5yearscouter

BSA really needs to put an accurate release date at the bottom of these forms, and change the date every time they make a change/update/correction. that will help volunteers be able to identify which is the more recent form when looking for the right form to use.

Oh and for sure our dens charge dues directly to the den leader . usually $1 a week, or $5 a month. Webelos often $10 a month. That gives them money to pay for den supplies and also for extra patches, derby weights, webelos campout costs--and for AOL plaque/arrows/fancy stuff. the den leader also will solicit the pack to give some $ toward the AOL extra awards, but that varies from den leader to den leader depending on their crafty skill level. some buy out of the scout shop and some make their own so cost varies greatly.

As our pack has grown, we try to cover more things in the pack budget, but as the pack grows, things cost more and more, so we are unable to really cover more things. round and round, it's all related. We charge a fee in August when you join, since we recruit in August, not late Sept due to our schools starting then. The August fee = the prorated amount of BSA, registration, insurance, prorated adult registration and insurance(we require 1 parent to do youth protection training and fill out a leader application for the background check) plus the cost of a book, the cost of a bobcat badge, card, and parent pin, plus some for awards/belt loops/pins/etc that may be earned past the bobcat). Last year this meant in August brand new parents paid $40. this was probably a little low, but we rounded down so parents could pay with two $20 bills to make the treasurer happy. Parents were responsible for uniform costs unless we had hand me downs in the uniform closet. Then we had parents pay for registration, insurance and boy's life magazine, plus half of an adult registration and insurance (we recharter about half of the adults who fill out applications annually to have enough leaders, and committee), and then "some" for the pack to buy a few awards, to include rank award and a couple of belt loops/pins. This does NOT cover all awards the scout will earn, we expect fundraisers to cover those items. When making our budget for the year, we look primarily at fundraiser profits from the prior year, and try to estimate what we can make this year in terms of a per scout basis. we set this as a goal. Parents know if as a whole the pack does not make this goal, the pack will have two choices, 1. do more fundraisers, or 2. pass on more costs to parents for extra awards, event costs, etc. For expenses we first break it down to what things cost. A big trip thru the scout shop to price out derby cars and patches, belt loops (we figure 1 per month for 10 months as max, but expect 5 a year for most scouts in a den unless the den leader is a go-getter), webelos activity pins (we expect 1 per month), and any thing you want to do that you would buy the awards out of the scout shop. Make a nice spreadsheet to pull the data. then we go thru each event and make an estimated cost and then force that estimated cost over all to fit into what we expect for income. So if we expect fundraisers will only bring in $50 per scout, most of that will be spent on awards with maybe $1 a month toward pack events/pack meetings and the rest of the cost of an event will be passed to the parents. When we first started we had to pass a lot of costs on to parents, we had no real fundraiser the first year, so The original committee chair set registration higher and charged monthly dues to the den for den supplies AND a littleto the pack for pack supplies. We had a small turn out, but had enough money to pay for the events mostly in full for any scouts, but they had to pay their own way to summer camp or big things. We kept events low keyed, pot lucks, everyone bought their own derby car so the pack could pay for patches and a first place ribbon. We then changed to a smaller amount for registration and a larger monthly dues $10, with $5 to the den and $5 to the pack. The $5 to the pack paid for $1 for pack meeting or event, and $4 in awards/belt loops/ranks, etc. end of the year we did ok on fundraisers and gave each boy $15 or 20 toward summer camp, and a new book for the new year of scouting. So now after a few years of that, we decided to get rid of the monthly $5 to the pack and raise registration again but in two payments taht include the book to get boys started on scouting right away. This year we come in after 3 good fundrasiers last year, with extra $. So we budget $5 per boy for blue and gold, parents still bring pot luck items, but that gives us $ for decorations, big cake, and main dish, plus a few small thank yous to those who help the pack. we buy derby cars and spend about $4 on driver's licenses, patches for everyone including siblings, ribbons and a certificate for all. (we don't do a big derby trophy). We'll also have $ this year to cover part of summer camp put into a fund for boys to ask for (budget = $5 per boy into a fund, plus some $ toward adult summer camp fees), we should have enough at the end of the year to pay for everyone a new scout book as a tradition. depending on the cost of pack campouts, we charge $5 per person, $20 per family to cover most of the costs, with the pack budget covering about $5 per boy. Awards we expect to spend $4 every month--that might be a patch, but often is webelos badges and belt loops, LNT, World Conservation etc awards. We plan at the end of the current year, we'll have about $500 left over. WE don't keep a huge amount in the account, but that should be enough to cover quite a few months of awards, before our next fundraiser starts bringing in money again. ok, so too long of an answer??

