter.

 

If there are other Pack/Den dues involved than you would need to go the old Pack. For Den dues, which are used towards all Den related expenses, you would need to see the Den Leader. For Pack dues,which are used to pay for awards and any Pack expenses, you would need to contact the Pack Treasurer. For both of these, unless there is a written policy, it is pretty much up to the Den Leader & Pack Leaders. Because you were with the Pack for over half the school year, & the Pack paid for almost 2 years worth of Webelos badges for your son in that time, I can sort of understand their decision not to refund any Pack dues.

 

For the belt loops, many Packs have the rule that the Pack will pay for 1 or 2 belt loops and any others the family will pay for. Because belt loops are not usually done in a den setting, belt loops do not require a Den Leader signature. What your old Den Leader told you about not being able to sign off on belt loops is true. If your son earned the belt loops with the Den then the Leader could sign off on those, but he can't sign off for something he does not know about. What you could do is to copy the various requirement pages for the belt loops that your son has done on his own & check off the requirements that he did for each one. If he was involved in organized sports or did some thru school, it might help to get his teacher or coach to initial the requirements he did with them. Then sign it & give it to his current Den Leader. Of course, if your new Pack has the same rule as your old Pack (Pack purchases only 1 belt loop per year) then you will have to buy the rest yourself at your council Scout Shop.

 

"...just breaks my heart every time someone earns an award and he does not receive one himself even though he completed the requirements."

 

What awards are these? Your son has been in his new Webelos Den for almost 2 months now. He should be working on, & earning, the same kinds of things as the rest of his Den. You do realize, that in the Webelos program parents are no longer allowed (except for sepcific times) to sign off on their son's work. All work must be approved & signed off by the Den Leader or someone the Den Leader has assigned.

 

 

[Put Your Family First 10]

Thank you for the responses. This response is mainly for ScoutNut.

 

I really don't have time to type a response for everything you have written. But I can say we have gone to the Pack treasurer and have spoken to the old den leader for reimbursement. No, awards are not purchased ahead of time for our old den or pack, they are purchased after the boys complete and have earned them. We already knew that the den purchased 1 belt loop, etc., etc., etc.. That is why we have always explained to the old den leader we will be more than happy to purchase anything extra our son has earned. We had no idea we could go to the scout shop and purchase them on our own without signatures until posting this response. Plus, for activities that have not been done and outings, things are purchased right before the den does the activity and the outings are purchased when we go on the outings not before, so there is no reason for a scout not to be reimbursed for all of that. Also, the old den leader knows what our son has done outside of the group because a lot of what the boys need to do is present things for the den to see and also explain what they have learned.

 

Your response really sounds like you are parrating from a book and you really didn't read the response I had posted. If I didn't fully explain myself I apologize, but from other responses it sounds like I had. I was not speaking of the activities that are done as a Webelos, I am speaking of belt loops that have been able to be earned for the past few years before the boys even start Webelos. I am not speaking of awards that are earned from doing activities with the den/pack.

 

At this time we will be going to the BSA in our area to find out about reimbursement for the rest of the year from our old pack. We put in well over $100 to our den/pack for awards, activities, and outings for the whole year and we were only there for 5 months for everything but outings. Outings begin for our old den and new in April. For the belt loops our son has earned we will just go to the scout store. I hope I explained everything, there is so much more I could put down but I would then be taking time away from our son and the rest of our family having fun.

 

Everyone take care.

 

[ScoutNut 147]

Gee - I am sorry that you feel that my questions & responses were simply "parroting from a book". I thought you wanted advise and/or suggestions.

 

If you have already made your decision on the belt loops, fine. My suggestion was in case you wanted to see if the new Pack would pay for them. It is probable that the new Den Leader would accept the copies with the signatures that I suggested, but that is up to you.

 

I was also concerned that there was a problem with awards other than the belt loops because you stated:

 

"He feels so bad that his scouts/friends have ALL KINDS OF AWARDS that he himself has earned and does not get himself."

 

I asked that you clarify what you ment by "yearly dues" because there was the possibility that you had paid the $10 National Registration a second time at your new Pack when all that was needed was a transfer fee.

 

I am glad to hear that my concerns were unjustified on both counts.

 

I understand that awards and activites are not purchased or paid for until they actually take place, however, if you have never been a leader, you might not realize how much they end up paying out of their own pocket, even with dues. Den dues only cover a portion of the costs involved.

 

Costs are also BUDGETED for by the Pack at the beginning of the year. Many Packs figure up the cost involved, per boy, for awards purchased during the year. That is how they come up with the amount of their Pack dues. This amount adds up quickly as each boy can receive multiple awards at each Pack meeting & even though they might charge a fee for some Pack activites it is usually lower than the actual fee the Pack has to pay out. If the Pack has a policy of no refunds or if they feel that they have already paid out to your son the amount you paid in dues they might not agree to a pro-rated refund.

 

I am not saying that this is right or wrong, I am simply tring to explain to you what could be the reasoning behind their decision.

 

You can try to talk to your council about it, however you should not expect a lot from them. The most they will probably do is have the Unit Commissioner of your old Pack talk to them to see what is going on. Your Pack is "owned" by the Charter Organization, not the council, so most councils will not get involved in money matters like these. You might have better luck talking to the head of your old Pack's Charter Organization or the Pack's Committee Chairman. The bottom line is that it is up to the Pack & it's Charter Organization to make the decision.

