Sure, Why not!

[Scoutmaster613]

With that being said I am the Cubmaster for the semi new Pack 24 out of Concord NC.

 

here is my story;

 

3 boys, 5-7-10 (as of now)

 

My oldest boy wanted to join cubs because his friend Jimmy was doing the same and it sounded like we could have a good time. I never did the scouting thing as a kid, never camped out doors ect. Was not sure what to expect.

 

School recruitment night, had some very good speakers talking that night. Lots of good Q&A's . As they were passing out the child sign up forms they also said they needed parent volunteer forms, the dirty rats did not explain what that form was. I was thinking car pool, chaperone or something easy! Well I filled it out, turned it in along with my sons form and went home.

 

Here we are, New scout / Parent night for Pack 38!

 

As they split up the pack in 5 sections for all the ranks we walked up to the Bear table!

 

"Hi, my name is Steven" as my son tells the helper behind the table, the helper looks at his sheet and says "Hey Steven, your in Den 11" my son has a big grim on his face and gives out a happy yell "Thats Jimmy's den, cool we are together" My son then asks "Who is my den leader" The helper looks at the sheet, looks down at my boy, looks up at me, back at the sheet, back at my son "Ummmm, your dad!"

 

I can not explain the feelings I had, I felt like a deer in headlights! Got to admit, felt a little scared? I have a hard enough keeping my own 3 kids under control.

 

I don't want to get into details of my 1st year as it was not that bad, I had an assistant to help me and was so thankful for HER help, yes HER, had a mom step up to the plate! All 8 graduated and 7 out of the 8 boys returned for WEBLOS I

 

Well year #2, My bear graduated to WEB I and my new 1st grader came into Tigers. Also my boys were after the new recruitment patch for the 100 yr celebration and they were able to recruit several friends.

 

Once again it's recruitment time with new cubs and new parents. We had about 20-25 slots open, room for 2 Tiger dens and fill up the drop outs from the previous year, the remaining boys would join the new Pack 24.

 

I told our cubmaster that I can lead one of the Tiger dens but it had to be Monday nights as my schedule was getting tougher and tougher for Thursday nights.

 

Being a returning Den leader I was able to go through the list of kids and find all my sons friends and other parents I knew and recruited and set them in my den. Well after welcome was done we found out we had 4 den leaders including myself for Monday night and 0 for Thursday nights, 8-10 kids per den.

 

Well, I am the kind of guy that can't say no to people! You ask me to do something I will usually give in and help out best I can. Well you guessed it, long story short I ended up DL'ing the entire year for the Thursday night Tigers. I continued to take my Tiger and my WEB I to the Monday nights so they can be with their friends. Well that lasted about 2-3 months before my schedule caught up with me and I had to start canceling meeting after meeting. Another long story short, some of the boys fell out but the that ones that stuck around all graduated.

 

Year 3, what to do. I did not mention scouting to my boys all summer. I was officially burned out! No more! Done! Well once again Mr CantSayNo. "Daddy, when do we go back to scouts?"

 

Ohh boy, here we go again!

 

Recruitment night once again! I see some leaders from my pack, I chat chat with them, telling them I am officially done with Thursday nights. Both my scouts will be returning for the new year for Monday nights as my schedule officially killed my Thursday nights. As I sat in the stands with the rest of the parents I saw our district leader begging for the new pack 24 needing leaders. I let him know I am interested in a den leader roll in 24 as I recruited several kids and a leader over there as well the previous year. Once again, long story short. Mr Bob calls me asking about the Cubmaster position for the Pack 24, "Sure, why not!" I told him.

 

Here I am day 6 into my new roll. Scared as heck but I got a great poker face.

 

We have our New Parent/Scout welcome night.

 

We end up recruiting

3 Tiger leaders

3 Wolf leaders

0 Bear

1 Web I leader

0 Web II as we did not recruit for any, did not have that many 5th graders looking to join.

 

Bad new is they did not have that good of a year last year and most of the kids/parents are not returning this year.

 

I feel like I am starting from square 1, here are my questions, hope you can help!

 

1) Charter did not want to sign off on a checking account, any ideas how to get around this? I did find this link, not sure if it's accurate http://www.lasallecouncilbsa.org/Finance/Checking%20Account%20Instructions.htm

 

2) Love scoutlander.com I was able to get a free website up and running in about 24-48 hours, just got to tweak it now www.pack24concord.com

 

3) I am looking for free resources for cub tracking tools. I did find http://trax.boy-scouts.net/ but it seems out dated. any others ?

 

4) I would love to find a Cubmaster guide for dummies, do they make one, LOL, I get intimated with all the books the size of phone books!

 

5) Any docs, forms I can look at and get some ideas from to distribute to the parents, my email is listed on our webpage

 

Any resources you can post links to would be greatly appreciated. I do have great support form our District Leaders, they said they will show up and help out till things get up and running full steam!

 

Thanks for reading!

 

Cubmaster Ed

[packsaddle]

Hello Ed, and welcome to the forums!

I was a CubMaster and den leader for years a very long time ago so I can't help much with the current status of things. But I do remember that the unit had its own checking account that the CO did not have to sign off on. This may be different from state to state so I'm not sure if you'll be able to do this. But we had something called a 'non-interest-bearing' account. It was in the name of the pack and there were two persons who could sign: the treasurer and the committee chair. Not all banks were willing to create an account like this but I've also done it for professional meetings: those accounts were set up, knowing they would only last until the last meeting expenses were paid...again the bank set them up as non-interest-bearing.

Hope this helps. By the way, I loved the cubs. Those days were some of the best ever and I miss them dearly. Live it up while you can.

[moosetracker]

Welcome to forums.

 

Boy your pack knows a softie! Secretly though you must love it, otherwise you would stay away from that recruitment night, as that seems to be your downfall..

 

I only had one boy to go through recruitment night with, but except for the first grade when we signed him up, we never went to recruitment night again. After all, we were recruited..

 

And it seems with your pack they sign you up for a position without asking whether you are present to say "No" or not. So going or staying home would make no difference except you might not volunteer yourself.. (In our troop if you are missing from a meeting you might be volunteered, but not if you are present.)

 

So yep, you have a thing for this Recruitment night.

 

It is so weird how some people step up to volunteer for everything and some will not volunteer for anything, (like those Thursday night tiger parents..) Who could not even take over the den meetings to help you out when you could not make it. I would imagine some of those parents were quick to complain over your lack of commitment also. Not even giving you credit that you were running two tiger den meetings and that your child was not even part of their den group.

 

[Austinole]

Thanks for the heads up on scoutlander.com

[Scoutmaster613]

Thanks for the welcome guys!

 

@ Packsaddle, I was able to go to my local bank and get a checking account, I 1st called the IRS and told them I needed a NPO (non profit org) EIN (ss# for the pack) was not that hard.

 

@ Moose, your right, the cubs are great years. I have had the best time in my life with the scouts and my sons. got many more years to look forward to! As for going to recruitment night, I went as a helper my 2nd and 3rd years. I think i need to stay away from them, LOL

 

@ Austin, great website great price. I see some packs spending hundreds of dollars per year on web hosting. They might look fancy and all , but hey like they always say K.I.S.S. Keep It Simple Stupid. All I wanted was a website that is easy to use. If you know how to work microsoft word, you can build web pages in ScoutLander

 

Thanks again all for the welcome,