whiney leaders, dictator CC, & boring pack mtgs?

[MaCraven]

I'm not sure where to begin. My rant has been festering for 3 yrs.

When we moved here we left a pack that we absolutely loved (excited, dedicated, involved leaders). After spring round-up we decided on an active outdoors type pack, to later be told that our son was the only wolf they had but another pack had more wolfs but only one (?).

so we were switched to a different pack.

From the first mtg it just didn't "fit" but we figured we'd just share ideas and maybe add some life to this stagnant pack (baby steps). EVERY idea was not even entertained, quickly dismissed as too much hassle, time, or effort. Even the very simple "Flashlight Flag Ceremony" w/ the four freedoms was barely tolerated. I was even asked, "Why can't you do just a regular one?"

The Pinewood Derby has even been described as "too much time & effort". No fuss, no fan fair. The derby is done in an hour & 1/2! Actually, I think this past yr went for a whole 2 hrs because they "decided" that it wouldn't be so bad to actually race for 1st place, yet the boys were, again, not entered to district. They won't even participate in the Cub Scout Olympics. Most of the leaders & committee members can't wait for the pack mtg to end, like if it can't be crammed into 60 minutes they're going to implode, most of the parents feel the same way but most likely because they're bored to death (no skits, no jokes, no fun). I even had a leader back out of a really cool event because it was too far which was probably just as well, the 3 families that went were much more fun than a bunch of whiners. The problem is that, out of 30+ families/leaders, the whiners out number the scout focused people and many of the whiners call themselves leaders. I would just like to hear WOW, that sounds great, lets do it! or Hey, that would be a fun skit to get the families involved in! or Oh, the kids would love that! instead of Do we have to? Waahh It takes too long Waahh Its so much work Waahh Waahh Waahh Dont get me wrong, Im completely for KISS MIF but the limited amount of effort they are willing to put into the scouting experience is just ridiculous. I wouldnt even call it an experience.

 

Then there is the committee,. what committee!?! There's just the CC, who allows people to speak and then does whatever fits his/her fancy with no regard to majority opinion. The job comes across as well, if I have to do this, Im doing it my way

 

There's less than a handful of people in this pack who don't treat it like some parental torture they're forced to endure! I feel truly sorry for the boys because they really are not getting the full scout experience. I think weve tried to be a part of the team and have been very patient but were just at our wits end. Any ideas?

 

Oh, also, a quick question; does the CC have ultimate power in his/her replacement or should there be a vote among the committee or between CC & CM?

 

Thanks for allowing the rant. Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

[scoutldr]

Welcome to the forums, Ma! You don't state what your role in the Pack is, so I assume you are a parent and not a registered leader (not that that's a bad thing)...

 

To answer your last question first, the CC and CM are selected and approved by the Charterering Organization (CO). If there are volunteers for the position, the committee can suggest them, but the ultimate decision is the CO's.

 

The first thing in your post that stands out to me is "we were switched to a different pack". That, to me, should not have happened and is the root of your displeasure. You and your son selected a Pack to join, based on criteria that were important to you. That's the way it should work. No one has the authority to decide you belong in a different Pack against your wishes.

 

My suggestion at this point...unless you are willing to pony up and become a trained, registered leader and try to change things from within (a process that may well take your entire Cubbing career!), you should just go back to the Pack where you thought you could be happy. If your son is the only Wolf, then so be it...they need to deal with it and make it work. As the dad of sons who are now 29 and 25, I can tell you that your son is only a Cub for a blink of an eye (it seems like yesterday!)...don't waste the time being unhappy. There are no "do overs"...

 

Good luck...and forgive me if I made incorrect assumptions.

[theysawyoucomin']

Vote with your feet.

 

There has to be a good pack near you.

 

If you've been angry for 3 years your boy must be close to crossover. Be as critical with his Troop. Vote with your feet.

 

And as others have said get involved.

[Gunny2862]

I would amend that to be discerning about the troop. Most of us have enough critics.