The form says one thing where the dr signs but the faq says the form is needed for summer camp, but the height and weight req don't apply for summer camps at usual bsa camps. how do you convince a dr to sign that form when right there on the form it says the dr is attesting to the fact that the participant meets the height and weight req. and if the height and weight are on the form, why does the dr have to even attest to that. it's a fact, they pass the height weight, or they don't.

According to the form itself where the dr signs it says EXAMINERS CERTIFICATION I certify that I have reviewed the health history and examined this person and find no contraindications for participation in a Scouting experience. This participant Meets height/weight requirements so if you don't meet height and weight requirements, you don't get the dr's signature "Part C (the physical examination) should be completed if you are participating in an event that exceeds 72 consecutive hours, such as ...summer camps, and Wood Badge training courses." and you can't get the dr's signature if you don't meet the height/weigth requirement. so much for the old out of shape/overweight folks going to the summer camp to act as commissioners directing boys to wash their hands before they eat, or going to a wood badge setting in a cabin if it lasts longer than 72 hours straight.

I really prefer to race each boy against every other boy in the den. the formula for how many races you need for a 2 lane track is number in den = d d-1+ d-2 + d-3 .... etc til you get to 1 so for 9 boys in a den d = 9 number of races = 8 +7+6+5+4+3+2+1=36 in a double elimination, you'll usually have close to that number and you don't have each fast car race against every other fast car, and boys only race a couple times and leads to a LOT of disappointment. if you have really large dens like over 10 the first question is why so large? the next suggestion is to break them in half, so you have 5 boys race against each other( in 4+3+2+1 races = 10 races, instead of 9+8+7+6+5+4+3+2+1= 45 races) to determine the top racers and then have the top in each group race against each other. the worries for that is that the 5 racers in one group could all be faster than the 5 racers in the other group, but you gotta make a few changes to force the racing to fit into the amount of time you have.

I think I just deleted the link I had to a pinewood derby score sheet to have racers race against each other scout, and in each lane. It's a bit longer if you have a 2 lane track, we have a 4 lane track with a brain that gives 1st thru 4th place. if you have 8 boys in a den to have everyone race against every other boy, you'd need quite a few races. car 1 against everyone: 12,13, 14,15,16,17,18 car 2 against all except above(cause car 2 already raced against car 1 above):23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28 car 3 against all except above: 34, 35, 36, 37, 38 car 4 against all except above: 45, 64, 47, 84 car 5 56, 57, 58 car 6 67,68 car 7 78 car 8 has already raced against everyone else. [check that I have everyone matched up against everyone else] mix them up in some semblance of order so kids aren't racing back to back and aren't sitting out too long at a time. smaller number of cars in a den, stop on the row for how many cars. Remember to have them switch lanes in case one lane is faster than the other lane. give everyone a point for their placement 1= first, 2=second place, non-finish =3 lowest score wins. put it on a spreadsheet, put it on an overhead projector borrowed from the school, or that hooks to a pc and put it on the wall. alternatively some packs pass out tickets, if there are 8 scouts in a den, each scout gets 1 ticket. they pay 1 ticket to race one time (then you switch lanes) winner gets a ticket. scouts get to choose who to race with each time on their own, so they might race someone multiple times but eventually they'll probably race everyone in the den especially if you tell them that they should do so. after a while you'll get down to only a few scouts having tickets, and then you give placements based on who has the most tickets left. or you give out red tickets to start, and if you win you earn a blue ticket. once everyone is out of red tickets, you have a good idea of winners based on who has the most tickets at this point.

If you draw names for tent mates, then really mess things up and draw names for buddies for the day. I know it's easier for tent mates and buddies to be the same, but if the kids is "too much" it may be best to have him tent with one kid and hang for the weekend with a different kid. We also assign duty roster duties differently than buddies, so you always have to work with someone that you don't hang out with, which would be another way to mix up the boys. and have different kids ride in the vehicle with him on the way to and from camp. all may be able to handle the kid that is "too much" if they dont have to deal with him all weekend long one on one.

