So what are some activities for den meetings, pack meetings or parent meetings that you'd like to try?

<<around 120 last I heard. they are successful, I've been to a couple of their Pack meetings, great fun.>>


I heard somewhere recently that the #1 reason families leave Cub Scouts are boring den and pack meetings.

What are the keys to exciting pack meetings in your experience?


Personally, I'm not big on trying to stuff in the showmanship recommended by Cub Scout program helps.


My personal bias is to have a fun competition or activity as a focus for a pack meeting, and then add the awards boys earn as the next activity after that competition.

For example, our April pack meeting had each den competing to set up a tent they's never seen before. In October I'm aiming to promote a family pumkin carving activity as part of the pack meeting. In December I've had dens make cardboard "sleighs" and then had sleigh races around a race course with boys taking turns being pulled around by their other den mates.

I find the most reliable motivator for boys to be competition. And simple, fun competitions are pretty easy to arrange in Cub Scouts. So my bias is to work those into the program rather than songs, skits, run ons and such.

I also have a bias for doing this because it doesn't rely as much on den leaders to be prepared with songs, skits and stuff. I find it takes a lot of preparation to do songs and skits well, and usually they come off pretty poorly.

Anyway, I'd be interested in comments.

Our council takes responsibility for collecting on any bad checks, and takes the hit if they aren't able to collect.

So what's the biggest pack that you know about?


Any idea how they account for their success and manage their size?

Hello Desert Rat,

<< If your district does actual things to help scouters at the unit, congratulations. You and your district are rare birds. Truth is, lots of folks at districts around the nation aren't interested in unit level scouting. Nor in new folks joining the district. Nor in anything that is critical of the district.

>>

Plenty of districts struggle to provide activities and services for units. Some are far gone and barely function.

I would classify my district as being in the "struggling" category, but we still provide a lot of services to units from recruiting to Roundtables to district evenmts such as a bowling tournament and marble tournament, Klondike Derby, spring Camporee, Merit Badge Jumboree and so on.

We've had three district volunteers receive the Council Silver Beaver each of the past three years,

Our district is currently working pretty hard to identify new Scouters who might be interested in volunteering to support district activities. We are having modest success in finding new people.

<<While I'm not telling you how to spend YOUR time, I'm am telling you how many unit scouters feel about THEIR time, and the dubious support from their district. If it is "n/a" for you and your district, so be it and thanks for your service.>>


I was assigned as a Unit Commissioner nine months ago to a Scout Troop whose adult leaders had that kind of attitude.

One of the long time Troop leaders received the Silver Beaver this year. Another long time Scouter has been reconized with the Outstanding Scoutmaster award (or whatever it's called now), and has been motivated to sign up for Wood Badge.

Rather than being isolated and feeling neglected, I've been able to encourage the excellent leadership to feel more a part of the district Scouting community and to get them attention they deserve.

I think it may be possible to encourage the unit leadership to participate more in district and council activities, and to have a better Scouting experience because of that.


So my own experience is that most units that are alienated from the district and council are alienated because that don't feel welcome to participate and don't understand how to make the district and council work for them. If the district and council reach out in a friednly way to that alienated leadership, it should be possible to build bridges and bring those units into participating more in district and council activities.

Here's another Boys Life issue:


If the pack requires Boy Life as part of the annual membership, that makes it easy to handle when rechartering.


But if families have the OPTION to subscribe to Boys Life, that creates yet another obstacle and burden when rechartering. WHO is going to promote Boys Life subscriptions? Who's going to collect the money and account for it?


IF den and pack leaders desired to use Boys Life in their program and the pack therefore wanted to pay for Boys Life subscriptions for everyone, that would make handling subscriptions relatively easy when rechartering or taking new Cub Scout memberships.

But no one in this thread has said that they use Boys Life much in their den or pack program, or that they want to do so. That being the case, I don't promote Boys Life subscriptions in my pack.

ParkMan raises some good, and quite common, issues.

One thing I'd say is that it's a mistake to limit Pack Committee Meetings to den and pack leaders. We call 'em parent meetings and in five years we've NEVER had a monthly parent meeting flop because of poor attendance. We schedule parent meetings each month as part of our annual den and pack meeting plan. They are usually on the fourth Monday of the month, with th stated aim of planning the den and pack activities for the next month.

We usually have meetings at the same place --- currently at a Starbucks store, and at other times at a library meeting room. One of the aims has been to get parents IN THE HABIT of attending.

When we have a spring or fall recruiting night, we invite new parents to our committee meeting and treat it as a reception for those new parents, to encourage them to attend and to feel welcome.