leader book and bylaws

[just-a-click-away]

I have a two part question, has anyone come across leader book online in pdf form? My second question is should a Pack have formal bylaws? I know the troops do,but most pack don't why?

[NJCubScouter]

If you are talking about the Cub Scouter Leader Book, chances are that you will not find the text online, and if you do, it probably should not be there. Like many (if not all) other BSA books it is a copyrighted publication, and the BSA requires that you buy it. I think that particular book is about $7 at your Scout Shop, and it may also be sold at your local Scout distributor.

 

As for by-laws, I have seen a lot of discussion about this subject pro and con. Technically they are not required, and some people believe they are a bad idea. I am a moderate on the subject as with most others. My pack has no by-laws, and we haven't had any lawsuits among our members, so if that says anything, there it is.

[evmori]

Like NJ said, you won't find the leadership books on-line. It would be a good idea, however. If the BSA could work out a way that we could pay a fee to use these resources on-line would be great!

 

As far as bylaws, my Troop has them. We put them in place a long time ago to really deal with behavior problems with the Scouts. We have only had to enforce them 1 time in the last 15 years.

 

Ed Mori

Scoutmaster

Troop 1

1 Peter 4:10

[packsaddle]

This is an interesting question. My troop works under the by-laws of the chartering organization, a church in our case, but now I am not so sure it is the best way to proceed. I was under the impression that the chartering organization took legal and financial responsibility for their scout units. Am I wrong?

[mmorrisaia]

We just formed a new Pack, and agreed that By-Laws would be a good outline of how the Pack should be run so we can easily show new members what we do.

 

It's a fairly short document about how the committee and leaders are chosen, what qualifications are required (i.e., trained!), minimum expected standards (number of den meetings, field trip rules, etc.). Because it is a new pack, I've had to do a lot of education about how Cub Scouts delivers the program, and I found that leading the committee through a by-laws adoption process got them to thinking about how the the Pack should operate.

[eisely]

Written policies on some subjects are probably a good idea. I don't know if you would call such writings by-laws.

[Twocubdad]

There is a "Virtural Cub Scout Leader Handbook" on line, but it's not the same as the actual Handbook published by BSA. The virtural book is at http://www.geocities.com/Yosemite/9152/ and is a great resource, but you still should have a copy of the real book.

 

Our pack has never a separate set of by-laws. We've never run into an issue where the basic SOP for all packs hasn't sufficed.

[eisely]

Written policies are probably much less important for cub scout packs than for other types of units. When you start evaluating performance in leadership positions in scout troops, "show scout spirit", etc., written policies about what constitutes adequate performance are probably a good idea. There have been other threads in the past about boys elected to leadership positions who never show up for meetings and expect to get full credit for the time in the position. There are a variety of ways for dealing with these kinds of situations, but guidelines written in advance can avoid a lot of controversy.

[Bob White]

The BSA does not require or recommentunit by-laws. I have never seen a situation when unit bylaws were needed. I have seen where they caused uneccesarry division and hostilitiy within a unit.

 

Everything you need to operate a quality scouting program is in the Boy Scout handbook and the resources of scouting (leader training, Advancement Policies and procedures, Guide to Safe Scouting, Insignia Guide, Committee Handbook, Scoutmaster Handbook.

Even how to evaluate Scout Spirit can be found in the Boy Scout Handbbook. To set artificial measurements would be in violation of the advancement program (that rule is in the Advancement Committee Policies and Procedures manual) so there is no need for a unit by-law to control it.

 

My sugeestion is don't waste time creating rules that aren't needed or exist through the BSA.

 

Bob White

[mermaid]

Bylaws are important. If you want your pack to run smoothly and successfully you NEED a list of what is expected and how to govern such things as finances. I'm not going into specifics but my pack has run into this problem. There was no way that the left hand knew what the right hand was doing. People had been reimbursed twice, or never was there anyone to say i don't think we should purchase that for pack. The CC and the Cubmaster took it upon themselves to make all of the decisions and never once brought it to the committte for a vote. The pack belongs to everybody and the committtee is their for the packs best interest. The ones in charge should have to follow by certain guidlines. When finances are involved it should be guildlines set forth by bylaws. Anything involving money that goes wrong skates on the issue of criminal.

I'm not sure if the charatered organization takes responsibility. But, I will say this in our "town" there is a troop and a pack that dosn't have a REAL functioning organization. The organization is defunct. We do have someone to sign the charter but that is it. That one person does not get involved.

I think guidelines are importmant for cubs. I'll give one example. In our pack we are very much into community service. For the boys participation they recieve a gold star. One boy showed up to an event on the genrous side... 10 minutes. Only because he happened to be already there ( and not representing the scouts by the way). Should he recieve the star even though other boys put in there hard work. I don't think so. But we gave it to him anyway. Because we did not have specific enough guide lines. Never did we think that something like this would happen. So yes guildlines and bylaws are important. Because you might not have problems now. But in the future it makes it easy to figure out what is black and what is white.