If they have til May, there should be plenty of time to get their rank badges in time and do make up fun meetings in the dens. take the focus of rank off of blue and gold and make it having fun and eating and celebrating scouting, then when it gets a little close to the end fo the year if some kids are behind, or families don't know what to do, help the den leader go thru books and add a sticky note on the things the families need to do, don't turn it into a meeting long drawn out process or the boys will get a boring meeting followed up with too much homework. or send out emails to the parents with a list of 2-3 things they should do at home to start on the missing items.

ok, I'm not done yet. Tracking Bear electives and achievements is confusing. if you took out half the stuff and spread it to wolf or webelos, and make stuff either achievements or electives, not both would be great. Webelos... I do NOT like the idea of moving webelos out of the pack. From a pack leadership perspective, you gotta go find yourself your 3 committee, 2 leaders, and you'd also need some kind of scoutmater/cubmaster type person if they were their own unit. And perhaps a different meeting place or chartering org, someone else to track the money, advancements and activites and coordinate with the cubs and the boy scouts both for kids who have siblings in all the units. It would only serve to complicate things more than necessary. KISMIF for the adults too!! Realistically Webelos works fairly well, but I agree that fitness is a horrible name for a badge about drug and alcohol abuse prevention. Physical fitness and athlete could be combined, both talk about how to be more healthy and choose healthy foods. I'd love to see belt loops and pins out of the webelos program-- it is so confusing having the conversation with the parent and new advancement coordinator about webelos activity pins, that most people call webelos badges, not to be confused with the webelos rank badge, not to be confused with sports and academic pins or belt loops. did your scout earn the citizenship belt loop and pin, or the citizen webelos activity pin (badge)? And many of the belt loops requirements match up with the webelos badge req, except maybe one part, just add the one part to the webelos badge and call it good enough. I do not want to see Webelos joining troops before age 11 for maturity reasons. and why does the arrow of light say 10.5, or 6 months since the end of 4th grade, but boy scout joining req says age 10 with the arrow of light? yes, you might have a boy who skipped a grade or two and might be able to get his arrow of light because he's 6 months out of 4th grade, but isn't 10 yet, but what would you do with those precocious boys? if they have to wait to join a troop and can't join when the rest of their den does, they usually just drop out. I'd rather see the whole den have a requirement of minimum of halfway thru 5th grade to join boy scouts or something similar. Webelos we usually get thru 1 year and 6 months and the boys lose interest and have most badges they want. why couldn't it be a 1.5 year program? I do think that a 1 year webelo program you might as well just take out half the badges, and you lose something by boys not going to some kind of summer camp 2 summers as webelos to get ready for boy scouts. the new cub scout 2010 plan has a lot of flaws. An overview of each den plan against the others shows that different dens are doing different kinds of activities at totally different times of year. makes no sense in a small pack, and even in a large pack it seems reasonable that if all dens are working on sport at the same time they could then have a pack wide activity together to share and bring all the boys together with a purpose. Our pack realigned the 2010 plan as much as possible so that each den was working on similar activities at the same time. But it was a LOT of work on our part, that nationsl should ahve done. there should have been a coordinated effort to align those things around the character connections/and typical cub scout pack activities. citizenship/flags in November to coordinate with Veteran's day and a visit to the city hall. and so that in October which is fire safety month, we would all work on safety/first aid/readyman and have a visit to a local fire station and play with the fire hose. doing for others/goodwill to men coordinate with character connection for faith and visit to a senior center for christmas. Those things should have been notices by bsa national and fixed the guides to include that kind of information. to rework the cub handbooks around that kind of major themes of scouting would simplify each rank and fluff out those that need work. Even webelos 1 and 2 badges align fairly well with those kinds of activities. citizenship = citizen for 1st year webelos and scholar for 2nd year webelos for instance. My sons age 10 and 14 came up with the major themes of cub scouting to pattern our cub scout year on, and it was pretty interesting to see what they chose. what would you choose as major themes? oh and unless they've fixed it the 2010 plan figures elective points wrong according to the book directions for Bear. and it says you can do craftsman in webelos in 2 meetings, but then only gives ideas and meeting plans for 2 projects, even though you have to do 2 projects out of wood, 4 out of other materials and a display stand. yes, I guess you can send it home for families to do, but this is the opposite of what they say about how den meetings will include more activities-- in some instances the 2010 sends more stuff home to do with your family than our pack has ever done before.

