Planning for Combined Den Meetings

[DenZero]

So far this year weve be holding combined den meetings in our small pack (about 10 to 14 boys about half are Wolves) due to the fact that we dont have any den leaders. Im trying to do some arm-twisting, and know that I need to get at least one den leader to recharter.

 

Meanwhile, I am looking for ideas on meeting topics that can fit into advancement for multiple levels with 4 dens combined? If we are able to split into 2 dens, what works for other combinations (Tigers/Wolves) & (Bears/Webelos) or maybe (Wolves/Bears) & (Tigers/Webelos) or even (Tigers/Bears) & (Wolves/Webelos).

[eagle-pete]

DenZero

 

You may have noticed, but there are no guidelines in Cub Scouts for combining dens. This is simply because combining dens is not the recommended structure for the Cub Scout program. There are several reasons for this, including oversized dens, mixed age groups, and problems with frustrated den leaders trying to run a program which is truly designed to separate boys into their age-appropriate activities.

 

I know this is not the answer you were looking for, and I am also keenly aware that in some situations, combining dens seems like an easy answer to a difficult problem. However, I would just ask that you consider a few things. I sometimes like to step back and try to get a larger view of what's going on. First of all, in any Cub Scout pack the single motivating factor for any dicision, be that structuring the pack, decisions on advancement ceremonies, outdoor experiences, whatever the dilemma... the interest and well-being of the boys is paramount. You must ask yourself, when confronting any situation with the pack, the following, "How will this affect the boys and will it be a positive experience for them?"

 

You mentioned that you are combining dens because you are short on den leaders. This thread: http://www.scouter.com/forums/viewThread.asp?threadID=169707 has several suggestions on good ways to start getting more help in your dens and pack. Arm twisting really is not the answer. You will find that the few leaders that you do recruit this way will not stay for long.

 

There really is no definative answer to your question because, essentially, you are trying to organize your dens in a way that is not the recommended structure. So there is no good combination that works really well.

 

Here's what I suggest. Meet with the entire pack leadership and see if you can come up with some goals (like so many new leaders by a certain date). Write that date down. That date you set should be when you also intend to re-organize your dens so there is a Tiger, Wolf, Bear, and Webelos den. Yes, you will need to staff these with the necessary den leaders, so you will need to come up with a plan on how to recruit the new leaders.

 

I know this is going to be a challenge. However, it will ultimately provide a structure to your pack that will serve the boys much better; which is really the whole reason your pack exists - to serve the boys.

 

Good luck

 

Eagle Pete

[ScoutNut]

Having one large Den/Pack meeting that meets the needs of all of the boys for rank awards is next to impossible.

 

The Tiger and Webelos programs are significantly different from the programs of the rest of the Pack that I can not recommend combining them with any other level. If dens must be combined, Wolf and Bear dens are the best to do this with.

[GS-CS_leader]

Denzero, is your pack a relatively new one just trying to get off the ground or an old one that has fallen on hard times? And if the pack has no den leaders, then what adult leadership does it have? I notice that your profile says you are a CC. Does the pack at least have a really good CM? However, regardless of what other adult leadership the pack has, you really can't have Cub Scouts without DLs. You can get by without ADLs, and you can even get by with a DL who is also CM (my son's current pack is like this), but what you have won't really be CS without DLs. And I think that without DLs your pack will not survive. Sorry to be so pessimistic and blunt, but I say this having come from a small pack that did fail. It started up after a 10 year hiatus of CS at the school, never got above 2 dens and about 20 scouts, and collapsed within 2 years. After the initial start-up recruiting, additional recruiting failed to bring in even new scouts let alone other adults to help, and then the 2nd CM and a few of other families moved and one DL decided not to continue. And our old pack was in better shape than yours in starting out with DL for each of the two dens as well as a CM and CC.

 

Bear with me while I tell you about my experience because I think it relates to your situation.

When it became clear that our first pack would fail, I went hunting for another pack for my son as well as any of the others who wanted to change with us. I found another small nearby pack to join, with the complication that it was in a different council (I live a 1/4 mile from the council border). The whole small den of 4 boys (2 moved away) changed packs and I changed from ADL to DL (the DL was burned out and happily became ADL). I also tried hard to get the other den to move to the other pack with us, but the DL really just didn't want to continue at all and seemed relieved that the pack's demise gave him an easy out. The end of the story is that we've been happy in our new pack (although we'll be leaving in a few months as the boys earn their AoL and the boys who are interested cross over to BS). Our den is particularly valued by our new pack, since we filled in the gap the pack had in age groups, and I've tried to help out by planning and leading some activities at pack meetings (kind of being part-time unofficial ACM as I did for our previous pack). However, I have admit that our new pack is also struggling in part from the inability to recruit new leaders to lead new dens of younger scouts.

