saschuster

I was given a website to use to post rules for our scouts to follow to use their car. I guess it is rules they have vaguly followed in the past. Of course, after I did that, I have several of our dads in my office last night screaming about the wheels and the rule about the wheels. I know NOTHING about building this car or the rules which is why I sent what the pack has always followed. So the rule they are having problems with is... Wheelbase : The wheelbase (length between the wheels front-to-back) may NOT be changed; it must be the same as the official kit. Existing wheel slots MUST be used. Either end can be used as the front. Wheels/Axles:The wheels & axles furnished in the kit MUST be used. No washers, bushings, bearings, or springs are allowed. Wheels & axles may be sanded to remove burrs, and may be polished, waxed, etc. as desired as long as the SHAPE is NOT changed. Reductions in wheel width or diameter are NOT allowed. I guess the dads making their sons cars have moved the wheels closer together and now they are screaming that it should be legal. I looked at several other packs in our area that has the same set of rules posted on their website. I have no idea of moving the wheels creates and advantage or not. I do know, the dad fussing the loudest, has two scouts and he does all of the work on the cars himself, the boys told us that, and he has had both boys win first and second place every year they have raced. Can anyone help me with this? Is this a rule we should change? Does moving the wheels create an advantage? We have a committee meeting tomorrow night so I am going to let everyone hash it out then, I just wanted to get opinions from the outside from everyone who knows about building these things.

Well, me stepping down isn't an option. I thought about that the last time we had a huge disagreement that turned very ugly and I won't go into that except that it involved a meeting with the pastor of the church and the COR finally saying he would let me run the pack. I have had almost every leader we have tell me if I left, they were going to whatever pack I took my son to. I am not perfect by far but we have a strong pack now, we are very active in the community and I have recruited great leaders so I am going something right some of the time! I WANT to help those who need it. We have a single grandmother raising her grandson who comes to every meeting and is at every camping trip. We have a single mother of three who doesn't receive help with her kids and we have a family that both parents lost their jobs. Those are the ones I think we need to focus on helping and keeping the boys in the program. The ones I have problems with are the ones who go out and but a $400 phone but tells me she will talk with our COR about the dues, she isn't paying it and the ones that buy a $1500 frame for a clubhouse and let me know he has always been helped in the past, why not now? And a mother who only brings her son if the local bar isn't having poker night and instead of helping him with scouts, she puts her money on the table and drinks every night. The ones who have needed the help in the past were ignored because they don't talk about their problems and even refused help this year when I approached them. They were ignored to help those who air their person and financial problems all over the place. I know they are adults and it's their money and their life to spend it the way they want but I feel it's my place to help those who need it and not those who expect it. Yes, our COR has a big heart, for his pet projects, not for everyone. The church where we meet is also having financial problems but they will do anything to help with the pack but they also need the funds to help in the community, not just us.(This message has been edited by saschuster)

Thank you for all of your comments! A little history of our pack and the COR. He has been with the pack for 10 years when his son was a Cub. He saw it fall apart once and then worked to get it back after two years of not having a pack so I know that he means well BUT, the parents for the last three or four years have not been paying dues or have paid $20 or $30 which put their finances in a very bad place. He would ask for money to pay to send scouts to camp, scouts who had two working parents but had gotten so used to his handouts they expected to be given everything. He allowed parents with large families (mom, dad, scout, brother, sister and grandparents) camp with us without paying our camping fee and they took shirts we had made and never paid for them and he never went to them for the money so for that we lost on. So he has a big heart and doesn't want any of the boys to miss out but in the process, parents who have been loyal and paid their dues are paying for two or three families. I don't want the boys to miss out but at the same time, we are not the welfare office anymore and I feel like a collections agent trying to make some of these parents understand why they have to pay when in the past they didn't. When we started our popcorn sale, we told all the parents if their scout sold $500 their dues were paid. Most of them didn't take us up on that but we did have several boys who sold the $500 and quite a few who went over that so it was definitely doable. We don't have personal scout accounts but I did hand out something to everyone to show them the breakdown of where the dues go. The biggest part is for awards and I consider the Webelos badge and their AOL as part of their awards and our COR doesn't just because they always gave this to them in the past. So, that is where we are butting heads. I know I sound stubborn and it sounds like it's all about the money but I can't let our account get to where it was and I know our Treasurer isn't going to let it happen so that is where the standoff is at. Anything left at the end of the year goes to our summer party, which isn't much because our packs spends a lot of awards but we make sure we don't have a huge surplus in the end but enough to cover us in the fall once school starts again.

