pack524cm

Just a follow-up on this server crash issue. I just talked to David Tracewell who is the administor of the cubmaster.org, macscouter.org, and the usscouts.org sites. Parent company is U.S. Scouting Service Project, Inc in Kansas City, MO. Server crashed three weeks ago and they just got in the new server today and it will be about two to three more weeks before all the data can be moved over to get the sites back up. They normally get 3 million hits a month on their sites and it their server wasn't large enough to handle the volume. But being a non-profit organization it took the a while to put together the $7,000 to replace the damaged server. I do find this tool to be a good resource but not enough data is available in putting together materials for a local Pack Meeting at times. FYI side note, if you ever need to know who the administrator is of a website this is a good resource also. http://www.networksolutions.com/en_US/whois/index.jhtml

I'm been involved in several of these issues over the years and I'm currently the Cubmaster that has 12 Dens and/or 98 Scouts. Your issues and concerns should be first addressed by your Cubmaster as that's his primary role. If he is not able to address the issue the item need to be address by your next Pack Committee monthly meeting or also called Parent Meeting. The Pack Committee consists of the Cubmaster, Assistant Cubmaster, Committee Chairperson, Treasurer, Secretary, and Advancement Chairperson. If this group can not resolve this issue that's when your District Commissioner gets involved. I've gone as far as to get our District Executive for our Council to address issues. Cub Scouts is basically a black and white issue. The scouts unfortunately are the ones that we forget about, as the parents need to check themselves in at the door and remove there ego's. I've assigned my more aggressive parents to projects in the pack and that has sometimes kept them to busy to be involved in the weekly den meetings.

I understand where your coming from. I've been involved in Cub Scouts for over 9 years with two sons and I'm currently the Cubmaster for over 98 boys in our Pack in MN. We have had to make changes over the years as we have had several boys get upset for the same reasons you've stated. Thus we have the following practice put in place. Two PWD workshops are planned four weeks before the PWD and yes the boys get to test the car before the races also. All the secrets are shared with all the scouts and parents on how to build the best PWD car. We have five advanced adults work with each of the boys cars during the PWD workshops to assist on any issue they have or we clearly show were to put the weight and wheels on correctly. We don't run a adult race any longer as were not having as many problems any longer. We have the scout and parent/guardian sign a form that states that they worked on the cars together and based on their age bracket the percentage of assistance given is smaller. Example Tigers 50 / 50, Webelos 2 90 / 10. We have been know to disqualify a car if there's obviously to much adult work on the car. They can still race but are held back so that don't win any of the races. Its been a while since that has happened because its clearly stated on our PWD rules that are signed on the form. We have a six lane wooden track that is all computerized and each scout car has a unique number and the car runs at least three times or is eliminated by a scoring system. The last six cars at each level runs their cars six more times in each lane to declare a first through sixth place winners. Each scout gets a "Do Your Best Ribbon", PWD Patch, and the Best Paint Job, Best Design Job, and 1st - 6th award winnner are receive a trophy. Each race level takes about a 45 minutes to run and we start are races at 9AM and finish the last races at 2PM. We also have TV camera's on the track, so that boys can see races over on one of the three TV we have places in the cafeteria. We even get the Girl Scouts involved in selling hot dogs, snacks, juice, and soda. Were very fortunate to have a lot of dedicated parents to work with the boys and expecially the single mothers to make this a very enjoyable event.

The dialogue of this issue has gotten very intereting and wanted to mention as the original author to this toplic that we resolved our original issue with the parent basically backing down, since the scout was unable to present any demonstrations of his work. As for this issue dealing on Webelos having to re-earn pins and belt loops the new Webelos guide states. "If you've earned the Physical Fitness Sports Pin earlier in Cub Scouting, you must earn another Physical Fitness Sports Pin as a Webelos Scout for requirement 10." Page 126 of the new Webelos Handbook. As for the Scout Merit badge issue, our Council has allowed for second year Webelos to transfer credits if they are registered to go into a Boy Scout Troop already. Such as the Swim Program that is run by the Council can transfer credit into Boy Scouts Swim Merit Badge. The swimming program starts on Jan 10 and ends the end of March, which is the overlapping period of bridging period to BSA. Other examples during this period could be applied also as the focus is to keep the second year Webelos motivated as the boys bridge into Boy Scouts.