 

So based on my experience, I would suggest that you think about whether it might not make more sense to try to find a more established pack to join rather than continue to struggle with what is clearly not enough adult leadership, as well as what sounds like too few boys for a complete den at any level other than Wolves. Frankly, the scouts in a badly understaffed pack will miss out on what a strong CS program can offer. And although my den moved to another small struggling pack, I would recommend finding a good-sized, solid, well-established pack to join. I would not advise you to combine dens to be dual-level. I have the experience of being the leader of a GS troop with girl from two grades in school. However, the girls in the lower grade are all "older" (winter birthdays), and except for the first couple of years when it was spread over 6 grades, the troop has been single level (ie. Brownie, Junior, Cadette). For Cub Scouts, while combining levels might sort of work right now, it really will not work at all when any boys are Webelos since that program is very different from the lower levels. Webelos will have a hard time earning their Arrow of Light if the program is not really followed due to trying to accommodate Bears in the den.

 

I agree with the other poster that if it takes a lot of "arm-twisting" to get a DL, it's not likely to work out. It can fall apart once the unwilling DL realizes how much time and effort that "one hour a week" takes. I speak from experience as a GS leader of over 8 years and a Service Unit "new leader orientation specialist" and even a SU manager for a year. I've seen GS troops that try to run as cooperatives (families take turns running meetings) when no one is willing to be The Leader. It doesn't work because a completely headless group can't run itself. And the person who doesn't step back fast enough and ends up being "it" is often not very happy about the situation, and doesn't necessarily rise to the occasion and become an ideal leader just because they got stuck with it or pushed into it.

 

Good luck. Just try to keep the goal of providing good experiences for The Boys. You may find that there are district-level and council-level people who will push you to make a go of it on your own because they tend to want a larger number of units rather than fewer, larger units. They get more credit for a larger number of units. And they may make it sound like it is easy to recruit if you just do it "right", implying you've done something wrong or just not tried hard enough if you can't build up your pack yourself. But if you've tried hard, and you can't build up your pack, do look into joining another pack before giving up on CS altogether.

[DenZero]

Thank you GS-CS_leader for your lengthy reply, so heres a lengthy answer.

 

As an update, we held a parent's meeting a couple of evenings ago, and though the turnout was sparse, everyone who was there agreed that we _need_ den leaders, but no one was ready to take on the job. The treasurer agreed to plan the next Webelos den meeting with something advancement related, and a new mom agreed to do the same with the Wolves. I'll try to come up with something for the Bears to do that tries to fit with advancement for the Tiger(s) as well. I've warned the parents that we do need 5 registered leaders to recharter. I can only hope that will motivate them rather than scare them away.

 

To answer your questions on the background:

 

The pack was started in 1943, which is about the average age for packs in our district. It once was one of the largest, but has had some periods of weak leadership during the last decade. 2 years ago, after 3 years of regrowth, we had a good program with 4 dens, but an essentially non-existent pack committee. When the new cubmaster's work schedule became excessive, things in the pack fell apart, since people expected him to run everything. Last year we almost didn't recharter. I offered to be Committee Chair, as no one had actually done that job for a few years. When the Cubmaster stepped down officially last spring, I ended up taking over for him, so I'm temporarily both Cubmaster and Committee Chair. Despite falling into the position, I've been trying to Do My Best. I've worked hard on recruiting, and have doubled the size of the pack, which is still not where we need to be.

 

The best reason for continuing the pack is that our Troop would like to continue to have its own pack, in hopes that it may be able someday to recruit from it again. They have helped out from time to time, but not as much as I would like. Most of the parents in the pack also believe that our school should continue to have a pack of its own. One of the dads was in the pack in the 1970s, and is enthusiastic about its continuation, but has been reluctant to take a leadership position, out of fear that it would interfere with baseball. We have families in the pack who came to us because they felt overwhelmed by large packs. Of course the District Exec. doesn't want to lose another unit, and has been very supportive, as has the Commissioner. Our Chartered Org. Rep. is indifferent, and doesn't want to get involved.

 

There is a Very Large pack nearby, which would be happy to swallow up the small pack. There has been a (usually good-natured) rivalry between the 2 packs for decades. The large pack has benefited from having strong leadership for the last 10 years or so. (They used to be smaller than the Small Pack). They have been able to leverage their size by expanding their recruiting range beyond the school where they traditionally recruited. They can present a fancier program. They are attractive to parents who won't have to get involved, and can recruit circles around the small pack. They are getting close to the point where their size will become unwieldy. (Many of their dens have nearly 20 boys). There is a very large kindergarten class at the school we traditionally recruit from, if we recruit them hard in the spring, we stand a good chance of having a decent Tiger den. If we can get some leaders who are willing to commit, and dont let up on recruiting, the small pack can probably be saved. Still I feel discouraged from time to time, and often consider throwing in the towel, which would make things much easier for me.