Once again I am butting heads with our COR. I completed recharter and did not include boys who families ignored my emails and phone calls about paying their dues. I let them know, recharter was $27 per scout and if they couldn't par the entire amount for dues, I at least needed the recharter fee. He was ok with me doing that after fighting a bit so we had about 10 scouts, active in the pack, refuse to play their dues or the $27 tha were not rechartered. 5 of them are Webelos and about to crossover and I have again, let the parents know, now that you refused to pay dues, your son is no longer a scout and can't cross over until they are re registered and the money is paid. So, we were talking about the three boys who will actually cross over because they were rechartered and are up to date on their dues and the question of who pays the money for the arrow of light and their Webelos patch. I said it comes from dues, the COR said no the pack pays. To me, thats not right. Why should dues paid by a Tiger parent be used to pay for another scouts patch and a $20 - $40 plaque? He also said, when the scout crosses over, the $100 that was paid for dues, is transfered to the troop and that's not right either. We paid for recharter so I think the troop will just get $73 and if they get their patch and AOL that is also deducted out. It seems very pretty to me to fight over money with him and this happens quite a bit, along with fighting about other minor petty things but when our treasurer took over three years ago, the pack had a negative balance, the church had to give them money to get them back on their feet and since I took over as CC we now have a little extra thanks to the two of us pushing to get dues paid by all scouts. How does everyone else handle the dues and who pays for what and when the boy crosses over, how much if the dues go to the troop?

Well, we went and stayed the weekend. High in the 40's the two days we were there, low Friday night was 31 and Saturday night was 37 so we all earned the patch for Friday. No, we don't pressure anyone to go and certianly not the boys. This is something our familes actually look forward to doing and we talked about this Friday night around the campfire and our parents all said they would be upset if it were something we took away especially if Council doesn't have a rule about it. Again, the nice thing about where we do most of our camping, it's no more than 20 minutes away from home for everyone(5 for me), we have a scout hut that is heated, a huge storage shed with an upstairs office that is heated and we spend a lot of time indoors in the morning working on advancements and beltloops and if it's really cold at night we have a movie. I will tell you, not one of the 12 scouts we had there complained once about being too cold. We had to drag them inside to get them to do the activites so I don't think the boys turning away from camping will ever be a problem for our pack. My son is in his third year of camping at our hut and he knows every inch of the 5 acres and loves being there, cold, hot, sunny or rainy and the other scouts love the hikes he takes them on. I am a parent and I know what I would and wouldn't do with my son and we never plan anything without talking about it first. We had a threat of rain on Saturday and all agreed if it started raining, we would all leave. I grew up in Texas and camped as a girl scout and it was MISERABLE but I definitly prefer the 95-100 heat to anything below 50! I just wasn't sure if there was a set in stone temp. for the Poar Bear or not but I think we all agreed to keep it at 32.

Thanks for all of your suggestions! The email I sent yesterday hit a cord with a lot of our parents and I was able to collect around $1400 last night in dues...wow!! The others I will definitely be sending a letter to them as suggested and let them know this is it! Scoutfish - I like your letter, it's perfect for the group I have!! If you ever more to Georgia, let me know, you and my cub master would be awesome together My COR is really a good person, has been with this pack for over 10 years and he wants to do the right thing but he has hurt some of these people more than he has helped them. When the parents are walking around with $400 cell phones and buying $1500 clubhouse's for their kids, they don't need our help, they need an intervention. We do have some single mothers and grandmothers raising their boys and those are the ones I would like to help! Thanks again for your suggestions!!

