can you go to a pack outside your area

[new-cb-mom]

i was wondering if i could go to a town next to mine for their cub scout pack. our pack does nothing. no working on awards, beltloops, electives. nothing i am the only mom working on these in our den and the other dens arent much better maybe only the tiger cubs are working on electives. no one wants to do anything for the 75th anniversary except me. but no one will listen that it will be great for the boys to learn where cubscouting came from and how things where in different years. some of my friends have said why dont i start a pack but as a newbie to all this and a brnd new mom ontop of it i know nothing about the running of a pack. i just want my son to have fun and enjoy cubscouting not hate it and get bored with it. he has fun when i do the activity for the den meeting which is only 2x a month if that when there is a holiday, dec we only met 1x for a xmas party. i dont want to seem ungrateful for the people doing this and wouldnt mind taking over as den leader but they willnot give uo their roles they think they are doing freat and they cm thinks so too even though i think out of the 9 wolves we have my son and one other are the only ones who have completed their wolf achievements. and can i say we havent even been awarded their bobcat badges yet. well they earned them but the dl hasnt turned in the papers yet. and our cm hasnt even heard of some of the awards i am working on with my son like the emergency awareness award. even better the parents and the leaders turn to me to find out about the beltloop requirments. let me stop myself before i fill two pages. ANY HELP IS VERY MUCH APPRECIATED. TY

[FScouter]

Starting a new pack is a huge undertaking. One person cannot get it done.

 

Your son can join any pack anywhere. And you can help there too.

[SemperParatus]

If you live in the Pittsburgh area, I would venture to say there are a lot of packs within a reasonable driving distance of your home. Make contact with your District Executive and get a listing of all the packs in your area. Then start calling the Cubmasters and arrange for visits to pack meetings. It seems that you have seen enough to be able to distinguish between a well-run and a poorly-run pack. Who knows, the pack in the next town could be worse?

[crgholthus]

Go to your councils website. Type in units in your area.

You will get more than enough feedback. Just be careful what you tell your son.(Nothing slanderous) Remember; Little Rabbits have BIG Ears. Meaning, he'll likely blab to someone that your upset with.Not on purpose,but a need to fit in. You will find the right pack. It's like a glove,it will fit,or not.

 

[crgholthus]

Go to your councils website. Type in units in your area.

You will get more than enough feedback. Just be careful what you tell your son.(Nothing slanderous) Remember; Little Rabbits have BIG Ears. Meaning, he'll likely blab to someone that your upset with.Not on purpose,but a need to fit in. You will find the right pack. It's like a glove,it will fit,or not.

 

[Rixkidz]

yes you can go outside your area.. what everyone UP there said is correct... BUT remember you will probably be joining an area in a different school district that will run on a different schedule. I speak from experience, as we have many people in our pack from another district and they complain when we plan something on "our" days off.

We tried explain that we run off our district's schedule... they understood, but still didnt get it.. There are in our pack because ours is better then the other one...

 

PROBLEM is where will the boys go when they advance to Boy Scouts... do you break up the Patrol or continue with the new boys.. there are lots of "future" issues that have to be addressed, by you or your son.

 

Good luck!

 

PS.. I really like this (I had to quote it):

 

Remember; Little Rabbits have BIG Ears. Meaning, he'll likely blab to someone that your upset with.Not on purpose, but a need to fit in

[ScoutNut]

"PROBLEM is where will the boys go when they advance to Boy Scouts... do you break up the Patrol or continue with the new boys"

 

They go to whatever BS Troop they (& their parents) decide they like the best. This does NOT have to be the BS Troop affiliated with the CO of their CS Pack. That is why boys should visit as many different BS Troops as possible in their Webelos years.

 

Also, even if all of the Webelos decide to join the same BS Troop that does not mean that they will all stay in the same patrol together. Many Troops like to mix up their new Scouts.

 

[evmori]

What everyone else has posted is good. Greater Pittsburgh Council has it's own web site & the districts are broken down there.

 

Here is the web site

 

http://www.gpc-bsa.org/

 

Ed Mori

Troop 1

1 Peter 4:10

[new-cb-mom]

Thank you all for your replies. I now know that I can go outside my area, the school districts are pretty close in running days off around each other from around my area atleast. I'm just worried that I'll be labeled a trouble maker for wanting the pack and den to actually do fun things with the boys and meet more than 2x a month and to have outings. And for the other parents to see the electives and beltloops as part of the program not something that they can just skip because they dont want to work with their son on sny of this outside of the scout meetings. Or am i just expecting to much out of scouting? i remember my brother going they went weekly and had a outing once a month went fishing atleast 4x a year and went camping 3x a year and did both the pwd and the raingutter races. they were always doing something fun and exciting and he always looked forward to going. My son asked me ever meeting is there going to be anything fun to do. the dl have a habit of just sitting the boys down and talking about the achievments. And our pack meetings are more for the parents to get info about things coming up. why cant people get it that you have to keep the boys active and having fun for them to stay in it.