As my user name implies, I've been a scouter for 5 years, going on 6. Not a long time compared to many, but I've done all my time as pack leadership. 1. If I could, I would take some of the go see it's from tigers and put them into wolf. by wolf year, parents know a bit more about how it all works and can have more fun going places together. This includes the elective go see it's that usually get left out of the tiger year. Tiger year has more ideas for outings than any other year, which is great for excitement but poor for actually being able to get em done. 2. I would pull some of the activities for making collections and building things simplified and use them in tigers instead, or perhaps fluffing up some of the electives in tigers 3. Bear is my favorite year. It has some of everything possible a cub scout should know or do. I would pull the easier things out half of the achievements and put them into wolf perhaps, because there is way more in bear than what you can effectively do in the bear year, and wolf year we sometimes have done every single achievement when we have a group that was in tigers, and worked on wolf from June thru May and found the wolf book lacking. 4. Tigers is an issue. The shared leadership program never works quite as intended--although we do tend to get all the parents involved, but they don't really take turns running meetings. I try to explain that they all try out the job of den leader, and often find that the person who is good at it is not the person who said they wanted to be leader and that person takes over for wolf. It would be nice to have a built in leadership review at the end of the Bear year as well--cause often we really need a new leader for Webelos, someone with a different skill set, but the parents seem to think they are stuck as leader at that point. 5. I'd like to see a modification of the tigers must have a parent present requirement. We have parents who rework their whole lives for care for siblings and get to go see its, and they have a blast. It does get them hooked on scouting often if they HAVE to come to those first months of meetings. They want to do things for the pack, be committee, cubmasters, etc.--usually they volunteer for these things by about Thanksgiving. Their kid is comfortable with the other adults in the tiger den, the kids are getting comfortable with each other. But the parents run into a wall--they may not be able to really take on a pack job if they have to be right there with their kid for every part of the den meetings and the pack meetings. As a pack leader, they need to be able to go help a new scout get registered, or fix an issue with the building use with the school custodian, or other jobs that pop up (since we all meet at the same location we have things come up) Then as the requirement that they have to be there drags on, arranging for babysitter for the other kids becomes a hassle or a financial difficulty, so mom ends up dragging all the other siblings along to the den meeting when her and then scouting becomes not so much fun. While scouting is a family program, forcing the parent to HAVE to be there with their 1st grader pas the initial getting to know you period, when the kid goes to school every day and is around a teacher, often has gone to daycare and away from mom and dad. We usually lose tigers about February, sometimes right after blue and gold. they got their badge and mom or dad just can't handle the 100% attendance with their kid requirement anymore. Yeah, maybe it weeds out the slackers, or uninvolved parents that we didn't really want in scouting anyway--but it also weeds out the parents with more than one child, often one who will have a younger sibling brother that will also miss out on scouting. In our society, the way our culture is, we need to have tigers find the balance between 100% parental participation (which most of us just can't do, even committed scouters sometimes miss meetings), and drop off BSA = Babysitters of America for the tiger program. A time limit, recommend parents must be tied to their son for 50% of the time, or for the first 3 months of membership or something. I think we could keep more scouts and get parents more involved in the pack level leadership if they don't have to be 100% tied to their son for the first year of scouting. I think it accounts for why we lose so many tigers. ok my message is too long already and I haven't even gotten to Webelos.

You could use the Choose to Refuse pamphlet from the BSA in troop meeting. it replaced the Take a stand against drugs pamphlet. Our council gives them out free, the Webelos book has it as part of the Fitness badge, but the pamphlet is aimed at boys older and younger than 4th grade. sometimes scouts in the troop come in and help with the webelos dens when they discuss the drug and alchol abuse prevetion stuff--that goes over well, or it goes over poorly depending on how prepared the scouts are.

My oldest's troop has a scout working on communications merit badge usually do the MCing. They divide the troop in half and take turns bringing snacks for court of honor, and the troop provides drinks. And they do a door prize ticket--troop and adults get a few items, stick em in rubbermaid containers and everyone gets a ticket for coming. draw a number after every set of awards, ranks, merit badges, special things. they pass out any changes to the calendar. It's on the same night of the week as the regular meetings, so most of the same boys who go to meetings go to cofh.