This is something we mention at recruiting when the boys first join and it's something we mention at every pack meeting and the leaders are also reminding parents. The new parents aren't dragging their feet with this, its our returning parents who have been spoiled and been able to pay what they want, when they wanted. Now, I am stuck being the collection officer! This has been able to happen for years because the COR will go to the church and ask for money when the pack runs out and I don't want to have that happen this year. They do so much for us as it is, I hate that they have been used as the packs personal bank account! We are given $200 to help families that need it with their dues and I split that up 4 ways to parents that I knew needed the help and hadn't been given a hand out year after year. We have a very large pack this year, 70 boys and 25 leaders. We more than doubled in size this year because I recruited a new cubmaster and we apparently impressed the parents and recruited 45 new scouts. Our dues are $100 a year. We try to do a few fundraisers, popcorn, of course, which brought us $2000 and then smaller stuff like yard sales and bake sales. We had a problem last year with the boys getting 10 -15 belt loops in less than a year and I have stopped that by requiring documentation and talking with the scout if we didn't think the parents were being honest with us. Our awards were way way out of hand but we have gotten that under control but with 70 scouts and we are very active, our money for awards can be pretty high some months. We had talked about doing the pay as you go and nixed that idea because we figured we wouldn't have any money for anything if we did that. The numbers work out, after recharter fees and a rough estimate for awards, we have about $25 per scouts and we use that for parties, trophies for the derby and regatta and misc.

How do all of you handle your pack dues and getting parents to pay? We have a very big hearted COR who is finally stepping back after years of putting someone as CC who would do as he said. Now I have taken over, we had a huge huge disagreement that involved me getting the pastor of the church and our DE involved and he is now stepping back. The damage he did was allowing parents to not pay their dues and now that we are well into our year, recharter is due, we are spending $80 each month on awards and money is very very low. I sent an email breaking down where the money goes and what it pays for an have informed the parents who have not paid their does or made payments towards their dues, there will be no more awards for their scout until they make arrangements to pay or make payments and if they are not paid in full by the end of the year, there will be no badges or arrow of light for those crossing over until they are current on their dues. Is this too harsh?? I can already hear several of them running to our COR letting him know how mean and unfair I am but we have parents who have paid in full and our big reward for our popcorn fundraiser was if you sell $500 or more, your dues are paid and we had several scouts who sold over $500 just for that reason. I hate for the boys to suffer but I also don't think it's fair for the parents who have paid to foot the bill for awards for others especially when we are allowing them to make payments and pay late to help them out.

I went to BALOO training in August and they didn't say anything to us about camping when it was cold out and it not being allowed, just for us to use our best judgement with the weather. I took over as CC a year ago and my son is in his 3rd year and he has done two other cold weather camp outs-one was 17 degrees, the other was 27. Our last one I was at and it rained the second night so we sent the boys home because cold is bad but wet and cold is miserable. We are in Georgia so we don't get many chances to do this, December is usually it for us because January and February is either too cold and wet or too cold and icy. Our parents grumble about doing it but our boys think it's the greatest thing to be out there in a tent in the cold, I hate it but suck it up for my little one and for the boys! The nice thing for us camping, we have 5 acres of land that was donated by our CO and it's local so home is just around the corner if we need to leave. Thanks for all of your comments, I may call council and ask what the rules are, I definitely don't want to be out there if we aren't supposed to be!!

We are going camping this weekend for our first try at our polar bear patch. What I am trying to figure out is, is there a set temperature it has to be out for the boys to earn this or is it set by the pack? Our COR is and pack trainer insists it's a written rule that is be 32 degrees out and one of them says it has to be 32 or below for a number of hours. I have scoured the internet over and can't find anything "official". To me, 32 degrees is just too cold for the little ones but I am also the one wearing a sweatshirt and overcoat when it drops below 60!! Do any of your packs do the cold weather camping and what is the temperature you use as your determination?

