DC vs Cubmaster - Grudge Match

[BS-87]

It's horrible advice if he goes and signs kids up that the Pack will never see.

 

It's great advice if he gets as many adult applications (with no specific position commitment yet as that's the Pack's job to decide) as he does youth and gives a detailed description of the people he talked to to the Cubmaster, following up by coming to the next Pack meeting to introduce everybody to each other.

[ScoutNut]

>>"The mission for the District Committee, Commissioners, and professionals is to grow Scouting. This means that a District has to take advantage of every opportunity to do so. School Open Houses are too great an opportunity to pass up, and if a Cubmaster doesn't want to do it or cannot do it because they need to attend that night as a parent, it's definitely your job to be there helping them grow Scouting."

[Scoutfish]

"So imagine on Monday morning, I'm making up a simple flyer for your unit - Pack X, United Methodist Church, meets blah blah, Cubmaster name and phone number."

 

THis is where you should have stopped.

 

You called and you left messages.

 

So you didn't get a responce back in the time framce you decided on. Too bad.

 

You offerend some help. Let it go at that.

 

What if I decide your grass isn't cut as short as or as often as I like? Doesn't give me the right to go and cut your grass.

 

Same about your laundry, oil changes on your car, etc...

 

Not your decision, not your job.

 

But as a former CM, I got your back 100% on telling the families about any and all scouting events!

 

 

 

[DeanRx]

Yeah,

 

Just another District guy showing up, stirring the pot, then handing the heavy lifting work off to the unit level volunteers.

 

Your lucky the CM didn't either quit or come across the table at you.

 

If the unit leaders didn't have a back to school night round-up set-up there might be a good reason for it. Its their unit, their school, and their turf, so back off!

 

If I was the CM and unable to make the round-up night (on the date that YOU decided for him), and it turned out you doubled the size of my unit (with or without enough adult volunteers to go with the enrollment increase), I'd likely be finding a new pack for my kid to join, or worse yet, not be involved in scouting.

 

And yes, Mr. BS-87, the role of the commish and the DE is to GROW scouting, but not to the detriment of those already involved. If you cannot see WHY this guy was way over the line, it explains a great deal about WHY their is so much distain and friction between UC/DC, DE and the local unit volunteers in so many districts and councils !!!

 

The surest way to loose your unit vols is to sweep in, make more work for them, undermine them, and then leave them to pick up the pieces.

 

Sounds EXACTLY like what happened in this situation.

 

YiS,

 

Dean

[HICO_Eagle]

I'm with Scoutfish here. You were right (IMNSHO) up to the point where you decided to print the flyers and contact her boys and parents on your own. I don't know why the CM wasn't prepared for Back to School night but she may have had her own plan for recruiting. I call foul if her thought was just that she's overloaded and doesn't want to deal with more kids as CalicoPenn intimated in his second sentence but she may well have had her own plan to give boys in district A the chance to join. Of course if she DID have her own plans she could well have responded to your message but that has no bearing on whether you should have directly contacted the parents and boys in her Pack.

 

I would expect my DC to act through my UC. I wouldn't expect the DC to avoid his/her own acquaintances or act as if he didn't know what was going on but s/he really shouldn't be forming unit activities directly. Recruitment is important and this CM may be dropping the ball on it but that's for the Unit Committee and CO to address with her.