r/cubscouts

My pack had two meetings. I missed the in person. Then the zoom got cut short by a teams limit. They were kind of disorganized.

There’s a picnic this weekend. I don’t have our den information yet. Should I just show up with my scout and see what happens? I’m going to get his uniform Saturday. We aren’t religious and are new to the area, seems like a good way to meet other kids and families.

Last year I was the Lions den leader and now I'll be Tigers. Last year we had 4 kids, and this year I think we'll be at 7 or more.

I don't even know what we did last year, before each meeting id look through the adventures, try to find something that seemed semi interesting and then pull something out of my butt.

Does anyone have any tips or suggestions on planning your meetings out?

I’m in a small pack. I’m the den leader for Wolves ( 4 scouts) and said for the new year I would be the den leader for any Tigers who joined since we didn’t have a Tiger den ( or scouts). My plan is to have combined den meetings and try to recruit an assistant den leader to lead the tigers activities while I lead the wolf activities. Basically we’ll do opening and closing and games together and then the requirements separately.

Does anyone have a good script for recruiting parents who are brand new to the pack into being an assistant den leader?

I know directly asking individuals is the best way to get a parent volunteer for jobs but how have people successfully approached new parents about volunteering?

So what would you do here??

I am in a large, growing Pack that is pushing 70 scouts, and our Wolf Den is 25 Scouts. All before we have started anything with recruitment for this year!

Right now, we have 3 registered leaders including myself leading the Wolves, as well as 1 Den Chief from our Troop.

Would you:

A- Keep them as a WolfPack and have the 3 leaders working together.

B- Split them into 3 Dens and be done with it.

C- Divide and conquer, almost running it as a mini pack. Start meetings together, break into 3 groups, close together.

We're also running into similar problems with Webelos at 18 scouts and 2 leaders.

My wife is the Committee Chair and I am Cubmaster for our son's pack. Since the new features have been rolled out for information contained in our Unit Pin under Organization Manager on My Scouting, prospective families have been receiving text messages from a "Sam" telling them when meetings are (we haven't started meeting this year yet due to the availability of the school where we meet) and later asking them if they went/enjoyed the meeting. Has anyone else experienced anything similar and have you found out how to stop it? We almost had a new family show up for a meeting we didn't have (had they not reached out to my wife telling them they were excited to check the pack out on Monday).

Related, the meeting frequency options under the Unit Pin are garbage. Only options are Weekly, Bi-weekly or Monthly and what day of the week. No option for custom schedule (we meet 1st, 3rd and 5th Monday for den meetings, 4th for Pack meetings, 2nd is committee meeting) so none of the options really work, on top of the fact that there are dates we don't meet due to other scheduling issues, but "Sam" just assumes if it's Monday, there's a meeting.

Very frustrated at prospective new families being given incorrect information with no way to stop it. If my wife or I text the number that "Sam" sent from asking who they are/what information they have, we get no response.

Giving prospective scouts and their families incorrect information is, I'm sure, great for pack growth and retention.

The bookkeeping part of scoutbook + looks cool and I wanted to get my pack to start using it but was immediately shut down buy our oldest chair who has been in scouts for like 11 years. She said we dont want council to know how much money we have because they could potentially ask for some of it if we had "too much"... I was very surprised at this. She said she's "heard of it happening before". She also is the one that previously said that parents could not present receipts for scout related purchase and get reimbursed with the funds in the scouts fundraising accounts. I asked her who told her that and she just said "thats the way its always been" I told her that we are going to change that rule now that I am the CM and that yes, we will allow reimbursement of things like camp tickets purchased online. Anyhoo, what's your take on using scoutbook + for financial record keeping?

How do you all share your photos from Pack events or Den meetings? Looking for a ffextive ways to collaborate with my Pack families. Thanks.

My son is a current Bear Den (going into 3rd grade)
He has been in since kindergarten and earned his Rectangular Lion Patch badge.
He has since ranked up Tiger and Wolf, looking at other kids I see, they have either bobcat patch or a diamond Lion patch. He has neither of these.
Will he not have the opportunity to complete his rank diamond?

Edit: I think I now understand what happened.
They retired the bobcat patch, replaced it with a beltloop and for one year only, the kids will not have earned a complete diamond.
I do understand that he earned lion and we can buy the diamond lion to put up there.

It seems like a slight mess up by BSA when retiring bobcat to not have offered it to the kids who earned the rectangle lion so they can complete their diamond legitimately with the ranks and patches they were presented when they earned them.

