BDL101

Thank you all for all your advice. Our pack chair is in the process of writing a letter to the Distric Exec now. We will have to wait and see what comes down from there. We do have an excellent core group and work very well together. I just hate seeing all the effort going into this situation rather than where it should be - on making sure our boys are having a great experience.

Yes there are other quite a few packs in the area. Unfortunately this family seems intent on ours. It is hard to describe the situation with out going into all the "gory details" but it involves some inapropriate behaviour by the parents as well as unfounded accusations made by the parents. There were also many issues of contention over planning, money collection, etc that when sorted out all centered around these parents. As I said earlier, I am new to leadership in scouting and find it difficult to bellieve that there is not a code, rules of conduct, etc to protect packs in situations like these. I am just having a lot of trouble finding help or guidance in what is the right way to handle something like this. I agree it is not right or fair to deny the boy the ability to be a part of scouting, but if the pack disintegrates over this all will lose out. Though I am sure the pack will survive in some form, the core group of our most dedicated leadership have all stated that they will leave the pack if not scouting all together if forced to associate with this family.

I'm sorry I misspoke in the original post. It was the district exec who advised us at first to ask this family to leave then recently informed us that we would have to bring the cub scout back into the pack. While I agree it is not a good thing to deny this boy the chance to be a scout, most of the key leadership in our pack will resign and leave if they have to deal with his parents. Things were said and done that may be forgiven (with difficulty) but not forgotten. It is like being run over by a truck, you can forgive the driver, but will not put yourself in his way again. There were several meeeting, both in private and public, in which this couple was confronted and asked to stop. However, conditions only worsened and ultimately they were asked to leave.

I have a question regarding some problems in our pack. Recently a family was asked to leave the pack because of numerous conflicts with the parents (who were also leaders) and nearly the entire remainder of the leaders in the pack. There were also rumors and other accusations started by these parents. Once everyone got together and discussed it became obvious that we were being manipulated by this one couple. It had gotten to the point that 3/4 of the leaders in the pack were willing to leave the pack if not scouting all together it needed to avoid this couple. We held a meeting with our charter and council representatives and voted to ask the family to leave the pack. A month later we have been told by our council rep that since thier boy is enrolled in the school which is our sponsor we must allow him back into the pack. While there are no problems with the boy himself we are all aware of how key parental involvement is. It is regrettable that he is not involved in out pack anymore, but I don't see how he can be without his parents. The same leaders are still willing to leave if scouting means they have to associate with this couple. This is a very unpleasant situation and being fairly new to scouting (first year as a den leader), I am not sure of the rules and regulations on this type of situation. I have not had much luck finding anything on the internet either. If anyone has any suggestions or sources of information I would appreciate it. God Bless