 

Hopefully I will not have wasted your time (& my own) & this information / point of view will be of some use to you.

 

[Put Your Family First 10]

I apologize. I did not mean to make you feel like you have waisted your time. This was the very first home we have purchased and with finalizing that, moving and getting everything else sorted out including our son with scouts, things have been just a little stressfull. I really don't know how other packs or dens work, but the ones we have been apart of, no leader has had to put their own money in to purchase anything. Most of the time we have extra money from previous years to be able to do extra things.

 

I would like to thank everyone who posted to help us figure out what we should do. Laurie gave us the idea to go and just purchase the belt loops that our son earned from the Scout Shop. Also, FScouter, it is sad that we have been working with untrained or rogue leaders. After moving into a new den and pack we have found many, many discrepancies on what our old den and pack had been doing. But the one thing we are keeping in mind is that this is for our boys and to teach them right from wrong, to learn things that they will take with them into adulthood. This really isn't about us, but we have had a lot of fun helping our son and working with the other boys to learn and grow along the way. I can also say that by having our son in scouts, it has helped myself to be a better parent and teacher.

 

Thanks everybody.(This message has been edited by Put Your Family First)

[Laurie 10]

ScoutNut's right about the budget. I have drafted the budget twice for a pack, and it is not unusual to budget for only part of what a boy will earn and leave the rest to fundraising or donations or other ways of covering costs. The pack I was involved with did not draft a policy that funds could not be refunded, but some packs that I know of do this. This is why it is so hard to advise anyone from other units on how to deal with finance issues.

[anarchist 10]

WHOA FOLKS (FScouter) BEFORE YOU GO BRANDING DLs

rogues...

If I understand your first post, your son is a webelos 1...correct? In that case any award earned as a webelos must be done with the DL's approval/sign off not the family or parent...it is different from the other Cub ranks and awards...you can not 'do' (say) forester with your son...he must do it with the DL and his den...so the fact (if I understand it) that you did it with him amounts to "0"- no award, Webelos activities are Den centered.

 

as to pack dues...council will propbably not be able to help much...it really depends on the Pack policy and what the dues pay for... the BSA member ship is fully transferable but the pack dues may be another story...So activities require deposits and are 'numbers of participant sensitive' when some packs schedule they schedule for all and if you don't participate thats your decission weird but true...

good luck but don't hold your breath

[Put Your Family First 10]

Oh sorry, no, our son earned belt loops before he was a Webelos and didn't receive them. Also, we know that after the boys turn Webelos we can't work on projects on the side and sign off on them. The things we were talking about was before Webelos. Sorry for confusion. Plus, I don't believe that FScouter meant that all leaders are untrained or rogue leaders, I know I didn't. I have met some really great leaders.

About the dues for the den/pack, there is no policy for our old den/pack and there should be 1 in place. With the reimbursement we are wanting for activities that have not happened yet, the activities are on the schedule but are not paid for until that day of the event when we go to that event. We didn't ask for anything that we shouldn't receive back. Our old den/pack makes enough from what the scouts sell and then we as parents usually put in a couple hundred extra above and beyond den/pack fees so there should not be a problem with reimbursement. Our old den/pack has been a few hundred dollars ahead every year and that just goes into the next year for any scout that cannot afford things, but in the past 4 years that I know of, the extra money has not been needed so just revolves into the next year. Now if we were still apart of the den/pack and could not go to an activity then I can understand no reimbursement, but that is not the case. We only want to get reimbursement to give to new den/pack for the same types of activities we will be doing with them and not the old den/pack. If we cannot get reimbursement that is ok, we are not hurting for money, it is just the principal of the matter. I hope I cleared up a few things. I hate confusing people. Night everyone.

[Torveaux 10]

I think I had better clear up a misconception here.

 

While the Webelos rank requirements are mostly signed off by the WDL, that is NOT the case with Belt Loops.

 

According to the Academics and Sports Program guide, page 1.

 

"Each Tiger Cub, Cub Scout and Webelos Scout will be presented with the appropriate recognition item for completing the requirements, whether he does so as an individual Scout, with his family, with his den or pack, or in his school or community."

 

The book also addresses (to a degree) who should bear the cost. "Packs should have a clear policy in place to determine whether the pack or the boy's family will be responsible for the cost of awards that are earned more than once." I read that as saying the Pack will certainly pay for the 1st instance of each beltloop and the 2nd instance is subject to pack policies.

 

The only other caveat for Webelos is that some of their Activity Badge requirements involve completing an A&S belt loop or pin. In these cases it is important that the boy earn the loop or pin while a Webelos Scout. It is ultimately the WDL's responsibility to sign off on the loop or pin as it applies to the Webelos Activity Badges.

[Put Your Family First 10]

Thank you for the information Torveaux.

[clpagel 10]

I am concerned by hearing that only the webelos den leader can sign off on the activity badges. I was den leader from wolf until they joined the boy scout troop. I am currently a committee member and merit badge counselor. There were a couple of activity badges that could not be done as a den and had to be completed at home. How could the den leader possibly sign off on these?