I had a Committee chair meeting with some other pack Committee chairs in the area to see if anyone had any suggestions on how to deal with this in a calm and clear fashion without hurt feelins. Most packs in the area give bobcat out once earned, but any other rank is given at blue and gold--even if earned early. If not earned by Blue and Gold they are given at graduation in May. The boys are recognized in their den for finishing the badge however the den leader wishes, but the actual badge presentation is done in ceremony at Blue and Gold or at Graduation. This would be similar to a quarterly court of honor kind of presentation for ranks. what say you to this idea? My cubmaster and 2 asst cubmasters like the idea so they don't have to spend time at the Derby pack meeting in January giving awards, or the visit to the City office and tour with the Mayor, or the Christmas party. hmmmmm......

Yeah we are discussing how the Bears should just go ahead and finish their webelos this year, they'll be done before the Webelos 2's cross over to Boy Scouts in the springtime. then they can take 2 years off to do sports and rejoin boy scouts at the begining of 6th grade.

Well..... last year's wolf den started with 7 or 8 at roundup. 4 at recharter in January. 1 dropped after blue and gold. so that leaves 3. We know that the Wolf den leader was very advancement motivated, 30 belt loops and/or pins in a month, and she was assistant leader at that time. We had some pack committee discussions on that one as to how to fit this into our pack budget. Created a New policy, pack will pay for 2 belt loops a month regularly, if you earn more than that parents can pay for them. Exceptions would be for a Webelos den earning 4 a month for sportsman. 1 more joined in May and got his bobcat and his wolf badge also in May. that's 4. only 2 went to day camp over the summer. The Den leader left in August with his son to join his LDS Ward's pack. the boy who joined in May also went to the same LDS pack as it was his Ward too. Leaving 2 with this assistant den leader, who seems to be taking the tack that if you can do Wolf in about 2 weeks, Bears should take about 2 months. You think she'll think of this exponentially and want Webelos to take about 2 years?(This message has been edited by 5yearscouter)

We use online advancement for everything that council will track. takes the place of most online systems. if it did belt loops it would be almost perfect. there are a few other things that might not be in online advancement that you might want to track, but most things are there. the first time I used online advancement I had to enter every scout's ranks to date, even though we had been submitting rank advancement reports each month when buying things at the scout shop. so enter what you know and submit it, then print off an advancement record and ask the den leaders to verify/add to it. since our pack only pays for belt loops one time, we use a belt loop tracker (excel) to keep track of which ones we've bought for a kid so far. if you end up with something like scouttrack, an excel spreadsheet might be uploadable --I remember reading something about it. we kinda like the combined report form from boyscout trail, it has all the ranks, many of the awards, and all the belt loops. You could have someone make a form and turn it into a pdf to use for all your leaders in case you wanted to keep it. If it was a fillable pdf that would be ideal, with a column for entered in online advancement, purchased and awarded to make it extra useful. http://www.boyscouttrail.com/docs/denrecognitionreport.pdf we keep a print of everything in an advancement binder all in one place in case someone moves or quits. if people send emails instead of advancement form, we print those and keep em too.(This message has been edited by 5yearscouter)

We are going to the city hall, the Mayor is giving us a tour and discussion about what they do there followed by a short pack meeting with a fancy flag ceremony Unfortunately turn out will probably be low, because to meet with the Mayor, we have to be there by 5pm, and so many parents don't get off work til then. Last year we went for a tour to the State Capitol, and arranged far enough ahead of time for most of the parents to take the afternoon off and get their kids out of school early, or arrange car pools for it. They did it because the local schools aren't taking kids for tours of the state capitol anymore due to budget cuts for fields trips. so parents were happy to get the opportunity to do it.