But do remember that he is your child, not scoutings child, and if you want to move him that that should absolutely be kept as an option if you are unable to get the kind of leadership you want. And you can always start a new pack if the kind you want isn't around, but if you don't want to start one don't feel bad about troop shopping. Scouting won't do a boy who won't stay in it all of the good it could have done.

[MaCraven]

I'm sorry. I thought that my knowledge & involvment in the flag ceremony, the derby, and the committee would have made it clear that I am a trained leader (for 2 dens), and involved in various other facets. I also mentioned "we figured we'd just share ideas and maybe add some life to this stagnant pack" and there's obviously no other way to effect change than to be involved, so I figured my invovlment would be a given.

I was just hoping someone might be able to shed light on some way to come across that may be get a better response from the powers that be. I feel like my hands are tied because they just are so stuck in running this pack with no life or excitment. I am not the only person involved in this pack who feels this way, however only two of us have spoken up and the other person left this yr (their son is a bear). The most frustrating thing is that they just won't listen to input, it's their way or the highway. Is this the way most packs are run?? Our CA pack was not, were they the exception to the rule? Isn't there supposed to be voting for majority rule at committee mtgs? Our CA pack was my only frame of reference and I'm just trying to figure out what the norm is?

I understand I had the option of staying with the original pack but at the time I didn't feel it would make much sense to stay in the pack being the only wolf because it wouldn't be much of a den mtg. Next yr, we will move, if need be.

Would mtg with Bears but working on our own acheivments / electives have been an option, just curious?

 

[John-in-KC]

Ma,

 

Welcome to the Forums.

 

There are many Packs who believe in KISMIF. There are Packs which are run for the egos of the CC and CM. Remember, while you have a son in the program, your first interest is his growth and development, your second interest is to the Pack, Troop or Crew as a whole.

 

As Gunny said, be discerning when you look for a Troop for him. Look at how they apply the methods of Scouting; look at how the Committee supports the program.

 

Make sure to take position specific training for Boy Scouting as your son approaches bridging.

[ScoutNut]

I am not a really big fan of combining 2 Cub levels. The BSA programs are all geared to age appropriate activities and mixing 1 Wolf into a den of Bears could be a problem.

 

The BSA Cub program is set up so that most of the work on level achievements and electives should be done at home with the Cub's family. Unfortunately not all dens are run this way.

 

IMO, a better solution, since you were willing to become the Wolf den leader, would have been to see if you could recruit any of the boys in your son's 2nd grade class into Cubs. If you could not get any more boys to join, then would have been the time to decide if you wanted to go with a den of 1 and hopefully get more to join in the future, or look into different Packs.

 

You are not tied to a specific Pack & can not be "put" into a Pack (or Troop) of your councils choosing. You are free to shop around for a Pack/Troop that you feel is the best fit for your son & family.

 

As for your current Pack - You have been plugging away for 3 years now and obviously are not happy. What about your son(s)? Are they happy with their Pack/Den? Are you willing to continue trying to wake this Pack up? You say you are trained, how about the rest of the Pack leadership? Are they trained? What about your CO? How involved are they? How involved is the COR?

 

If you want to stay and continue to work for change then you should be prepared for an even longer fight. You have 2 dens, you should start there.

 

Make sure that their program is the best it can be. Get your families enthusiastic about the den & about Scouting. Just because the Pack will not participate in Council/District activities (Cub Scout Olympics ?) does not mean that your dens can't. Get your families involved & sign your dens up for any District (not just your District) Cub Fun days. Get your 2 dens to Summer Camp! Day Camp is usually a very cost friendly way to get them involved. Do fun outings with your dens. I believe you have 1 Webelos den. Take Webelos Outdoor Training and take your Webelos den camping.

 

None of these things involve the Pack leadership or the Committee past a signature on a Tour Permit.

 

Pack meetings - If they complain that your dens are doing untraditional flag ceremonies, simply let them know that the boys are having more fun. You can still have the big flags, already posted in front, for the pledge. Do you do the award presentation for your dens? If not, ask if you can do them. If so, ramp it up! Give them patches for all of the fun things you do. Give them the patches in costume! Bug antenna and a giant fly swatter can be used to give out awards earned during summer camp. Have each of your dens create a den yell/cheer & do them after the den receives their recognitions for the month. Create your own award ceremonies. They don't have to be big, expensive & impressive - just fun!