Thank you for the input. As the CM for 107 boys a lot issues come up weekly from the parents. I contacted the parent that had there boy playing football and explained the Guide to Safe Scouting handbook and that we could not substitute the flag football belt loop / pins. I explained that the BSA does not permit contact sports. Tackling in regular football puts it in the category of contact sports. He was upset and agreed to put together a flag football program in the spring, but still feels that the BSA needs to catch up with the 21st century on what boys enjoy doing. I explained that we have more than enough sports and academic options available to teach the boys new and exciting things. He's not happy and may leave the pack. Great Dad but really too intense at times.

Being the CM for this pack of 107 boys we don't want this Sports and Academic Pin issue to get out of hand. The pack earns enough money each year to pay for all the awards for the boys. As a result of this issue, our pack committe has decided to table all recognition of all Sports and Academic Pins for this months pack meeting. The Sports and Academic Belt Loops and Pins handbook have steps in which a committe group can be formed. We haven't had to do this before as parents have submitted the forms with dates and presented examples to the den leaders at their den meetings. The cubmaster than reviewed the documentation with the den leaders and we moved on to award the boy. Has anyone every put together a committe or addressed the Sports and Academic Belt Loops and Pins handbook diffently? This issue has really taken up more time than it should and the parents to the two boys have unfortunately pushed us into having to put some rules in place to our "By Laws" that should not be necessary.

We don't play Flag Football in our community but we do play regular football starting in the Third Grade (Bear). Have you allowed your boys to substituted regular football to obtain the Sport and Academic Flag Football Pin. As the cubmaster I don't see this being a major issue. My den leaders do.

I carefully contacted the mother to these two boys today and "congradulate" her two boys for the special accomplishments of completed all the belt loop and pin activities. The mother was appreciative and went on to explain how they did a lot of the work during the summer and started to give me dates. When I explained that her Tiger had just started on Sept 18th and he would not be able to receive the belt loops and pins for activity prior to Sept 18th, thats when she started to change her story saying that she had done 7 of the 9 in the last five weeks. I aske her to bring three activities from the completed pin activities so that we could display them at the Pack Week and set up a special award ceremony she became a little more worried about what I was leading into. We closed the conversation on how this was not something that every boy completed so quickly and that we usually like to have this last over a four year period. She called me back shortly and started to shout at me accusing her of cheating. I very nicely asked her why was she shouting at me and she repeated her statement. I again asked her to nicely undertstand that what her boys did was very special and and we wanted to award her in that way. She ultimately deleted a few of the Belt Loops and Pins but they will still receive 7 for the Webelos boy and 6 for the Tiger and she will be setting up a special table and we just feel as if the parents are missing the point for the future.

We have a family in the Pack that has two boys in Cub Scouts. One is a Tiger and the other is a Webelos 1. The mom submitted Cub Scout Academic and Sports Belt Loop and Pins requests to two different dens leaders who are questioning if she understands the program and she says she does. We don't want to hold back any recognition for a boy but find it difficult for a Tiger to earn as much recognition as she is saying in just six weeks. I don't want to have to challenge her to ask her boys how they completed this work, but she's forcing our hand as its making our pack uncomfortable. Any professional way in fixing this problem? Have already submitted request to Unit Commissioner and BSA Counsel for advise also. This is what she said they completed and the pins are not easy to complete: Webelos 1 Both Belt Loops and Pins for the following: Bowling, Baseball, Fishing, Flag Football, Roller Skating, Swimming, Table Tennis Ultimate, Bicycle Tiger Both Belt Loops and Pins for the following: Bowling, Baseball, Fishing, Flag Football, Roller Skating, Swimming, Soccer, Collecting, Art