Our pack currently have 45 boys in it. all but the 7 bears meet on weds night. The bear den leader originally said she wanted to move to thurs night because of a conflict with her work, so I obtained the permission of the school. She now admits that she was doing it to get away from everyone else in the pack. The custodians complain that she doesn't show up to meetings (so maybe even less than 6 weeks of meetings to Bear, she was sick at least one week) and she doesn't take out the trash when she leaves (our only real clean up we have to do), and she doesn't watch the kids when they are running around outside in the dark. She told us that she does not want to have the meetings at her own home, so she will move back to Weds night. But She expects pack leadership to make an appointment to enter her room for any reason. The pack has the run of a building at the school with 12 classrooms, so most dens have a classroom, and then a blank room and then another classroom so that everyone is not on top of each other. We don't do joint opening or closing ceremonies or anything similar, so each den is set to do their own thing. the school is open to us from 6:30 til 8:15. We have to put things back how we found them and take out the trash. The custodians don't come in and check up on us to see if we left a mess, it's scout's honor. The interruptions we've done in dens this year have been focused on collecting applications and payments from new scouts that joined after roundup, and youth protection training for all parents --our pack requires it. that came about by a unanimous vote at a pack meeting brought up by a concerned parent. There has been a visit from the popcorn kernel. We try to not interrupt meetings in any way. We may drop off a new application or membership list, or something the den leader ordered from the scout shop which we try to give them before a meeting starts. Everything else we just catch everyone in the hallway as they enter or exit the building to sign up for campout, tell us their tshirt size, sign up for popcorn store sales. If the den leader doesn't want to deal with any of the "pack stuff" they just tell the parents to see xyz person in the hallway on their way out--most of the den leaders really love this option so they don't have to deal with collecting payment for campouts or paperwork for stuff. For thurs night den we have provided the den leader with the sign up sheets after our meetings on Weds night for her den. she's not putting the sign up sheets out there or mentioning them in her den meetings. We will give out the bobcat and bear in the same month if she submits the paperwork while den leader. The boy's book will be signed and we won't disappoint the boy. We gave out the bobcat and wolf badge to the new wolf in her den who joined 2 weeks before the end of the Wolf year. should have realized that was an issue with HER, but she blamed it on the parent when we were incredulous at how you can do the whole Wolf book in

I can't believe we are the only pack in the universe that really wants everyone to meet at a certain location, the parents discussed why in the start up meetings for the pack and agreed that it was best for safety and continuity of the program. If we don't use the school consistently every week at the same time and such, we tend to run into scheduling difficulties as well, where the school won't allow us to use the facilities and that would be BAD for the existence of the pack for pack meetings, blue and gold, derby and all the other things we do at the school. We didn't care about the different night of the week, until that became a problem for the school custodians. We have den leaders who have the occassional thing at their house/backyard but only if the cubmaster and/or committee chair is notified and we've done a facilities inspection (informally, but if there is a pool and a big giant barking dog, we want to know about it, know what I mean?) The den leader has given the impression that she's got it under control. She doesn't want anyone into her den, so we've been as nice as possible about letting her have her space. The den leader said she would deal with tshirts, campout sign ups, and popcorn presentation on her own. Honestly, since she chose to move to thursday nights, we have difficulty getting other pack personel to her meetings on thursday nights. It was great that she said she would deal with it. When nobody from her den signed up for popcorn sales the popcorn kernel went into the den to see what was going on, but by the time he could get with all the parents it was after the store sales. I do have incredible difficulty dealing impersonally with this den leader. The emails implying or outright stating that every other den leader and pack leader is a disorganized baffoon has put a damper on my enthusiasm and respect for this person. I could list the things she's criticized about our pack, but that would start to sound like I'm really complaining about her In short, every event or activity we are having in the pack, she thinks we should do it differently. Group hike at scout camp should be individual den hikes; tshirts should have been bought online for $12.99 each instead of locally for $6 each; the campout should have been a different location, different time of year, different everything. The pack should have no limitations on belt loops or awards, it's ok if a scout joins 2 weeks before the end of the year, we can still get him his wolf badge and if you add time to the requirments then you are adding to the requirements and I'm gonna tell on you at council, the committee meetings are too long, too short, not detailed enough, stop discussing every detail. I have answered her complaints calmly and informatively for the last year -- I'm starting to reach the end of my rope. At what point is it ok to just say "hey, you don't seem to fit in with our pack program, so let's agree to disagree, here's the contact info for another pack in the area, maybe they will meet your needs more appropriately. "

We come from a predominantly poor area. The school we meet at has 85% of the students qualify for free or reduced lunches. Of the other 11 schools that we recruit from, there is a high of 95% of the students qualifying for free or reduced lunches at a few schools, with 1 more afluent school thrown in for good measure. We can never get any scoutreach $ and our council campership apps were not approved for summer camp last year. Of course our FOS donations are usually low within the pack due to our financial situation. We don't want to force participation in fundraisers or require parents to do a buy in for a certain dollar amount if we can help it. If a scout comes from a poor neighborhood, going door to door to sell popcorn doesn't work well. So we set up in front of a local grocery store (by the more affluent school we recruit from) and the boys there all sold a boatload of popcorn. they sold out of all the $10 popcorn that we ordered. It would have been a no-brainer to participate. We also give 20% of popcorn sales to the boys for their scout account to help pay for uniform parts and summer camp or any unpaid registration fees. The den leader didn't even mention it in her meetings. The boys lost out. We provided a calendar upon joining, send info to the parents by email [preferred contact method], but we know it takes parents hearing things several different times/ways before they realize "oh yeah, we need to sign up for xyz." The den leader needs to be part of providing information to their den, or needs to ask for help. It's harder to go visit her den and provide information since she changed meeting nights. I work on that night of the week, so does the cubmaster. I feel badly that the boys missed out on so many things so far this year. 1 campout, 1 fundraiser to help them pay for scouting, 1 Halloween pack meeting with bobcat ceremony, and a field trip to the local tv station. right now it looks like I'm on a search for someone as replacement den leader. I'll also advise the advancement chair to be ready to purchase some Bear Rank badges, eh? goal to figure out how to get this den leader to branch out to the other methods of scouting besides advancement.