[LPasn]

"Or am i just expecting to much out of scouting?"

 

Scouting can deliver whatever you put into it. You may be expecting more of the "leaders" than they will give.

[ilovmy3kidz]

absolutely! we were in one pack for my sons tiger year (last year). had a good tiger group, wound up being 5 boys. one boy no one could stand (ok, that sounds really mean, but we're talking about this kid spitting on others) and no one could even deal with the dad. he "infiltrated" pack committee, stirred up trouble with our charter org. that didn't even exist and got a group to oust the cub master and the committee chair so he could be cub master and his friend committee chair. (all i gotta say is how bad does your life have to be that your "power play" is in a cub scout pack?) since we were moving one town over anyway (town boundries touching so not far) we changed packs (the first packs ousted cm is the asst. cm for the new pack) and the other 3 tigers moved with us. the problem dad called me up and asked if i was still involved with the pack (i had been on committee) or did i change. when i told him i switched packs he said "fine!" and hung up the phone. we are all so much happier and more involved in the new pack. it's an environment where people want you to be involved, don't criticize and actually thank you for helping out. it's more enjoyable for me and i think our boys are getting more out of it.

[Bob58]

Hi,

 

Just a coupla observations.

 

new-cb-mom, You haven't indicated whether the units laid back attitude or ndifference is found "around the water cooler" or in Pack Committee / Pack leaders meetinsg.... Does you pack have such eetings?

 

Is there an advancement chair? Perhaps you could offer to pick up the awards for your den or even the whole pack. It sounds as if the DL & CM are not tuned into that at all if you haven't rec'd Bobcats by the end of January. Our patches often go out at a den meeting w'in 3 weeks of the boys joining and he receives his card at the next Pack meeting. I think that the key here migbt be making advancement imporant in your den -- perhaps the DL will come around if he sees that it can be a regular thing. Afterall the bead thingies (totem's") are called Instant Recognition Kits

 

If you are responsible for 1 or 2 den meetings amonth I'm guessing that your Pack is doing the basic 3 den meeti gs & 1 pack meeting a month. Is the Pack meeting anything like what is presented in the Program Helps (from Book or Scouting Magazine.)

 

While I think leaving might be too easy, amuch better person than I once told his friends to "shake the dust from their feet" if they weren't welcomed in particular place.

 

Please don't let the grown-ups ruin this, read recently that one should not say anything that will not improve the situation -- tough but probably true. Leave if you must but please make sure that you, your son and his friends enjoy scouting -- its one of the most wonderful gifts a parent can give their child!

 

Bob

[new-cb-mom]

my pack lacks the umph to do anything. our cm wont even bring things up like scout night at baseball if she doesnt want to go or to run it even though I have offered to run and take care of what ever outing is there for the boys to do. and our DL she is just a ***** cant and wont say the word on here. we just had a den meeting last night and told me she wont give the boys who earnred their wolf rank their rank at the B&G because the teacher in her cant see how they have completed it by now. and she will give it to them at the crossover in May and no sooner, and the CM told us its up to her when they get it. Not getting the awards and such is because the DL's are so disorganized even for being a teacher. And she told us that what do we want for the boys to be filled up on their shirts with awards and things. ( WELL YES ISNT THAT WHAT SCOUTS LIKE TO DO EARN THINGS FOR THEIR SHIRTS AND BELTS AND BRAG VESTS TO SHOW OFF WHAT THEY HAVE DONE) or an I totally wrong in what I think scouting is about. I though it was for the boys to have fun and learn something as they go not learn stuff and if they have fun doing it well thats a bonus. because the later is true in our den. I have tried to step in and help and have tried to stay out of things but when its almost the B&G and they are only now getting their bobcat badge its a bit disturbing. we have found a new pack much more put together and they do things for the boys not to entertain the parents.

[molscouter]

She can't see how they could have completed it by now? It's been a couple years since my youngest was a Wolf and I know that some requirements have changed, but as I recall there were around 50 subitems spread out over the 12 achievements. If a boy did one and only one thing a day it would only take 7 weeks to complete the badge requirements. Maybe you should point that little statistic out to her. And let's be realistic. "Okay Billy, today we're going to do a forward roll. Good job. Well, that's it for today. Tomorrow we'll do a backward roll and the next day you can walk the board" isn't the way that achievement happens.