 

Do the Pack meetings often have dead spots? Times between presentations when everyone just sits there and stares at each other while waiting for the CM to get the next thing going? Scouting abhors a vacuum! Go to each Pack meeting prepared with songs, jokes, and audience participations (in theme if possible). Whenever the Pack hits a dead spot, jump in with a sparkler! Get your dens involved. Each month have a parent/Scout pair, or 2, from each den ready with a run-on.

 

Send fliers out to the entire Pack to invite them on your den outings & to Council/District events. Take BALOO training and put together a Pack Family Overnighter. Make sure to go to advertised events, even if it is just you & your sons. Then make a BIG thing at the next Pack meeting recognizing the boys that attended & stressing how much fun they had.

 

This can be like chipping away at a mountain, but eventually, if you can get your den families going, & show the rest of the Pack families that Scouting can actually be fun, eventually, the other Pack leaders will give it a try too!

 

Of course, by that time, your boys could be in the Pack as Den Chiefs or Asst Den Leaders!

 

Sorry for the novella - Hope it helps some!

[Gunny2862]

MaCraven, I seem to be apologizing a lot in these forums, if I offended you in any way I was not trying to and am sorry to have done so.

 

By leadership, remember that the committee members are also registered leaders and I may not have been clear about where I was pointing.

[Oak Tree]

>> I was just hoping someone might be able to shed light on some way to come across that may be get a better response from the powers that be.

 

This is a common problem for all those who want to change the way an existing group is being run. It takes time, and allies. Groups take on their own personalities, and it's just hard to fix. To be listened to, I think you need to get into a position where you're not perceived as an outsider. Listen to the leaders - what is their view on their vision for the pack? Do they want the boys to have fun? Is it just a check-box on their social obligations?

 

>> The most frustrating thing is that they just won't listen to input, it's their way or the highway. Is this the way most packs are run??

 

No. But there are probably some packs in every district that run this way.

 

Our CA pack was not, were they the exception to the rule?

 

A good pack is worth a lot. It's much easier to work within a pack like this. It's not the exception, but I don't know that it's the rule, either. Packs exist on a large continuum - you see all different kinds.

 

Isn't there supposed to be voting for majority rule at committee mtgs?

 

Not really. There's normally not much, if anything, to vote on. I don't think our committee has ever taken a vote. We work by consensus. The CC hands out work to committee members who have specific tasks - e.g. camping, and those people bring back recommendations to the committee. In practice, a CC can be pretty dictatorial and get away with it, but it doesn't seem like a good way to make friends.

 

Our CA pack was my only frame of reference and I'm just trying to figure out what the norm is?

 

I think the norm would be for people to choose a pack that they like. But these packs run in all sorts of ways. It's amazing to me that some of these packs don't collapse almost instantly, but some of them go on indefinitely.

 

Would mtg with Bears but working on our own acheivments / electives have been an option, just curious?

 

It's an option. Some packs do it by necessity. But it's not my favorite option.

 

Hope that all helps.

 

Oak Tree

[Scouting Mom]

Sounds like our pack in the years shortly before we joined...

 

Dictatorial CC, indifferent DLs and a CM who really wanted to do it right, but was not comfortable standing up to anyone. Our CO, for all intents and purposes, exists in name only and has nothing whatsoever to do with the pack, so we had no recourse there.

 

CC had the attitude that it was going to be done his way, even if he had to do it himself. So, everyone let him do it all. He was burning out, by his own admission, but wouldn't step down without handpicking his successor.

 

Along comes a new Tiger DL. This was the year my son was a Tiger. This guy walked in wanting to be DL and all the other Tiger parents were relieved that they didn't have to do it. He was a former scout and knew the basics already. He asked about round tables, since he knew of such things. The CC discouraged him, the CM drove him to the meeting. He asked about leader training. Again, the CC discouraged him, but since he was now attending round table, that information was readily available to him. CM and Tiger DL carpooled to Pow Wow and University of Scouting.