Scoutridge, It's not as bad as all that to self charter. When the pack was starting out we had a parent meeting and decided a few things off the bat regarding registration fees, parents required involvement and meeting locations and chose our leadership. I was part of that key group 5 years ago, but was in a different postion at the beginning. After that organizational meeting, committee votes for a few things, but most decisions come from committee chair, COR and cubmaster coming to an agreement on how they want the pack to go. If there is a big issue, they may be taken care of in a twice yearly parent meeting where all parents have a say and can bring new ideas/policies and I guess they could kick out someone with voting, but that has never happened. Our chartered organization (the parents) have about as much active interest in making decisions about how our pack runs as any other chartered organization. They are hands off although in reality the parents could force big changes if they so wished. I'm training a replacement CC who will remain in that job hopefully for 3 years. I will remain COR for another year to be a guide and then in a parent meeting they will vote to replace me. Cubmaster is on his 2nd year but plans to stay in a pack position until his youngest gets thru cubs in about 7 years, and asst cubmaster is in the same long term committment. Other members of the committee are brought on board as they come and go in scouting to provide new ideas and excitement, but the key 3 in this instance are long timers to provide a bit more stability that a self chartering situation may not usually have.

I've asked her why so fast. she says "why not?" "then we can have less meetings a month for the rest of the year." and "We can focus on earning more belt loops and other cub scout awards in our meetings." If she said "so we can then do the rest of the bear book as electives" it might take away a bit of the sting of Bear at breakneck speed. know what I mean? I don't think it's fair to the boys to push them to go thru the Bear program so fast that their heads are spinning. I think there will be a lot of head shaking from other parents if the boys get their bobcat and Bear in the same meeting. The Cubmaster thinks it's a horrible idea. I don't have a problem with them getting bobcat in Nov and then Bear in December [i may have said otherwise but that's not what I mean] but both of those meetings are short pack meetings--one a visit to a govt office, tour from the Mayor and then a quick pack meeting. The other turns into a zoo with a Christmas party and visit from Santa, so the awards at both times tend to be overlooked. But they can be done if earned. I really don't want the boys or the parents of the new boys to hear parents saying how "that isn't possible" or that they are "shorty cutting the program," or that "those Bears really didn't earn Bear, it was given to them." from parents who been thru the Bear program and know that it usually takes longer than 6 weeks to do it "right." I can only shush that kind of talk for so long, even though, yeah the parents should be nicer than that in the scouting program. I try to keep it to myself [and share with you and cubmaster] my opinion on this issue. I've been thru the Bear program with my 2 sons, and it's my favorite year in cub scouts. So much fun stuff in that book and she chose to do the schoolwork. [gasp, sob, cry] Our pack is charterd to the parents. The parents have chosen the main meeting place for the pack to be the school. Yes, den leaders have meetings at their homes, but that is on a case by case basis when the school is not available on a particular week. The parents chose it as being more convenient and "safer." Some den leaders have pools and big scary dogs so parents prefer to meet at the school. It's also made it much easier to recruit den leaders when you have a pre-arranged meeting location on "neutral" ground. and you don't have to clean house each week for a den meeting. If she wanted to move the den meetings to her home it may be approved by the committee, but it may work to keep her den families closer to her, and even less involved in the Pack activities. How would that benefit the boys and the Pack? A Cub Scout helps the Pack Go and the Pack helps the Cub scout grow. Dens are important, but the dens don't exist if the Pack doesn't go. Our pack is chartered to the Parents of the Pack. The Parents have chosen to keep the yearly registration fees as low as possible, with a few dollars over the cost of BSA, insurance and Boy's life mag. We have a big push for the boys to participate in the twice a year fundraisers to help the pack go and keep costs low to the families. A whole den ignoring the fundraisers yet earning every possible award puts the pack at risk financially.

