Hi, Relatively new to leadership but husband has been in scouting for entire life. We both are now very inolved in Pack leadership for a large, well established Pack. A bit of history - this Pack was recently led by a very nice guy who was not following the program much, but was liked, and has since moved on. Under our leadership has doubled in size and 95% of comments are very positive.
There are 1-2 committee members (den leaders) who do a good job at leading their dens but are untrained in the program and yet can sometimes be very vocal (complaining) about wanting to keep certain things exactly the way it's "always" been done or "tradition" -- though funnily enough they even disagree amongst themselves about these things and how they were done the past 1-2-3 years. They will also agree that there are no "traditions" other than the scout program if their opinion goes another way.
Examples: Type of food at B&G, whether to do flyers or just social media in the fall recruiting, or other things that do not affect the actual program. (We have another fundraising issue but I'll post that separately.)
To us, these are minor things that could go either way, and we have been successful at delegating these back to them if they want to do it a "certain way," but there seems to be a lot of complaining and needing to state opinions without wanting to contribute ownership by these few people.
Any advice? Who actually makes decisions when there is a debate over these seemingly minor issues? Is it a vote? Is it the Cubmaster? Committee Chair? Generally, how can we manage committee meetings to de-escalate or avoid these topics becoming a problem area when they are really not important?
We do have an agenda but they often bring up random topics not on the agenda.
Do we postpone those strange issues to a future meeting and say that is not on the agenda tonight?