 

[GS-CS_leader]

DenZero,

 

Now I understand why you would rather have a small pack. Nearly 20 boys in a den does not make for an ideal program in my opinion. I truly sympathize with your situation, having been in similar situations myself.

 

Like your pack, my current small pack has a nearby very large pack. However in our case, the big pack at a neighboring school has not been nice in the way they have aggressively tried to recruit from my pack's main school. They got some scouts from my pack's school a few years ago when my pack had problems and have let our CM know that they think it is inevitable that our pack will fail and have to join theirs. They seem to aspire to become huge like a couple of enormous packs in another part of town. However, this year a boy did transfer from the big pack to ours, so perhaps the tide is turning.

 

One thing you should know is that you probably do not absolutely need 5 DLs to recharter. In our old pack, we initially had a Tiger den and a Wolf den, and then two den-less Webelos who just came to pack meetings and worked on Webelos projects at home, I think. The mother of one of those Webelos was our first CM. The following year, the Webelos dropped out, but we got two denless Tiger scouts---one younger brother of a Bear scout and one new boy. These boys just came to the monthly pack meetings. In our new pack, last year there was a large Wolf den (the DL was also the CM and had pretty much single handedly saved the pack from dying), my small Webelos I den (just joined after our old pack died), a small Webelos "den" of only the den leader's son (several others dropped out from the previous year) and a Webelos scout who transferred from another pack. There were three interested Tiger scouts, but no parent would step forward, so our do-everything CM/Wolf DL actually served as DL for the Tigers too. I don't know if one of the Tiger parents was put down on paper as the "Tiger DL". In the case of the main den, the ADL who was officially listed as DL so that the CM did not officially fill two positions. Note that the "do-everything" person led two different dens on different nights---not combined den meetings. I once tried to do something similar in leading both Brownies and Junior Girl Scouts with some meetings that were separate. The fact that I am now both a GS leader and a CS leader doesn't bother me as much because at least I have a child in each group. It was when I was giving up time with my own kids for a few girls who weren't even my daughters and who unfortunately weren't mature enough to do much on their own or appreciate the sacrifice I was making for them, that I finally realized that I wouldn't want to be a leader at all if I kept that up.

 

Anyway, I think that you should consider having den-less scouts rather than combining CS levels. Otherwise, all the scouts in the combined den have a less than optimal experience, while the parents of scouts that would be den-less have less motivation to step up. You'll have to talk to your district people to find out if you have to put down some adult's name as "DL" or if you can simply have den-less scouts in your pack.

 

Although I advised against it in my previous post, in your pack's case, if you can't get anyone to be DL, you could try the "cooperative" method of having parents rotate responsibility for den meetings. Although I don't know much about the Tiger program because my son joined as a Wolf, I believe that this is the way the Tiger program is supposed to work anyway. So you should explain this to the Tiger parent(s) and coax one of them into being the "on paper" DL. For the other levels, it is not an ideal way to run a den, but you can always hope that once parents try leading one or more meetings, that they might realize that they are capable of doing it and will more willing become the actual den leader.

 

You need to reassure potential leaders that it's not as hard as they might think. One thing to be said for the BSA is that their Cub Scout leader materials are excellent---GSUSA leader materials are not nearly as detailed. Also, the "program helps" section that comes in the Scouting magazine sent to all CS leaders has very detailed instructions for running the CS meetings. Get the Cub Scout Leader Books and one of those "program help" Scouting magazine sections to show to the parents so that they can see that they just have to follow the directions; they don't have to create a program by themselves. There are also some great online resources. Check out this link for Wolf scouts, for example:

http://www.boyscouttrail.com/cub-scouts/wolf-scout-schedule.asp

This website is amazing. I think it is actually better than the official BSA Webelos Leader Guide. Also, perhaps you can coax some of the parents to go to your district's leader training sessions. Tell them that it will help them to understand the program and will not obligate them to be "The Den Leader".

 

Another idea is that if your affiliated troop is truly interested in helping your pack to survive so that it can recruit from your pack's Webelos, then you should ask if the troop can provide one or more Boy Scouts to be Den Chiefs for the dens in your pack.

