Attendance Pin requirements

[Cubmaster Mike]

I'm talking about that pin that used to be referred to as the "Perfect attendance pin" but is now called the "Attendance pin and bar." The Cub Scout Leader Book states that the Pack Committee establishes the criteria for this award. In the past this pack has let each den leder make up their own requriements, the differences between which I noticed caused some grousing from den leaders and parents. I'm trying to establish a baseline that would apply to the pack as a whole and am looking for some examples from other groups. I'm thinking of recommending to the Pack Committee that the baseline be:

1. Attendance at all pack meetings and Blue and Gold

2. Atendance at all special events (Space Derby, Senior Caroling, Scouting for Food, Raingutter Regatta, Pinewood Derby, etc.)

3. No more than 5 den meetings missed between September and June

 

Summertime activities would not be included because that is covered by the Summertime activity pin

 

How does this compare to other Packs?

[Cubmaster-Fred]

Mike

 

in our Pack the committee and leaders voted in a simple plan:

 

80% of all Den meetings, Pack meetings and Service Projects. The number sounds a bit low but we had 25 boys registered this last year and only 2 got the attendance award.

 

Fred

[madkins007]

Our pack skipped the award entirely. While this was just OUR opinion, we felt it penalized Scouts when they are 100% dependant on their parents to attend. In our view, the pin relfected the parent's priorities more than the Scout's interest.

 

Besides- our operational budget was pretty 'lean and mean' most years! ;-)

[Cubmaster-Fred]

It does not penalize anyone. It rewards the boys who have gone the extra mile to attend as much as they could of the program.

 

Think positively not negatively.

 

CMF

[madkins007]

If the boys had independent means to make the meetings, I would agree. As it is, boys who have family problems, poor family support, and the like will almost automatically not earn it- and not due to anything THEY did or did not do. If it is not penalizing them then it is some other form of stacking the deck against them. Again- this was OUR opinion (as a committee and leadership team). Not everyone will agree, which is why it is an optional, unit-level program!

 

One of our issues was a few single parent families. In one, the mom was struggling with cancer and often did not have the strength to make meetings. Her son would never earn ANY attendence-based awards even though we tried to help her in as many was as we could (one of our members drove her kids as often as possible, but since she often had to change her plans at the last minute, that did not help much. We also respected her privacy and did not share her struggles outside of a small circle, as requested.) Another couple was going through a divorce and our meeting night was one of the 'other person's custody' nights. Attending meetings was not high on their list of priorities when they only saw their son a few times a week- even though both supported Scouting.

 

We felt we could either write the rules to be so flexible that pretty much everyone earned the award, OR write in some sort of really open-ended 'excused absence' policy, or just forget the entire thing.

 

We were just a small pack in a decent neighborhood in the Midwest- and we had this sort of thing going on.