How many in your unit?

[Jeffrey H]

"Truth be told, even though I feel our pack has an awesome program, and I feel we really work it hard....it is not outside of reason that some parents may have chosen our pack only due to location, the night we meet on, because "X" goes there too...Then you have soccer, football, basketball, single parents with multiple kids where the oldest son may have to babysit due to mom or dad being at work, etc.... I look at it this way: If your pack only has 4 kids, and they are having a blast and enjoying it - then you have a great program! "

I can tell you that alot of folks choose our Pack because we meet on sunday evenings and our neighborhood location.  Families with boys involved in saturday sports or activities prefer our meeting schedule.  Sadly, whenever we try to move to another weekday for a special event or campout, attendance plummets. I think we have a fine active program with committed leadership but we can't give ourselves too much credit. 

We lost 3 brothers soon after we recruited them because of a single mom that could not afford the uniforms for three boys.  We wanted to help her with uniforms but told her that her sons needed to remain active and show commitment before we would assist with uniform purchases.  They never came back.  We've given out free uniform shirts before but only to see the boys never come back, so we never just give out free stuff anymore. 

I agree that big numbers are over-rated and a Pack can get too large (e.g., critical mass is reached where the meeting facilities become too small, scout to adult leader ratio becomes too large, or not enough "quality" leaders to keep up with growth).  On the flip side, you can have a great pack program with only a few boys, but you will run into a problem at re-charter time if you have less than five scouts.