 

The CC said he was looking for a replacement. Tiger DL stepped up. CC said no and asked someone else, who refused. CM started talking about stepping down and again the Tiger DL raised his hand. Again CC said no. CC continued to run the show. CM stayed put for the good of the boys. Tigers became Wolves. The now Wolf DL was encouraging all his parents, as well as anyone he talked to, to go to training. He told them, even if they weren't leaders, if they knew the way it was supposed to be, they could keep him (and by extension the other leaders) in check and overall make it a better experience for their boys. The CM liked the idea of training non-leader parents and jumped on the bandwagon. A couple of people took them up on it. The CC stopped talking to them except when absolutely necessary.

 

Now, when the CC is planning stuff and expecting the CM to carry it out, but isn't really talking to the CM. Well you can imagine that's bound to come to no good. The CM had finally had it and resigned in a mass email to all the parents. Several parents panicked. Regardless of how complacent they were, they knew the CM was the glue for the pack. Since the CO wasn't a factor in pack operations, and the parents barely knew the CO existed, they started calling/emailing the DE. The DE got the scoop directly from the CM and CC. He asked the CC's chosen successor to step up, so that the existing CC would step down and the CM would stay. Now, the new CC didn't want to do it, but she did it for the good of the pack.

 

The CM stayed and got to try all the new things he'd wanted to do all along. Training for all is still strongly encouraged. The old CC moved his kids to another pack, and his boys dropped out at the end of that scout year. The "new" CC stepped down at the end of the scout year and the Wolf (then Bear) DL took the position after all.

 

My son is now a first year Webelos. It's not perfect, but parents have a lot of say about what is done. Training is strongly encouraged as is joining the pack committee in any possible capacity. We have a new CM, but the old one continues on as a DL and as mentor to the new CM.

 

I won't fault you if you'd rather just move to a different pack. But the moral of my story is, if you want to fix the pack you are in, gather your allies and set out for round tables, trainings, and general networking with other packs. Encourage others to join you in these things. If they can see and hear how others are having success with "new" things, if they can see and hear what works and how much fun the boys are having elsewhere, they will be more willing to try new things for your pack.(This message has been edited by Scouting Mom)

[MaCraven]

Scout Nut & Scouting Mom,

Thank You so Much!! Your posts were so helpful. We like the people in this pack and really don't want to jump ship yet but we've been so frustrated. DH was involved in the CA pack but said life was too short to deal with the whiners in this pack.

"Chipping away at a mountain" is exactly how it feels, great analogy! When you see the potential of that mountain it makes it real hard to give up. Our CO is very much like Souting Mom's CO. He shows up for the pledge drive and rarely makes it to a round-up other than that he's a man in a nice costume. Our council is a little flaky too. We'd been to one res camp and one family camp, both huge disappoinments. It wasn't until recently that we found out that we could go to other council's activities. We did and it was great.

As far as training, well I decided this past yr that I was taking that into my own hands. I have been getting parents YP cert'd and have decided on an outside council to do my BALOO. To give you an idea on how training is prioritized in our pack; they didn't have a pack trainer for 06-07 and when I offered I was told they'd get back to me. I've given some reminders but I'm still waiting.

Scout Nut, I will keep working on your suggestions. However, every time this has been tried, CC brings the hammer down and puts an end to any ideas that are not her own.

I realize it is not CC's job to make friends but it is her job to work in the best interest of ALL the boys not just her own preferences.

Scouting Mom, you give me hope. Our pack sounds exactly as yours was.

 

Thank you everyone

[Lisabob]

Ma I hate to say this but I think I have to agree with your husband.

 

I've worked on rebuilding packs from the inside so I have some experience with this. And my experience tells me that one person, or even a small handful of people, are not generally successful unless there are a lot of other people in the pack who are just waiting for someone to lead them in a better direction. Under those circumstances, that one person/couple of people can be a real catalyst for change. But that is not what I hear you describing. If, as I'm getting from your posts, most people are happy enough with how things are, or just don't want to challenge the CC and the status quo (even if they don't like it), then you are facing an endless battle with little prospect of a quick turn around.