 

As for recruiting from the kindergarten class, I would start moving behind the scenes NOW. In particular, find out if you or if any parent in your pack knows the parents of any of the kindergartners. Then start talking to those parents personally now. Plan some fun activities for your pack and invite those parents and to bring their sons and join in as "visitors". Word-of-mouth is the best way to recruit. One key kindergarten parent can more easily recruit a whole den's worth of boys than any "recruitment night". For recruitment events, I'd also advise having some kind of fun activity for the boys rather than just a dry information session. Special activities that are really appealing are best. Free food is a always good incentive. Our rival big pack has an annual recruitment cookout hotdog dinner. Even busy parents figure that at least it saves them from having to make dinner that night, so it doesn't seem like they are having to take extra time in their schedules for a meeting. Our pack has had outdoor movie nights (movie projected onto a sheet tacked to a garage) with hotdogs and popcorn. If your rival "big" pack usually has a recruitment at a particular time, consider trying to schedule your event BEFORE theirs and avoid scheduling it at the same time.

 

The reason to be early in recruiting is that you want to have potential scouts learn about your pack before they commit to the other pack. And if you have an active summer program (a good way to recruit and to keep up momentum for your small pack), then the new Tigers can start to participate the summer before first grade. Also new leaders can get trained at the end of the previous school year so that they are all ready to go when the school year starts up.

 

I hope some of these ideas are helpful. Best of luck.

[DenZero]

Thank you GS-CS_leader for the suggestions.

 

The large dens at the large pack can be awkward, but work reasonably well, and they have a set of good dedicated den leaders. They have been trying to split up the dens, but it isnt easy.

 

Your packs situation does sound similar to mine. When I said 5 leaders to recharter, I was referring to the requirement for a Cubmaster, Committee Chair, 2 Committee Members and 1 den leader (also 1 Chartered Org. Rep., but we share him with the troop, and hes a name on paper only). In the past, the actual den leaders usually registered as committee members to fill the required positions. So you only need 1 paper den leader. To recharter we need 2 more registered adults beyond those that have agreed to continue.

 

The den meeting planning link looks useful. If I can lay out a plan for den meetings ready to go, it will be easy for parents to take on being ad hoc den leader, and make it look easy to be permanent den leader. If we got a Den Chief, he could do some of these. I should try subscribing to Scouting. The District Exec. didnt push subscribing when we rechartered last year. No way would I consider leading 2 dens on different nights, thats a fast road to burn-out.

 

Youre right about starting now to recruit next years Tigers. I waited until April-May of last year, thinking I was getting an early start, but people from the Large Pack had already contacted some of them.

 

Word of mouth is definitely the best recruiting method, but 100 mouths get more words out than 10, so we have to work 10 times as hard.

 

 

[GS-CS_leader]

I didn't subscribe to Scouting when I was in our old pack, but the new pack just buys a subscription for every member out of the annual fees it collects. I was just going through the Sept 2007 Scouting magazine before tossing it into the recycling bin and I found some great information for new leaders. Turns out that you can get the "program helps" in other ways besides as an insert in the Scouting magazine. The current, next, and past months are available in pdf online at www.scouting.org/cubscouts/resources That webpage also has a lot of links that would be very helpful for you, especially those listed under "Program Planning": The Pack's First Three Months, Cub Scout Den Leader Kit, Welcome, New Den Leader, Program Ideas for Your First Month of Den Meetings, Cub Scout Program Helps, Cub Scout Program Themes, Cub Scout Outdoor Program Guidelines. The "Leader Training" files might be useful as well. You can also get the full year of program helps in a book sold at the scout shop or www.scoutstuff.org.

 

The key with "word of mouth" recruiting is to get the right parents into the pack and putting out the word for you. There are always some parents who seem to know more of the other parents and are more involved in the school than others. They are often PTA officers, and they are likely to be parents with one or more older children so they know how things work at the school. These people can make more contacts and are more influential in getting other parents to consider your troop. Speaking of PTA people, in our old pack, the parents who organized the PTA-sponsored pizza and entertainment nights organized the pack's Blue and Gold Banquet. It was easy for them to organize that kind of thing because they had experience. The only criticism I had was that they hired professional entertainment, whereas I think it would have been better to have focused more on the scouts and to have had them do some skits or other things.

 

The other good "word or mouth"-type recruiting is when boys in the pack tell their friends about it and bring them to pack meetings. Boys can earn a "recruiter" strip to put on his uniform if he helps to recruit a new scout to the pack.

[DenZero]

Thank you, GS-CS_leader.

 

I looked at the online version of the "Program Helps". The monthly themes seem awfully complicated. They might work for a big pack, but would be way too much work for a small pack to attempt. I think we can improvise meeting themes that can be as much fun, but a lot easier to implement. I've already looked at the other documents you mention, and they would be useful if someone would step forward to be den leader.

 

I'll try your suggestion and try to find out who the Kindergarten room mothers are, they will be useful allies for recruiting. The PTA leadership is not helpful, possibly because most of them are heavily involved with the Large Pack. We wanted to set up a booth at the school barbecue, but the PTA nixed it, saying they didn't want to allow "outside groups" to intrude. The principal, BTW, was a Cub Scout, and is cooperative with us.