How did it come to THIS?

[briantshore]

I was a late joiner to Cub Scouts as a youth, Bear, Webeloes Drop Out. Joined Boy Scouts at 14, and just got Eagle before 18. Did 2 years as a adult leader, and took some time off. 22 years go by and my son joins Cub Scouts. I was Tiger Dad for the first year. At that years Blue and Gold they asked for adults to fill holes in the leadership ranks. 2 of us Tiger Dads stood up. I took over as Den Leader, the other as Cubmaster. I did Wolf, Bear, and Webelos I as den leader. That spring, I had 2 assistant Webelos Leaders, and no Tiger Den Leader. I jumped back to fill the hole, and did Tiger Den Leader. The following year, Cub Master opened up. I am about to start my 3rd year as Cub Master. This will be my 8th year in the Pack. My only son is long gone. Cub Master is my favorite job of all. I have the experiance and drive to make our Pack better. My suggestion to you is take as much training as you can, talk to other leaders often to gather new idea's. Craate your vision, and share it with you Pack.

[DYB-Mike]

Scoutfish, when I read the topic I thought your Pack imploded or some such other disaster, but its a GOOD THING!

 

Congratulations, you will have a blast!

 

Like you, I started out as the helpful parent when my oldest son joined the Pack as a Bear. I found that I was having as much fun as he was so when I was offered the position of ACM at the end of his Webelos I year, I jumped on it no sales pitch needed.

 

Two years later, after my oldest son crossed over to the Troop and my youngest joined and completed his Tiger Rank (I serve as his Den Leader as well), I found myself in the position of being able to choose between Cubmaster and Committee Chair. While the organizational aspect of the Committee Chair role had some appeal to me because of my regular job, I chose the Cubmaster position because, in my humble opinion, its more fun!

 

Ive just finished my first year as Cubmaster and I have no regrets. Judging from your posts Scoutfish youll love it as much as I and the rest of the Cubmasters here on the Forum do.

 

YIS

Mike

 

[jamist649]

Congrats on the CM position! What a great story. Your path reads similar to mine. My son joined as a Tiger back in 2007. The Cubmaster at the time had one son and he was a Webelos II so he was basically just "coasting" and was going to cross over and forget about the Pack. So sad..

 

After he and his son did crossover, he left the Pack (now down to 11 Scouts) to the Wolf ADL who didn't really have the time/desire to do much with the unit or his new CM role. I held NO leadership position in the Pack (officially) when the call came asking me about the CM position. The current CM was going to take on the Webelos DL position and needed someone to take CM. I almost fell out, I thought he was joking.

 

I accepted because I was pretty sure the Pack would fold unless I agreed. We just didn't have the interest at that time. Plus, recruitment efforts were "weak" to put it nicely. That was last August. So, there I was untrained, uneducated, and unprepared. We had NOT fund raised in the previous 2 years so we were flat broke and down to 11 Scouts and 3 leaders (including myself)...nice huh? Since that time, we're up to 32 Scouts (very small town, we're probably not going to get much bigger), we've recruited and trained 5 new leaders and are working on assembling a REAL working committee. We've had our 1st (that anyone in the Pack can remember) Raingutter Regatta, PACK Campout (used to do District only), and Council wide campout. We also sold over $5,000 in Popcorn after $0 for the previous 3 years. Not patting myself on the back, just telling the truth. Plus, it couldn't have been done without the new leadership (on all levels) and active parents and Scouts. When I first took the position, I got a little bit of resistance to having such an active calendar, but I said and I still believe that "The Scouts and Parents will appreciate and enjoy and active Pack..." and it seems to be true.

 

Good luck to you and congrats on your new position. One thing I have tried to do is do a few joint events where we invite other Packs in the area to join us. A recent example would be our "Physical Fitness Day" where we had Scouts from 4 Packs in one place! Hectic, but fun! Plus, alot of the boys already knew each other and it's nice to be able to let them play together instead of making them be seperate from each other all of the time due to the Pack that they chose.

 

 

[SSScout]

One Word.... Plastics.

 

No! I'm sorry, wrong script...

 

*ahem... WOOD BADGE...

[DeanRx]

Scoutfish-

 

I can tell by your posts on here - you will do a great job! It doesn't matter how long you've been around, it matters if your heart is in it and what you WANT the unit to become.

 

While I was involved in scouting as a youth (up to making LIfe for life), I had very little to no BSA expirience between being a youth in it and being and adult leader other than buying Scout-o-ramma tickets, popcorn, and my own camping adventures (non-scout type).

 

Then, like you, I go to the round-up with my soon to be 1st grader. I came home (to the chagrin of my wife) as the new Tiger Cub DL. By the fall of my son's Wolf year, I had recruited my own DL replacement and took the staff as the new CM of the pack. Son will be starting Web I this year and I'm looking for my CM replacement.

 

In that time, we've have a great time, the pack has grown from about 25 kids to just over 50 active members, and I still LOVE this scouting stuff.

 

You'll do fine. Follow the rules (i.e. provide a safe program), have fun (provide an entertaining program), put the outing in scouting (provide program that gets the kids outside) and recruit people to help. The rest is easy. If you have a good CC, then the rest is a piece of cake.

 

Remember, its about the kids, its for the kids. Your job IS the kids. Refrain from becoming the judge in all the petty adult decission stuff that always comes up with groups of adults. Your job is not the adults, its the kids. If anyone tries to drag you into the fray, politely refuse and focus on YOUR JOB.

 

You'll be great at it

 

Have fun.

[afscout]

I got here through a bunch of starts and stops. I started cub scouts late, made it up to Bear quickly (remember there wasn't the age/rank format back then). My Dad said cub scouts took too much time so I never became a Webelo.

 

Later, my friends were boy scouts so I convinced my Dad to let me join. He basically dropped me off and picked me up from events so his time involved was minimal. Again, started late, but I made it to Life quickly. Then high school, band, student council, sports, girlfriends happened and I barely finished my service project and merit badges by the time I was 18. Unfortunately, I didn't know I had to get my Eagle paperwork in by my 18th B-day also. Disappointed, but I still stayed with the Troop as an ASM until I joined the military.

 

Life goes on and last year, my son joined Tigers. Unlike my Dad, I want to be active my son's scouting experience. I volunteered to be the ADL, but the DL said he already had someone volunteer to be the ADL. Throughout the year, I was active in the Den and Pack. At one of the campouts I was talking to the CM about wanting to help out. He said he could use an ACM so I volunteered. It's been a while since I've been a scout leader and things have changed so I'm sure I'm going to be using this forum a lot to get advise from others.

[Scoutfish]

afscout,

 

Already had a ADL?

 

He can have more than one. Our Bear den had 5 ADL's. Officialy ( on pack master stuff) only one listed as an ADL, for that particular den, but we had 9 ADL's who were listed ( by the program) as "un-assigned".

 

Same thing here though about advice and learning. I'll be needing plenty!

 

[afscout]

I was told by the DL that there was only one ADL position. Maybe the norm in our pack is one ADL per den; maybe he didn't know you can have more than one. I need to look into this. It would be great to expand the scout leaders at the den level. With a little luch they would later transition to the pack level.

[Scoutfish]

Think of it like this: This years ADL's might end up being next years DL's if :

 

Roundup brings in enough boys to create more dens

 

If a current DL has to suddenly move, quit or cannot continue the position.

 

An ADL this year can jump into the DL position for next years Tigers den so that : The den has immediate experienced leadership and transitions the new Tiger DL's into place.

 

If nothing else, having more than the DL and ADL will make sure you always have a fresh perspective on things.