 

And your son is already a Webelos scout!

 

If, after three years, you still don't see much change in attitude from others in this pack, I think you've done all you could reasonably be expected to do. Rather than continuing to chip away at that mountain, I submit that it is time to satisfy your own child's needs and find your family another pack in the area where things are a little more exciting/fun.

[ScoutNut]

"Scout Nut, I will keep working on your suggestions. However, every time this has been tried, CC brings the hammer down and puts an end to any ideas that are not her own."

 

None of the suggestions I gave you require the approval, or input, of the CC at all.

 

Pack meetings are the responsibility of the Cubmaster NOT the CC. If it is "tradition" in your Pack to have the Den Leaders hand out the recognitions for their dens at the Pack meetings (as it is in ours) then you do not need anyone's approval to change how or what you do in your presentation.

 

If it is the CM or the Advancement Chair (or even the CC) who hand out recognitions at Pack meetings, then all you need to do is ask them, quietly, by themselves, if they would mind if you did the presentations for your dens. If they say OK, you are good to go, if they say no, then you are stuck. However, you can still do your Den Cheer right before they sit back down. You don't need anyone's OK to do that.

 

You don't need approval to fill in dead spots at the Pack meetings with sparklers & run-ons either. It would be nice if the CM would give you the OK, but it is not necessary. What is the CC & CM going to do? Drag you, your boys & their families out of the Pack meeting telling everyone in attendance NO FUN ALLOWED - we LIKE to be BORED!

 

The CC does not have to have anything to do with sending out announcements to the Pack either. If you don't want to pay for postage, send emails. Send them to the Den Leaders at the very least. Make some copies (see if your office or a local office store will do the coping for free) and have them available at Pack meetings. No need to ask your CC or CM.

 

The CC has nothing to say about a Webelos Den overnighter. If you are trained, plan the entire thing with your den, & have the den families pay the costs involved, the only thing you need from the Committee is a signature on a Tour Permit.

 

If your CC will not sign Tour Permits for your den outings, don't ask the CC to sign. All that is required is for ANY member of the unit committee to sign. Does not have to be the CC.

 

The position of Pack Trainer is still rather wishy washy. A lot depends on how your council implements it. Some councils have the Pack Trainer become a fully trained member of the District Training Team, with the ability to present NLE and CL Specific training to the Pack adults. In other councils the Pack Trainer is only expected to keep their Pack leaders apprised of training dates & encourage attendance, not to actually do the training. Don't wait on your Pack, talk to your Dist Training Chair.

 

The bottom line is, after 3 years, how much does your family want to invest in this Pack, & is it worth it? Keep in mind that you need to, first and foremost, do what is right for your family.

[MaCraven]

I'm so glad I posted. I've gained a lot of info I didn't know or didn't think about. We have a lot more options available to us than we realized. These postings have made me a little more brave about voicing my opinion w/ less tact than I've used before. In doing so, I've also recently realized that I have more allies in our pack than I knew. Before I didn't want to push to hard against the grain but now I figure what have I (or my sons) got to lose. I really don't want to pull my W2 out this late in the game with an established friend base in his den.

 

Scout Nut, you had asked how my boys feel about their pack/dens. My W2 says the den mtgs are "ok but were better before". By "before" he means before we paired up with the other W1 den. In terms of his own den, he likes it, he has a good leader and I'm the asst. As for pack mtgs, he says "mostly boring, sometimes ok", he just likes to hang with his friends.

My Wolf says the pack mtgs are boring and the den mtgs are "too crazy" (he does not mean it in a good way, he likes fun but hates chaos). I'm the asst in that den and we have some out of control kids (one being the leader's son). I try to keep things to a dull roar but am often undermined by the leader who says, "well there just being boys, it's ok" (while her son runs out of the room & up and down the halls).

 

We'll see how this yr goes. At least if we move on next yr my second son will only be a bear. I'm not expecting to move mountains, just maybe chisel a little character into a boring square mountain. If not,..onward and forward.