tblessin

Cubmaster3947, you hit the nail on the head exactly with your post. It has seemed that the better things run, the more the parents' volunteer 'skills' and willingness fades. This year my wife has stepped in several times and brought things across the finish line ('just this once'). I am going to reverse this trend starting with our parents meeting next week. Your right -- I love all the kids in cubscouting, but am starting to sour on about 1/2 the parents.

Thanks everyone, for all of the good advice so far. I am going to use it at our parents meeting next week. I agree that CM and recruiting volunteers should not be the same job -- and I didn't make things any better when I ended up being the popcorn chair since nobody else would do it. I think I do a pretty good job keeping the atmosphere upbeat at the meetings, but still get the sense that many of the parents are grateful that someone else is 'taking care of things'.

Hi everyone, I am a newbie to this forum, and have a question that is dogging me. I've been a pack cubmaster for little over a year (this is my second season), and have found that getting replacement volunteers for the parents with kids 'graduating' seems to be getting tougher and tougher. We live in a fairly affluent community, so many of the dads travel frequently on business or otherwise claim they are really busy with work. Also, sports are very popular so they also claim that they have no time left after that. Moms have been filling more of the roles, but obviously many claim they can't help since the dads are so busy. Net result is that of a pack with 55 kids, about 5 of the parents do 70% of the work, 5 do about 25%, and a few more cover the rest. That is leading to burnout and my fear that more of the leaders will leave (myself included) We instituted a mandatory volunteer program this year, but many are just ignoring it and I hesitate to follow through and actually ask some boys to leave. I am also fairly unhappy with the amount of 'browbeating' that it takes to get someone to volunteer (the positive benefits of volunteering just seem to fall on deaf ears). Any tips on what other people have tried!?!