saschuster

That is such an awesome idea! I have thought about doing something similar but my problem with doing anything other than taking applications and money as fast as I can is time. Our schools here give us 1 hour and not a minute more and they are tapping their feet and looking at the clock about 15 minutes before our hour is up! Last year at one of the schools i had a craft and the older scouts were working with the new boys and we ran over and you better believe the school was on the phone with council the next day letting them know!!

My son loves legos and we had bought at target some sets that came in containers that we large enough to make first aid kits. I had the boys bring supplies for them and they were large enough to put in bandaids, first aid cream, gauze, rubber gloves and a whistle. We put a small rope on them and when they went for a hike, they could carry it or hang it around their neck. They worked great. Target still has the lego set, about $5 each I think

I am glad we aren't the only one with this problem. We had our round table last night and this is how bad it's gotten! The district chair was there, no commissioner, not district trainer, camping chair, FOS chair so no agenda! I told the district chair, who is also my COR, our round tables suck and we need to spice them up and make them fun and if the district people running the show can't make it, they need to be voted out and someone interested put into place. I am to CC for my pack and the district membership and SNFS chair and our pack is hosting the spring district cub family camp so I can't do too much but I am always willing to help. He actually agreed with me....that is a first so I think our next meeting with him will be very different. Thanks for sharing your ideas, I made some notes so lets see how far I can get with these ideas!!

Our round table meetings are terrible! They usually start out ok and then they turn into a gossip or talk session and nothing gets done. I love to talk but I can do that at home and to spend an hour and a half talking about stuff that has nothing to do with scouts is a waste of my time. I think our problem right now is our District Chair, who only has a few months left in the position. He has been in scouting for years and change is NOT in his vocabulary so any ideas anyone ever had in the past were immediately shopt down so people stopped coming and the ones that do come, come to hang out and socialize. I went to a meeting in another district because we meet together once during the summer and wow, what a difference!! It was definitely a little corny but it was fun and it was standing room only! They give out awards for participation, they have recipe contests....with the food there to sample and they were just very interested in being there, questions or ideas were discussed and I feel like that is what our district needs. We are getting a new chair, hopefully the one the nominating committee approached. If he takes over, I think things will definitely get better and more people will start attending meetings. Can I ask what topics you will be covering at your meetings? I would love to help out more with the district once help is welcomed!!

We are doing a project in the fall to support our holiday party. I am looking for scout packs in other countries for our boys to become pen pals with. I am having a tough time finding email address and websites, any suggestions??

I pretty much run the pack my son is in as the cc not because I want to and I want to have control or be in charge but it is hard to get help/ I have some great leaders but outside the meetings, they don't do much including come to pack committee meetings and round tables. Parent's, they are even harder to get to help out. They love to show up for everything but coming early to help or staying late, forget it. There are some that will go above and they are great appreciated but there are just a handful of them. It's gotten better, especially with the leaders because this year I decided I will get help, or we won't have an event. I cancelled a few small things and they knew I was serious so it's starting to get easier for me but I still do a huge majority of planning and getting events set up by myself so I know there you are coming from!

I can almost understand the parents who turn in a list of 15 belt loops their son earned in a year. They boys want the shiny belt covered in awards. The parent's will half way have the scout do the requirements, the leaders will talk with the boy and in the end, we hand them out. Now, when it's a leader doing it, I have a huge problem with it! This woman has been a pain in my tail since before she handed me her application and let me know, she liked to be in change and do things her way and she would be in the office with me eventually. So not happening! Her and her husband are the assistant den leaders in the Webelos den, they were upset I said assistant because they have all of their "legal" training, whatever that is. She yells are certain boys, she is rude to some of the parents and last night she let me know the boys would be earning their basketball and ultimate belt loops. I told her, unless they were staying late, there was no way all of the boys could earn two belt loops in less than an hour unless she was cheating. I also told her, a trained leader should know the requirements and be the example for the boys and follow them. What do you do with leaders like this? It's hard enough to get parents to step up but I would rather have to take the den myself on nights when their leader is out than have her in there screaming at kids, telling the parents they need to be at meetings every week or not come at all and tearing though requirements without the boys getting the entire meaning and fun out of them!