[scoutldr]

That one person who signs your charter on behalf of the Chartered Organization (CO) had better know what the liabilities of a CO are, especially if he IS the CO...including being responsible for the proper use of funds and the proper selection and background checking of leaders. That's one reason most PTAs in the country have refused to charter units...too much liability (their perception, whether true or not). If something goes wrong, the Unit is not a legal entity and cannot be sued nor arrested...the CO is, or should be, along with the individual leaders. Under the BSA charter, the unit belongs to the CO...not the committee, the leaders, the parents or the scouts.

 

These are my personal opinions...I am not a lawyer.

[mermaid]

I didn't realize the CO should be more involved than he is. Thanks for that info. What I meant by "belong" was, For the most part families will be involved in the pack for 5 years. So in essence for that 5 years the pack should represent the ideas of the ones involved. A pack should be constantly evolving with the turning over of scouts and parents alike. With every new person a new idea and a new way of doing things is brought to the table. And this is what I meant by belongs. Not in a legal sense. Beacause with out the support of the families the unit dies.

[Twocubdad]

You may be confusing bylaws with procedures. Maybe what you need is a policy manual. Yes, there needs to be a standard method to handle pack expenses, checking out pack-owned equipment, etc. We are constantly tweaking how we handle advancement reports, popcorn sales and things like that. There needs to be some minimum expectations of accountability, but as CC I expect the people in charge of those areas to run them as they see fit.

 

To my mind, a set of bylaws for an organization covers big-picture, constitutional issues like purpose, organizational structure, who can vote, who can be a member of the committee, etc. All that's covered in the Cub Scout Leader Book, including the job descriptions you seem to be looking for. You can develop a set of bylaws if you like, but as Bob White noted above, I think the time could be better spent. Another problem with written bylaws the that someone is always going to want to play the "campfire lawyer" and challenge everything based on what the bylaws do or don't say.

 

Are your bylaws really going to get to the level of detail of setting standards for issues like the one with the service project? Something like that you just have to rely on the integrity of the adult running it. Advancement is the same way. Some parents will sign off on anything, but in Cubs, you have to accept it. Are you going to try and cover the whole advancement program in your bylaws?

 

The way a well-functioning pack committee runs is a subtle thing. It's not a democratic legislative body, but a group of people with individual responsibilities assigned to help the Pack function. They meet as a committee only to coordinate and report on their individual activities.

 

Ultimately all the "power" in a units rests with the Committee Chairman and the Chartered Organization Rep who appointed him or her. People don't like the sound of that because they think everyone should have a vote on everything. But a committee runs like a corporation with the CO being the shareholders and the chairman being the CEO. Everyone else works for him or her.

 

With that said, in two years as a committee chairman, I can't recall doing anything which wasn't generally supported by the rest of the committee. If a CC is dictating iron-fisted decisions which no one in the unit supports, he's doing a lousy job and needs to be replaced. It sounds to me as though most of your unit's problems stemmed from having a turkey of a committee chair, not from a problems in how the committee is organized.

 

A good CC runs the unit through concensus building and teamwork. If you're doing that right, bylaws, motions and ballots are unnecessary.

[Eamonn]

I see no need for a bunch of bylaws.

Bob White has hit the nail on the head.

Over the years I have held most Leadership positions, and when the subject has been brought up, we have talked it through and noted that there is no upper age limit on the Scout Law and Oath. That along with the publications that Bob listed, has always worked well for me.

With reference to the boy who turned up for ten minutes for a pack service project:

There are no gold star awards in the Cub Scout Program, for community service - Who is not following the rules now ??

In Cub Scouting the benchmark has to be that a boy does his best, do we know why the boy could only spent ten minutes ??

Depending on the age of the Cub Scout, who signs off that he has or has not done his best ?

Seems to me that we open a real can of worms when we mess with the program and start adding our own sets of rules.

[Overtrained]

I have never seen bylaws (whatever you want to call them) in a pack. I have the secretary keep a list of key things a committee has decided on over time. I have seen bylaws create more problems in troops - my headache is coming back.

 

Some units do a nice family handbook for the new parent. It talks about Scouting in general from Tiger through Venturing. It addresses some key BSA policies like youth protection and outlines in general unit Standing Operating Procedures- we meet x nights, committee meetings are x day, campouts are always 5 pm friday to 11 am Sunday unless noted, etc.

 

It is nice for the new parent, and a tool to use to recruit them also. Check out your councils POW WOW, Show & Do, University of Scouting or whatever you call it. Odds are, one of sessions talks about it.

 

Good Luck