Cubmaster thinks we've already lost the whole den anyway, at least to the program how cub scouts "should be done--fun with a purpose." They have the purpose but not the fun. He's thinking none of the parents know what is what and the den leader has them under her control. I think it's not quite as bad as that, there is hope that another parent has their head on straight and realizes that scouting shouldn't be about just doing achievements out of the book. Other dens have den cheers, names and a den flag. Other dens have made things for the pack meeting halloween party--decorations and masks for the kids. She got the same info as every other den but is choosing to ignore it. Basically saying "it's not in the Bear book under Requirements, I don't have to do it." the den leader tells the pack she has everything under control, please stay out of her den meetings, send any communication thru her only. Then the parents don't get info on the campout til late, their tshirts come in and 2 weeks later they still don't have them, they didn't get info on signing up to sell popcorn in front of stores, but did get the packets to sell at home, they weren't encouraged to come to the pack meeting. I know that if the boys have earned their Bear badge, they should get it. We usually have plans for an early Bear badge Dec/Jan presentation-ceremony, and then do a bigger bear Badge ceremony at Blue and Gold. We aren't prepared to do a Bear Badge Ceremony in October, when we haven't done any of the Bobcat ceremonys for the new boys in her den. and if boys have been told they've earned the Bear badge, they will most likely get the Bear badge even if the den leader signed things without actually making sure the boys did them. Most of the boys did NOT turn in the reports. Most of the boys have missed 2 meetings, so that means they've been doing even more of the Bear badge as homework. I realize you can do Achievement #3 the way she did it and never touch on any of the flag etiquette/ceremony stuff. You can also do Backyard Golf, Horseshoes and den leader teach the boys a new game[not each boy teach the boys a new game] and count it for having completed 15a,b & c. And you can make trail mix while discussing junk food and count it for 9b,d & e. Do these in a 45 minute meeting with 5-6 boys in attendance. But why would you want to rush thru this stuff at such a pace?

I've had the discussion of what will you do now? "earn more awards, belt loops and do all the electives to get 10 arrow points." I've had the discussion of TWB belt loops don't count for Webelos. "So?" I've had the discussion of scouts dropping. "Their parents just aren't committed to scouting." I've had the banging head against the wall moments too. I've looked at day camp achievements-- 2 boys went-- only 2 of the boys were scouts over the summer--and there was very little actually done at camp that would count for Bear. The 2 boys who have been Bears since June 1st, yeah, I could see their bear badge could be done by Nov if their parents are on the ball. since she's one of the parents, it is a given I guess. But the other 5 boys didn't go to day camp and just joined Sept 1st. I know they can't get Bear til they get bobcat. I don't want to give them Bobcat one month and then Bear the next. Cubmaster refuses to give them both bobcat and bear in the same month. I think she's signing everything she planned to do in a meeting and has assigned as homework, but not based on who attended meetings and who returned the homework. I've asked for attendance to match up with her list of achievements done by date. I'm doing damage control a bit with parents about how one of them steps up as asst leader they can push for meetings to have more active fun stuff and less homework. And how if their child didn't really do something that she signed, it doesn't count. I'm talking to one of the dads who is an Eagle to see if he has any interest in leading/assisting. Would you replace this den leader? We've gone round and round with her on many things and honestly I don't think she views scouting the way the rest of the pack does. Disagreements on how to do roundup, excessive belt loops in a month, awards not earned, no trained asst leader, letting parents act as asst leaders before leader application and ypt completed. We had pack tshirts for every boy in her den, told the parents to pick them up in the den meeting, and she didn't hand them out--she was waiting for the parents to ask for them. She sent out a scathing email about no popcorn sales sheets for scouts in her den--when the popcorn kernel did a presentation in her den that night and sent forms home with each boy. She moved her meetings to a different night of the week so she wouldn't have any interruptions by the pack leadership. We all meet at the school on the same nigth of the week. We've told her that she has to move back to the same night as the rest of us because the school is unhappy with the status of the rooms on the night she uses. Custodians are complaining. I'm really just venting I guess. I know the decision that has to be made for the health of the Bear den succeeding for the coming years. An example of Bear Achievement #3. She did no flag ceremonies, She had the boys write a report for a, b, e and did j in meeting. what fun is that?