Future Games

i don't know about the rest of you but i've called our council offices to ask questions about one rule or another to get clarification. i'm always told that i need to talk to my de. the problem is that the de doesn't return phone calls or emails. i've asked if i can come down to the council center and read the books for myself but i'm told that i need to talk to my de. it is always very frustrating.

In the past few years we've only gotten a couple of boys who weren't Cub Scouts crossing over. I think that it is the whole image thing. I know that we have a couple Scout who are won't tell their friends that they are scouts because they don't want to be labled "gay." How's that for irony? We have scouts who are 16 and 17 years old whose friends think that they are silly and/or for going Scouting. The friends sit around all the time and complain about having nothing to do. The scouts are out having fun but they are the ones being labeled as losers. i have noticed that most of the negative comments directed at the older Scouts come from boys who do nothing with a capital NOTH. The guys who play football,basketball, or are in the band are okay. it is funny how the scouts worry about the opinions of a bunch of do=nothings. i'm glad that i'm not 14 or 15 again. now that i've gotten through that. the best way to recruit is still to bring a friend on a campout or a hike. when can take some guy who thinks that a soccer field is the great outdoors and get him to the top of a mountain where he can see for miles and miles, it will change him. even if he doesn't rush off to sign up, that may be the most positive outdoor experience that kid has ever had and he'll talk about it for years.

a neighbor used be a director in the county recreation department. the rec dept is pretty big since our county is nearly a million people and there aren't many towns in it. the rec dept runs the public pools, recreation centers, sports leagues and offers all sorts of classes ranging from dancing to clock repair. my neighbor said that of all the sections only the part that ran the classes made any money. everything else cost the taxpayers money. the instructors for the classes were all independent contractors. the rec dept would handle publicity, facilities, registration and collect the fees. at the end of the class the instructor would get his cut. since the rec dept is part of the government all of the class fees went into the general fund and the instructors would be paid out of the rec dept budget. more money comes in than goes out so eveyone should be happy. not the case. a new administration noticed that the rec dept was payin a fortune for instructors and the edict was issued to cut this expense. the solution was for the instructors to collect all of the fees from the students and then pay the rec dept their share at the end of the course. same net result but there is no longer an expense for instructors. the problem is that the county has lost the income that they could have off that money. not all instructors pay what they owe on time and someone has to hound them. the net result is that it costs the taxpayers money but the budget watchers are happy.

I'm diabetic and have been for 20 years. The most important thing is education and knowing how your body deals with different foods and situations. If you are insulin dependent, NEVER EVER get caught out without a roll of Life Savers in your pocket or some other form of quick action sugar (I dont like glucose tablets they aren't called "Chalk Pills" for no good reason). When I'm active like hikes or long bike rides I reduce my insulin but since injected insulin stays around for a long time you still need to eat to keep the blood sugar up. I've found that a Snickers bar for every five or six miles works well. A Snickers is about 650 Calories and your burn about 150 calories per mile. Other candies "wear off" too quickly. Life Savers are a "rescue" medication and will get you through a low but you'll still need to eat since they are only 10 Calories each. Don't worry about litte animals and keep something in your tent. I always have Life Savers on hand. I don't want to wake up with a bG of 34 (that's VERY low) and have to walk 200 yards to get a snack at 2 AM. At summer camp, don't let them confiscate your meter and insulin. I went to one Summer camp that tried to take my insulin and meter away on the pretext that they are prescription drugs. They also gave me the argument that if the Scouts saw me taking shots, they'd get the message that "Drugs are Okay." Actually, most of the Scouts in my troop think that it stinks that I have to take shots. If that question happens again I have a letter from the government that says that insulin is an over the counter drug. Being a diabetic is a balancing act. Food/activity/insulin. Too much or too little of any and you can have problems. Find a Certified Diabetes Educator usually a nurse she will give you much more information than a doctor will. Follow their advice until you learn how YOU deal with different situations. For example I was told that if I eat Chineese food that I'd need more insulin before dinner but I found that not only did I need more before dinner but I need another shot about an hour after dinner. The rice does something strange. Exercise is good for you it reduces your need for insulin. Losing weight is good and also reduces your need for insulin. Dont be bashful about being diabetic. Don't drink a regular soda just because that's all thats there. Let people know that you have restrictions in your diet. Let people know if you have problems so they can help.

Eagle Dad, I wasnt really asking a question. I just wanted to tell the story to show that sometimes "program, program, program" isn't het answer. There were many problems but none that I think are related to how Pack A ran their program. Someone said that there was a greedy Cubmaster since the one Cubmaster didnt stand by the original plan. I guess that Im still involved in the mess because teh future of the troop is teied to how well Cub Scouts are run in town. You said to identify the dens that need help and help them. The problem is that they don't want help and wont accept it.Maybe the change in Cubmaster next year will help the situation.

