mermaid

I didn't realize the CO should be more involved than he is. Thanks for that info. What I meant by "belong" was, For the most part families will be involved in the pack for 5 years. So in essence for that 5 years the pack should represent the ideas of the ones involved. A pack should be constantly evolving with the turning over of scouts and parents alike. With every new person a new idea and a new way of doing things is brought to the table. And this is what I meant by belongs. Not in a legal sense. Beacause with out the support of the families the unit dies.

Sctmom, what I meant by supervisory level was a parent can't authorize another parents purchase. A den leader can but can't sign for another den leader and so forth. When it gets to CM must have CC signature and a CC must have the CM signature. For large purchases you need the committees approval. This removes the temtation. This form is unique to us and serves our needs. It might not be needed in other packs and for that you should feel extremly lucky. Our pack shares space with a troop. This particular troops SM (our old CM) feels they are intitled to use our gear (without asking). By the way we share the same defunct organization. So an inventory list and different locks was our solution. For all of you that have trustworthy adults I want to say you are lucky. Fscouter thanks. I automaticly thought the checks would come with 2 lines.

Bylaws are important. If you want your pack to run smoothly and successfully you NEED a list of what is expected and how to govern such things as finances. I'm not going into specifics but my pack has run into this problem. There was no way that the left hand knew what the right hand was doing. People had been reimbursed twice, or never was there anyone to say i don't think we should purchase that for pack. The CC and the Cubmaster took it upon themselves to make all of the decisions and never once brought it to the committte for a vote. The pack belongs to everybody and the committtee is their for the packs best interest. The ones in charge should have to follow by certain guidlines. When finances are involved it should be guildlines set forth by bylaws. Anything involving money that goes wrong skates on the issue of criminal. I'm not sure if the charatered organization takes responsibility. But, I will say this in our "town" there is a troop and a pack that dosn't have a REAL functioning organization. The organization is defunct. We do have someone to sign the charter but that is it. That one person does not get involved. I think guidelines are importmant for cubs. I'll give one example. In our pack we are very much into community service. For the boys participation they recieve a gold star. One boy showed up to an event on the genrous side... 10 minutes. Only because he happened to be already there ( and not representing the scouts by the way). Should he recieve the star even though other boys put in there hard work. I don't think so. But we gave it to him anyway. Because we did not have specific enough guide lines. Never did we think that something like this would happen. So yes guildlines and bylaws are important. Because you might not have problems now. But in the future it makes it easy to figure out what is black and what is white.

Men and Women bring different things to the table. What makes a well rounded child is the different views and examples surrounding him/her. I identify with my mother not my father. Not saying that my father was a bad model but, that I am a women and I identify with another women. My point being that, scouting should be of a diversified bunch. Even though I identify with my own gender I do use my fathers exapmles for choosing a mate or other males in my life. So yes you do need both men and women in such organizations that involve children. Not all children will be blessed with good role models at home. Because you never know that scout mom or scout dad might just be the one that influences that youth for the rest of his/her life. On a different note... I am the cc of my pack and all positions but one are filled with women. In this day and age it is very hard to get the parents to even slow down while letting the kids out of the car. Never mind getting them involved. So in a perfect world you would have an equal amount of participation. But this isn't a perfect world. You take almost any warm body you can and be thankful for it. Because with out the volunters that we have, whether they be men or women, we wouldnt have a pack or troop.

thanks for the info on the 2 signature checks. While it may not be necessary for the bank, it does provide some security for the pack. What I mean is that it gets rid of the temtation. I have designed a cash reimbursment form and will go into effect immediately. I have deigned it so it requires the purchases signature, the treasurer and the one who authorized the purchase ( which has to be one supervisory level above the purchaser). It also contains a disclaimer (ty). This summer we will be forming bylaws for our pack. I cant thank-you enough for all your information. It really takes the presssure off having to ask your surounding packs question after question. We will be taking a full inventory and putting someone in charge. We will have a sign out program for some of the bigger things and this also keeps us informed of the condition of our gear, flags, ceremonly props and such. I'll gladly take more information if you have any. By the way if you would like to use our cash reimbursement form e-mail me and i'll send it. thanks again.

Thanks everyone for the advice. I'll be using alot of your ideas.

As cc I have bumped the cubmaster down to committee member for failure to perform duties. Upon the transition monies had been refunded to him with questionable xeroxed reciepts. All of this had been done without my knowledge. How do I go about solving this issue. I have spoken to my DE and he has skated the issue. The pack is missing items in the inventory too. We have a very distinct problem, our charted organization is no longer functioning and we do not have a unit commissioner. I am new to the position (cc) and have no training, the new CM is fairly green as well and the treasurer as been on board for only a couple of months. I need help! I am finding walls at every turn.