Hey folks- classic cubmaster/den leader combo here.

Before I became cubmaster, pack meetings were mostly about getting by, and my predecessor kept the pack alive through the COVID years with limited help. Activities naturally took a back seat. Since taking over, I’ve tried to make pack activities more of a priority, and we’ve already taken some steps in that direction. I think the precedent is still indifference to pack meetings, and it's probably self-fulfilling; If they don't show up, they don't see the change.

I think this year I'd like to get a sense of what's challenging the Pack. I suspect a significant impact is jam-packed family schedules that deprioritize the Pack. If that's what it is, that's fine, but it helps to level-set my expectation.

I haven't figured out how to frame it just yet:

• Something to help me understand if poor pack attendance is due to conflicts
• The feasibility of weekends as times for pack events (this probably varies by time of year)
• What activities would they like to see more
• interest/ability to serve the pack in some official/unofficial-but-continuing/single event capacity.

I know this is probably not going to go over well here, and if you take issue with my views please refrain from commenting. I have heard those views and they are unhelpful for what I am looking for. Scouting has played a major part of my life and I am grateful for my experiences in it.

With the MOU that came out, it’s clear that scouting no longer aligns with our morals or the basic human decency of respecting others. The issue is that my son loves cub scouts. However, part of scouting is Duty to God. We have raised him with morals based around the beatitudes and loving God and loving neighbor being the ultimate standard for behavior. I can’t reconcile Scouting Americas current position with that. Are there similar programs to scouting that are inclusive of all youth? I had already been getting uncomfortable with the increasing focus on the flag and patriotism in our units. I am a veteran so I don’t have an issue with that in general, but it became more of a sole focal point that overshadowed everything, becoming more of an indoctrination instead of simply supporting your country. Anyway, I don’t mean this to be disparaging of scouts, but I hope to find something that aligns with what I remember scouting to represent.

I'm thoroughly displeased with this year's Trail's End fundraiser. We have only 5 products to choose from: Three $20 bags of flavored popcorn, one $30 bag of chocolate covered pretzels, and a $25 box of 12 microwavable bags. We placed an order for ~$3,000 of product and we're going to make about $1100 in commissions IF we sell out, which I doubt we will because last year's best seller, the $10 box of 5 isn't included anymore and the pre popped bags are a hard sell at $20. Anyway, it's my opinion that the juice isn't worth the squeeze. What are other packs doing for a primary fundraiser?

Hey everyone, I just wanted to know if you do a “slay the dragon” as part of the bobcat night. If so, what does it look like for your pack?

Thanks!

Hey guys! I recently agreed to help with the tigers and lions in my pack after finding out there was no one else. I'm exciting for it but I'm nervous about the fact that I joined cub scouts no that long ago and am still very unfamiliar with literally everything. I sit in the meetings and I swear it sounds like another language :( .

Any tips? Where can I learn all the lingo and the process of being a den leader?

What does your charter organization do for your pack?

Our charter org is a local church. They are very hands off. We haven't asked for fundraising or support of any kind in years. We have only asked for space for our meetings (student building) and a place to store our trailer.

My husband is a first-year cub master, we just took over this summer. We asked if the church would put a blurb in their weekly electronic newsletter about Join Scout Night. They said no because we are not a ministry. He showed them the charter org agreement regarding support for our pack. They still are saying no to putting any info in their newsletter. We are allowed to put one lawn sign by the entrance of the parking lot but nothing else.

Just checking in to see if this is a normal occurrence or should we push a little bit more for the newsletter. And should they be doing more to help us?

Hi. Cub scout pack, Indiana. We have an annual kick off campout in Sept and a halloween campout in October. But we don’t have a campout in the spring until our advancement campout in May. I posed a March ‘nightmare before spring’ theme campout to get something for us. We have basically no pack spring activities other than the derby in April. We don’t do pack meetings so I am really trying to get us more pack activities. Anyone do any spring theme campouts?

Edit- changed to spring so it’s all inclusive. Thank you!

Our pack has had really rotten luck when it comes to fundraising. We are very limited on what we are able to do, and when we do find an opportunity, it’s never fruitful.

Our leadership team is really pushing for a 501(c)(3), but I (treasurer) worry what creating one would mean in terms of creating additional work and oversight (IRS, etc).

Has anyone in the group made an “Alumni of Pack XX” 501(c)(3)? If so, how did you do it and would you recommend it?