Great job! I am so excited to get my bead but I still have 4 more ticket items to go!! Fox Patrol 92-67

Wow Ann, just wow! I can't believe the man came to your house drinking and he was driving with the kids in the car. I have had to tell my CO that a parent was drinking at at a district camping trip, to which he did nothing and to make that even worse, his "pet parent" who told me (I am the cc) that the dad was drinking, decided to leave the next day and bring back her own bottle to have that night....again the CO did nothing. We have informal meetings at my house, no kids, and we have dads that will have a beer but never would I have an official meeting and kids there and let anyone drink so good for you for reporting this. I like how you are trying to keep things together, I am sure it's not easy to just say, the heck with hit, I'm leaving! I have worked hard the last two years to build our pack of 20 to a pack of over 40 and it would break my heart to see it disband but you have to make a decision, make it work by yourself or walk away. I have learned, it can't be done by one person and getting parents to help is tough so good luck to you!

Whew, and I thought it was just me with every weekend from April until the end of June booked with Scout events!

Wow, the parents in our pack would bolt for the door without their kids if we told them to drop and leave! We have to tell the parents of the younger scout they can't leave and they pitch a fit over having to stay. We had a very disruptive mother late last year and it got to where she was spreading gossip about leaders and other parent's, she told her son to tell his den leader he didn't have to listen, and she was finally told to leave by our COR. If I had handled it as the CC, it would have been a smack down in the parking lot so definitely use your support if you have any!

I had asked this same question a while back and got some great suggestions! Mess kits, a compass, a water bottle. I think what I am doing for our boys is a Boy Scout coin with the scout oath on it.

And That is what we do this for! Great story, thanks so much for sharing even though I was almost in tears reading it. I love to hear those kinds of things. I think I said this before, if you ever move to the Atlanta area, look me up, we need more dedicated leader like you! I have been involved in my sons pack for only two years and I did it because no one else would. I started as a Wolf leader, was talking into committee chair a few months later and just finished my second weekend at Wood Badge. I now have a completely different way of looking at scouting and what all of you as leaders do and why you do it. I always knew this was something I did for my son, but it didn't click until our class was standing around the campfire Saturday night talking about how scouting has changed their life.

That is AWESOME!!!!!!

I just got home from my second weekend and wow, it was amazing. From one Fox to another, this is what we did... Patrol Leader - Give me and F Patrol - Fun Patrol Leader - Give me an O Patrol- Outdoors Patrol Leader -Give me and X Patrol - Xcellent Patrol Leader -What does that spell? All Together - Fabulous Foxes We were also talking about TV shows one morning and came up with a song to the tune of the Fact of Life You take the good, you take the bad, you want then you have the fox's five, the foxes five We said five because there were five of us. Sam 92-67

Thanks everyone for your help, those are all great ideas and will definitely be talking with my TG so see what she thinks. I was thinking about a form but wasn't sure if that was something they would want to see but if it's been done by others I am sure it would be ok...or that is my hope! I had no idea this was going to be so involved but it's been awesome so far!! WB 92 67 Fox Patrol

So I am working on writing my goals for my ticket and stuck on how to verify them. My only thoughts right now are pictures and lists of who came to what I was doing. What did everyone else do for theirs?

jamist, your post is very encouraging to me, thank you for writing it! I was dragging into being CC almost two years ago, have worked my tail off building our pack and convincing parents how proud their boys would be to have them as their leaders and getting them into place. My son will start Webelos in the fall so I am already looking at who we have to replace not only me, but our CM and our advancement chair/unit trainer. Right now, we have no one who would be willing to step into any of those positions so I am hopeful that in the fall we recruit lots of excited and enthusastic scouts and can find parents who share the passion I have for our pack. You are definitely right about how tiring it can be. We have at least two events a month along with weekly den meetings and are one of the most active packs in the district but it is a ton of work!! I am thankful I don't have a full time job, I could never do what I do and the pack would probably still be ok, just not as fun as it is now! Good luck with the troop!!

We have done both the two night and the one night and we usually have a great turnout but we have the advantage of having property close to all of our homes we share with the troop. The key for me when planning a camping trip is to keep the boys and the parents busy!! I try to have each den provide something for the boys to work on during the morning. After lunch we have an amazing story teller that takes the boys on a hike and leads them to the "Indian Burial Ground" and later in the afternoon we work on one of the harder or not so interesting belt loops. After dinner is smores and skits or songs. If your pack does the Regatta race, camping is a great time to hold this event. We have had it at our scout hut the past tow years and we run out of parking we have so many participants and the non campers get to see all the tents and run the property with the boys that do camp and that gets them excited and motivated. I was never a camping person until a few years ago and now that I am committee chair, we camp every other month and our families love it! Good luck with it!

