Eagledad

Hi All Lots of good suggestions have been posted. I have found that in most cases the parents just havent been asked. Our Pack made a commitment that Den leaders would do nothing other than Den Leading. If we couldn't get parents to do Blue and Gold, Pinewood or other activities, then we wouldn't do them. We never failed to have these activities because when we asked, they came. Nine out of ten times a parent will say yes when you talk to them personally. A phone call or just walking up to them during a meeting works fine, but you have make the personal contact. There are a couple of suggestions to help. When asking, tell them you are looking for assistance, not directors. Most fear the leadership, not the work. But once you have the first meeting, you delegate the task off to the adults, including someone to track the task, who becomes the director. Get plenty of help, the more help, the more FUN it becomes. When I got four dads together to run the pinewood derby, they had meetings just to meet. Those dads recruited all the next Pinewood committees from that day on. Same with Blue and Gold. We asked a few Webelos moms to do Blue and Gold one year and they turned it into a tradition that Webelos moms do Blue and Gold. I am not suggesting you get all Webelos moms, but they had so much fun, they wanted to continue it the next age groups. If it becomes a real pain, then change it. Sometimes the effort to do an Activity is not worth the pain of trying to get it running. We had an opportunity to make a lot of money at a fund raiser but it became clear that the work involved was a lot greater than the money made. After three years we gave it to another Pack. We never regretted it. If Cubs is to be fun and rewarding for the boys, it has to be fun and rewarding for the family. Get the whole family involved. But they aren't going to come to you. Get on the phone and find you assistances to do your Blue and Gold. Have a meeting to get organized and delegate those duties off to other parents who deserve to have fun. Give them a chance to say, "I love this Scouting stuff". Barry

Hi All I have done a long study on this and the large problem is bored Webelos. I found that Webelos who enjoyed their den program and den leader relate that positive experience to future scouting, while Webelos in a boring dens relate that to troops and want to quit as soon as they can. I also found that Webelos don't have to camp or model a Patrol to have fun, it base more from a fun they have at their meetings and a positive attitude from the den leader. There are several reasons for this problem, but by far the largest is leader burn out. No matter if its the church, little league sports or scouting, the average voluntier usually burns out after three years. Take that average and look at the tired Bear leader who opens the Webelos book and finds that the program encourages camping in possibly cold or hot weather, sleep on the hard ground, cook on a fire or camp stove, hike in a bug infested wilderness and learning boy scout knots to teach the Webelos. Most Bear leaders are female who don't have a youth experience in the above skills. Many of these leaders find replacments, but many do not. There are several ways to attack this problem, but I learned the hard way not creat programs for all the dens when you just want to find and help the few. I beleive the best approach is train the Comissioners to monitor the Webelos dens and identify the weak ones. There are several ways to measure the performance of a Webelos den, but the boring ones stand out. Once a weak den is identified, then find a SM or Troop that will take the den under it's wing an help the den leader give a fun program. This can be done by helping teach a few Activity Badges and maybe attend a few activities. I advise against turning the den into a patrol type den because this could hurt the boys first year troop experience. But helping with knots, cooking and outdoor activities would help the burned out leader a lot, not to mention expose the scouts and their families to the fun in a troop. There are a lot of other ideas we can come up with, but my point on this thread is the majority of Webelos who don't cross over are from boring dens. I beleive a district could improve cross overs by at least 25 to 30% in three years when they monitor the dens. I also found that Districts that monitor there cubs have a much higher cross over rate. I don't think we should blame the cub or troop program for this problem, Cub Scouts is a long hard program. Someone mentioned the Girl Scouts seem to do better at cross overs. I looked at this and also found it to be true. If you look at their program however, you find they cross over their scouts to the next level in three years or less. If I were to make a proposal to the BSA to fix this problem, it would be to seperate the Tiger program and start it at the age of five and keep the boys in that program for two years, then cross over to Pack. This is what the Girl Scouts basically do. This would solve other problems as well. I hope this helps the discussion. I love this Scouting stuff. Barry