I'm a cub leader, and so I tend to have a different perspective on this than many. At the Cub level, it's rare to get a long time leader with lots of bling, knots, etc. More of the long timers I meet tend to go the opposite direction - they shun knots, rarely wear WB beads, etc. A temporary patch - what's that? So, the new Cub leaders that I know pick up on that and don't bother either. In my 4 years with my son's pack, I am the only person to ever earn a knot out of probably 30 different leaders. As such, I get questions all the time from the boys - Hey, what's that on your uniform?

I'd love to have some around the block guy show up at the pack meeting with more bling than you could imagine. I imagine a lot of kids would love it!

My son's den had that same challenge. We had two den leaders ready to take on dens, but the parents couldn't figure out a split, so we kept it as one large den. With a large den like that, several boys became unhappy with the chaos and decided to leave on their own. Add a little natural attrition to that and by the end of the year, it was 10. A year later, that same group was 8.

We ended up starting a second den in the Bear year and guided new boys to that new den instead.

My recommendation. Find two good leaders and split the den along some natural lines. i.e., who can make a particular day, where they go to school, etc. Then run the dens seperatly. After a year together the natural inclination of the group will be to stick together. You may need to nudge them to stay separate. Remember, the longer you wait to split the den, the harder it gets.

I have the same question. This year we tried to improve pack meetings. Some are better, some are not.

One piece of advice I received early on was to make the meetings more "fun". Some folks want this to mean, make the pack meeting "entertainment". They'd like to have the pack meeting be a show, presentation, or game with the bare minimum of time for awards or announcements. As such, we did away with den skits, cheers, and songs.

Pack meetings start at 6:30 and run for about an hour. Right now our meetings go something like:
6:20 - gathering game
6:35 - opening flag ceremony - a den does this monthly. We always start 5-10 minutes late.
6:40 - announcements - CM makes announcments. There may be a special announcement or two.
6:42 - awards - 10 mintues. Usually given by the den leaders who call up boys to the front. Due to the time, there is not a lot of ceremony here.
6:55 - actvity or special ceremony
7:25 - closing

At the meeting, we have rows of chairs set up. Boys sit with their parents wherever they want. We don't sit by dens. The meeting is run by the CM, one or more ACMs, and the advancement chair.

I'm not sure that focusing just on meetings as entertainment is working so well. I feel like we've lost some of the purpose behind the pack meeting with the boys having no role. Even when the den does the flag ceremony, the leader is sort of scrambling to find out who is there. Den leaders generally come - though not always. We get at most 50% attendance.

My gut feel is that a great pack meeting can't be just a fun show/activity/game. It's got to be more. I've just not hit on the right formula yet.

Hi all, sorry for the double post here. I was editing my post and walked away for 5 minutes. I came back and the post had been done. Not sure why. Here's a revised version.


Many thanks all for the most excellent advice!

If I pull out some of the common themes, I see:

Community
- Know familes and greet them by name
- Get parents involved. Start with small tasks & build up.

Get Parents to Buy In
- Need to see value in coming to meetings
- Need to overcome "nah, I don't want to go this week"

Leader/Committee Meetings/Parent Meetings
- Invite parents, especially new ones

Pack Meetings
- make them fun!

Have a replacement now

These are absolutely fantastic. Let me do some thinking and I'm sure I'll be back shortly with follow up questions.

Thank you all so much for taking the time on this!

Many thanks all for the most excellent advice!

If I pull out some of the common themes, I see:

Community

- Get parents involved

Get Parents to Buy In
- Value in Coming to Meetings
- How to overcome "nah, I don't want to go this week"

Leader/Committee Meetings/Parent Meetings
- Invite parents.
- How to overcome folks just talking with each other

Pack Meetings
- make them fun!

Have a replacement now