Our pack is planning to do a ceremony for the end of the year in May. One of the things we are doing is having the boys bring their hat and neckerchief for their next rank and we are going to give them the book and do sort of a crossover for them. My question is, what do we do for the first year Webelos moving on to their second year? They already have their handbook for Webelos, so maybe buy their Boy Scout book??

So how is this coming along for those of you doing it? We don't have it in Georgia but I think it would be great! I have had tons of parents ask me about their Kindergartner joining only to tell them they have to wait a year.

You have a big job ahead of you, good luck!! Our pack hosted the Spring Cub Family Camping for our district last year. We used the 100 years of scouting as our theme to promote it and it was a HUGE success! It took us 4 months of planning so it was definitely a ton of work. We had 8 packs in our district there and had over 200 people attend. Each pack was responsible for picking a decade and them planning and running a popular scouting game from that decade and that was tons of fun and by doing that, it took some of the planning off of us as each pack had something for the boys to do. The boys started at their own game and then rotated through the rest throughout the day. We had a big campfire that night where we did a flag retirement ceremony that many of the boys had never seen and then each pack did a skit and we awarded a trophy to the pack with the best game from the day. All the pack provided their own breakfast Saturday and Sunday morning and their dinner Saturday night and we provided lunch. which we were lucky enough to have a parent whose mom was a Subway Manager so we got the food for next to nothing so don't be afraid to ask restaurants and grocery stores for donations. They usually never say no to scouts especially if you bring them with you in uniform! We also had a patch for everyone that attended that our Treasurer designed. Take all the help you can get, keep the boys busy and have fun! Don't let the little things stress you out, don't expect every station to be a hit with the boys and if it's not, improvise and let them take charge and make it fun. I did it once and I don't know that I will ever do it again even though it was such a great trip, the other packs had a great time and it made us look very good! Our pack just doesn't like to help much so it made three or four of us work our tails off!

Thanks everyone. After three days of dads having temper tantrums worse than their scouts made a decision. I gave out the cars and a week later sent the rules not even thiking these dads would be all over the cars as quick as they were! So, my fault for that and now i know to have them paper rules with the cars next year! After talking with many other people who have built many cars and one who has run our district race I found it's not fair to move the wheels, it does make the car faster and it's not allowed at district. Because I didn't get the rules out right then, I am letting the boys race but they will race against the other "modified cars" and they will have a 1st second and third place trophy but we will not allow them to race in the final pack race. We had a meeting last night, the committee members and parents that came took a vote and everyone was notified this morning. Now, it will be interesting to see how many mad fathers I have about this but I would rather have them mad and the boys happy!

Eagle, we are in the same boat as you. We are building our pack back up, about 50 - 60 boys and in the past, the pack paid for everything and when it ran out of money, they borrowed from the Troop or from the church because parents paid what they wanted as far as dues. This year, we are finally looking good as far as our checkbook is concerned and are able to do a little more. As incentive to sell popcorn, our cub master offered the highest seller boy the chance to hit him with a pie and for the parents, if they sold $500 their dues were paid. But, we only had a few parents that did this so our fundraiser, while it was good to have the extra money we did, it wasn't what I had hoped for. From the dues, we pay for their belt loops and pins, their badges when they complete their bobcat or their rank, we give them their derby car and if there are funds available, we do patches or ribbons for special events like the Regatta and the derby. Last year for our Blue and Gold, because we were poor, we had a potluck but this year, we can pay a caterer. IF we have enough left at the end of the year, we would like to have a ceremony to cross the boys over to their next rank and provide them with their new neckerchief and handbook but we have to see what happens at the end of the year for that. Our camping trips, the parents pay $5 - $7 per person depending on how many days it is and this covers all the food. If they don't show up, they do not get a refund because the food was already bought. Good luck!

I am very good at holding my ground if I say something and have no problem facing off with the dads so I am ready for it. I just want to make sure that by moving the wheels from where they are supposed to be, closer together or further apart is going to give that car the advantage over the others. Again, another thing that seems so petty to me but when it's the same boys winning every year and now because of this rule that several other packs in our area also follow, the dads are flipping out, makes me wonder??