Quick question, is using this in the fall a have to thing or a decision the committee makes to use? From what I can see, it's not optional and I have heard others talk about a vite to use or not to use. I like it and wish we had used it when I was a den leader this year. I teach so to me it looks like a lesson plans and seems to make meetings easier.

Thanks for all of the advice. I am not sure what beltloops this child has earned and what all of the pins are that she says he has earned but I can find out. I know there are some she said he has gotten in school but the teacher won't send anything home.....maybe because he didn't do the requirements, I don't know. I know he has a lot of beltloops, more than just about every other boy in the pack and it just makes me sick to think she may be fudging on the truth and is showing him he can cheat to get something! My son is a Wolf and we took a ski trip earlier in the year and we had to work hard for two days to get his skii pin so I know these aren't easy to achieve unless you put the time and the effort into them!

Our pack is kicking around ideas of things to do as fundraisers so we can help with the cost of summer camping. I was told there are things we can do as cubs and things we can't but I haven't been able to find a list anything of what we can't do. We are thinking of a pack garage sale, a local restaurant wants to have a cookout and 100% of the money will go to our pack, movie night at the church ect. Do any of you know where I can find this information?? Thanks!

Scoutfish, I am new to scouting, my son is a wolf and I stayed out of his first year as a Tiger so it would be a father son activity and I was slowly sucked in this year first as a den leader and then as CC and I love it. I read something about rules and what the pack can and cannot do just about everyday but I am far from knowing even half of it but I completely agree with you. I am sure every pack has the problem on wanting to follow some of the rules and ignore others just because they don't agree with them and I agree this sets a bad example for the boys. When it comes to safety, I am 100% behind whatever BSA policy is because I have a son to think about. This isn't about putting a hole in a rented canoe and having to pay for it, this is putting at risk a families most precious thing in their life and before I would let it happen, I would step on toes and make as much noise as I could to keep these boys safe and teach them rules are there for a reason!

Thanks to everyone for their responses, it definitly helped! I had the chance to talk with this parent who was very upset because the boy did not get his awards at the last meeting. Our trainer/awards person talked a bit with the parent about what and what needed to be done, the parent didn't like his answer and came to me. I explained that for a Tiger to have earned that many pins, while I am sure it is possible, I just didn't see how he had completed so many of them. The reason for the number of pins vs beltloops, soome of the pins were for beltloops he had already earned....note he has around 15 beltloops as a Tiger already which is why the concern from the scouts den leader and our awards person. I let her know I work 2-3 days a week on scout stuff with my son and he is a year ahead and has had to work hard to get the two pins he has so for her son to have earned the number she says, it was very hard for me to understand how without some proof. I mentioned the worksheets and said they werent required but with the number of beltloops and pins in question it would be a good idea just so the parent has something to show and make sure they scout can talk with his leader about what he did to earn them. It wasn't an easy conversation, this parent tend to get very emotional and star crying, which almost happened but I think she left knowing what needs to be done.

Thank you so much for all of your replies! There were no attached worksheets for anything, just a handwritten list but that is a great idea, not only with this child but for everyone. I have used them a few times with my own son just to make sure we have everything covered that needed to be. I hate to think of this family being dishonest and like to give everyone the benefit of the doubt but this parent has already proved several times to be untrustworthy so we will definitly be doing something before all of these are bought and given out! We are also cheapskates, myself and the treasurer so the money definitly comes into play with this as well!

What do you do if you think a parent is not being honest with their scouts achievements? We have a tiger cub whose parent has turned in a list of 13 beltloops and 19 pins they say their son has earned. I know everything is based on the honor system but I have had a chance to get to know this parent personally, more than I would like to have gotten to know, and I honestly think this person is not sticking to the honor system and just getting what they can for their son so he will stay in scouts. I have a son who is a wolf and has only earned two of the pins and we work on something every week. I am not sure if we just go with what this parent is saying or if we should have a sit down and review the pin requirements and call them out? I hate to see the boy learning that he can get what he wants without working for it, that is my only issue with all of this.