Why did the one den move to the pack down the road? Reasonalble question, they didn't like being a pack of one den. What is better for the boys to be part of a larger pack or to be their old pack but the only boys in the pack? A pinewood derby for 6 or 8 boys can't be much fun. The joint sign up night was thought up in the spirit of cooperation. The two packs met at the same school and drew from the same group of people. If they had separate sign up night from the start, would the parents be willing to go to two different events to figure out which pack to join? I know that I wouldn't have. When my son joined Cub Scouts one pack was the same as the next. Maybe it would be different if one pack met at one school and the other met at another school. Bob White said that units should be allowed to grow as long as they feel that they are provinding a quality program. That's why Pack A spilt the leaders didn't feel that they could provide a quality program for more boys. Maybe they shouldn't have split but let a new pack form and try to recruit. The charter organization didn't care about the split they were pretty hands off, just signing the papers. I think that my story is unbiased. I didn't give opinions. It is a fact that B doesn't emphasize the uniform. It is a fact that B doesn't have weekend activities. It is a fact that B sent exactly zero boys to camp in at least five years. It is a fact that advancement was loosey-goosey. All of the boys from Pack B had their Arrows of Light but it became known that they didn't complete the requirements. That came out because when they were new boy scouts they not only didn't know the Scout promise but didn't even know what it was. Traing? For pack B? They haven't sent anyone to Roundtable in a year. Seriously. A year. Most training takes place on weekends and they don't do weekends. As a troop we are trying to work with Pack B to get their Webelos program working better but we are being met with resistance or maybe outright rejection. As I said, most of the adults with the troop are from Pack A and we are seen as by the book nuts in uniforms. Okay maybe that's opinion. But they are resisting any effort to work with them. Inivatitions to troop events are rejected. That weekend thing again. Why didn't the district get involved? Maybe because they weren't losing any boys. the district exectutive says that 32% of the available boys are cub scouts. Anyway it is all over. Pack A no longer exists. Pack B is going strong but not providing a good program. Now the troop is faced with damage control because the only pack left in the area is pack B.

I've wanted to jumpinto the thread about playing unit commissioner but I couln't get registered with this site. The comment was made that a good program will keep boys in the unit. This sounds good and may be true in general and may not even apply to Cub Scouts put I'll tell my story anyway. This happened a few years ago give or take a couple in my hometown. About 15 years before the mess started there was no Cubs Scouts in my town. A few people got together and Pack A was born and was fed by two public schools and a nearby private school. Pack A grew and after about 10 years had reached over 100 Cubs and things were getting rough because there were too many boys. But otherwise things were okay because most boys were going into Boy Scouts, the pack had a good treasury because they sold a trainfull of popcorn every year and stuff like the. Somebody decided to split the pack. I don't know if that was the Cubmasters idea or the Districts or who. Anyway, Pack B was started and some dens went off to the new pack. The two cubmasters were concerned about growth so they decided to hold joint sign up nights and split the new boys between the packs. If a strong preference was made for one pack or the other, like if a brother was in one pack, then the boy would be put there but otherwise, they split them as evenly as possible. Everything went well for a few years and both packs grew to about 70 Cub Scouts then things started to go bad. Very bad. Pack B's cubmaster left to go on to Boy Scouts with his son. Next sign up night when Cubmaster A said something to Cubmaster B about sitting down to split the new boys, Mr. B said "No way." He'd been running around all evening snatching up applications and he was keeping those boys. The next year they still held a joint join Scouting night but the atmosphere was getting unhealthy. The leaders from the two packs started becoming like car salesmen in trying to get the applications from the parents. Unfortunately, B grabbed more again and the out of balance situation became worse. B was growing but A was actually beginning to shrink. Pack A did everything by the book. They emphasized proper uniforms. They had weekend activities. They had summer activities. Almost every boy went to day camp as a Cub Scout or resident camp as a Webelos. The Cubmaster and Den Leaders went to Round Table and Pow Wow. Pack B had become almost a mirror image to A. They never sent a single boy to camp. Uniforms were almost non-existent. Advancement was given out without requirements being completed notably the Aroow of Light. They didn't do anything during the summer and rarely did anything on the weekends because that would interfere with sports. Pack B kept on growing. I guess it attracted more boys because new boys knew more boys in B but sometimes they stole them. Yes they stole them. If a Pack B leader came across a new boy who had signed up for Pack A, he'd use hook or crook to get him into B. Pack A's Cubmaster went to the Unit Commissioner for help. He went to the District for help but no one would help. They just said that they couldn't do anything. The problems just got worse. One new Den Leader acutally took his entire Den from Pack A to Pack B because he didn't want to worry about weekend activities. Now both Packs were sending nearly all of their Webelos off to Boy Scouts. Mostly to the one troop in town. Strangely, most of the boys from Pack B drop out of Boy Scouts after one year. Right now, about 80% of the boys in the troop are from Pack A. It was sad. Pack A dwindled until it was down to six boys. Still running a good program. Still going to camp. But only six boys. Those six boys left for a new pack. Not Pack B, they are driving 10 miles to get to their new pack. Now Pack A doesn't exist anymore. Pack B, continues to grow and is over 100 boys but still doesn't send anyone to summer camp. They still don't do a summer program. They still have hazy advancement policies. Why do the boys from Pack B quit Boy Scouts? We're not sure. Maybe the parents don't like their sons having to actually do something for advancement. Maybe they don't like giving up their weekends. We are worried about what is going to happen now that no boys are coming from Pack A anymore. Right now, we have about 50 Scouts but the troop is getting top heavy with older scouts. I think that the troop has a good program. Almost every boy goes to camp. We send a big group to traditional camp and a smaller group goes to some high adventure activity. The boys pick the camps. We go camping just about every month at locations picked by the PLC. We have hikes just about every month in the fall and spring. How do I fit into this? I was on the Committee for Pack A for a few years. Now I'm an Assistant Scoutmaster. It is interesting that of the 20 adults invovled with the troop, only 2 came from Pack B.