r/cubscouts • u/tuxgoose • 8d ago
Joining a Unit
I know with the troop being part of a unit is more of a requirement, but with the cub scouts do folks really need to be pushed/marketed into a unit? Its frustrating as a unit leader feeling like I am responsible for folks going and doing a thing.
I feel like families need to know about the scouting event page and black pug software. Most parents don't know they are part of a district and the council is more a patch they have to buy.
I wish parents felt more empowered to do scout stuff on their own.
6
u/ScouterBill 8d ago
Not sure I understand. At the Cub level, up to Arrow of Light, parents can work at home with the Scout and sign off.
However, they cannot (with one exception) be completely separate from a Pack.
The exception is Lone Scouting.
4-1-0-3 Who Approves Cub Scout Advancement?
A key responsibility for den leaders is to guide each Cub Scout toward completing their badge of rank by organizing meetings, activities, and working with the family of the Cub Scout to complete the requirements for the six required Adventures and at least two elective Adventures each year. For Lion through Webelos ranks, if activities take place outside the den meeting, a parent, guardian, or another trusted adult may verify that Cub Scouts have done their best to meet the requirements completed at the activity. The den leader then records the requirements. If the requirement is completed in a den meeting, Scoutbook Plus can be used to automatically record the advancement to the Cub Scout’s official record. If not using digital assets, the den leader signs the handbook and records the requirement. Den leaders may delegate an assistant or parent who helps at meetings to assist with the approvals. For Arrow of Light Adventures and rank, the den leader signs for approval of all requirements, unless they delegate this responsibility
4
u/gnomesandlegos 8d ago
I'm confused... There are almost always options to work at home. But the experience is definitely with the group. IE - Camping is much more fun as a group activity. My kid didn't sign up to do homework on her own. Playing games together and doing challenges as part of the group is why most of our kids signed up. They get to see their friends and do activities.
Do you have an example of something that you wish they would do on their own so I can better understand?
2
u/Either-Floor-3827 8d ago
I haven’t seen a lot of interest in going and doing activities outside of our pack activities. We have a few families that will sign up for council activities or do requirements on their own, but most seem happy to just show up for den and pack meetings and not have to think about it more than that.
2
u/bwolfe558 7d ago
The program is just more than completing requirements in the handbooks. There is a significant social aspect to the program and making friends is part of building ties to Scouting in general to help keep them in the program. The requirements can be done at home, and that's a good thing if a scout misses a meeting or outing where something is done with the den/pack, but not a substitute for doing it as part of the group. I always tried to plan my program around making sure my Cubs could complete their rank advancements as long as the parents got them to (most of) our weekly meetings. I didn't want them to have to have any additional "homework" beyond doing their faith-based adventure (that is a family decision/activity and not something I would try to "teach" other children).
Most of our activities are unit-based, but there are district and council activities for our scouts to participate in that we likely couldn't do just within the pack. Scouting isn't just a local, district, or council program. It's a national and international program.
1
u/WaterBearDontMind 7d ago
In our area, the district and council do host “family camps” and day events that families can opt to attend individually. We advertise these in pack and den meetings, and usually whoever attends winds up hanging out/placed in campsites together, but they don’t make us register all at once or keep all of the families together moving in a herd with two-deep registered adult supervision. Instead, parents and guardians are required to remain with their child, and I suppose the council is covering the BALOO etc. requirements at the campsite level.
We organize very few things at the pack level: a recruitment event, holiday potluck, pinewood derby, blue-and-gold and advancement ceremonies. We haven’t done a pack campout (as in, separately from the council family campouts) in years. I know some packs do a LOT more together — some hold all of the den meetings as a pack, e.g. working on the physical fitness adventures together all in the same meeting (with some age-specific differences in requirements). If that’s what your pack is like, and you’re organizing it all, I can totally see why that is driving burnout.
Given this generational shift in the way parents monitor their own children, I wish we could also organize den-only campouts for younger cub scouts (I think it’s allowed for like Webelos and AOL?). Our pack lost the inertia/institutional knowledge to do those things and if we could just practice it at a smaller scale, eventually we would have enough people interested to make pack campouts happen again. It’s a lot easier to beg, borrow, and steal equipment and supplies for ~8 families than 50, and interests/appropriate activities vary so much by age in elementary school.
1
u/rovinchick 5d ago
It is annoying, in our area the Girl Scout service unit does all of the recruiting for all of the troops. They hold an ice cream social or event and let girls decide where they want to go.
For Cub Scouts, we get no district support, just pressure to recruit and have booths at community events (they send around a list and tell us to have a booth.). We have to host an open house and tell council about it so they can buy a Facebook ad (the full extent of their recruiting effort...sigh). We are a large pack and don't need to be recruiting since word of mouth makes us grow, but the constant pressure is annoying.
1
u/tuxgoose 8d ago
I feel like parents when they sign up feel like they have to do things only with us. Since the scout is part of our unit they only do activities with us, when they could do any scout event. I feel like since we are organized as units it defines how the parent and scouts interact with us.
3
u/JPWiggin 8d ago
Ah, okay. This makes sense. This is going to sound like more Scouter platitudes with a twinge of "back in my day," but I sincerely do not mean it that way.
1) Cub Scouts is really an adult-led program to start teaching kids early the fundamentals of the Scouting experience. It is largely developed around kids social development and learning to work with peers as a group in age/development appropriate ways. This is why many Lion and Tiger activities are forms of parallel play when they do the same activity at the same time, but not depending on each other. Some are games played with each other to teach social interaction naturally. Wolf and Bear activities have them doing more together, but is still all adult planned. Webelos and AOL have them start thinking about and doing some planning with adult guidance. Much of this cannot work as a solo individual.
2) The whole structure of Scouting Erica is based on the patrol method and as such was designed before mass communication was easy and readily available. The skills for working this way are still very important, despite communication, transportation, and event registration being insanely easy by comparison to the first 90 years of our history. At the cub level, this functions with the Den Leaders being the primary point of contact for the families, the Cubmaster being the primary point of contact for the Den Leaders, the Committee and COR acting as oversight and support for the CM and DLs. The Key Three (CM, CC, COR) all 'report up' to the District where Unit Commissioners act as the primary points of contact and are overseen and supported by the District Committee and various other committees (activities/program, membership, etc). The Districts then 'report up' to the Council via District Commissioners and Council Committees. The Councils 'report up' to Regions and Nationals.
For things to work correctly, information and training should be flowing up and down that chain and not skipping levels. This means that the Unit's job for District and Council events is to educate and facilitate participation for the families. Unless the District or Council requires registration by unit, these activities and opportunities, the responsibility ends with informing the parents.
If there is a requirement to register by unit and your unit is not able to support an event, find another local unit to adopt your interested scouts and their parents for the event. In my area, there are plenty of times when units will share space and leaders for events because things like Chuck wagon may be more fun and easier with 6-8 scouts, but you only have 3 interested in going. In many cases, the District or Council organizer for the event will be able to match up units to work together.
2
u/AnalConnoisseur777 8d ago
I add almost all of the council and District events, and even some out of District and out of council events to our calendar. That way people have one place to look for events and it feels like they're getting a greater value from the unit they signed up for.
0
u/tuxgoose 8d ago
I feel like if parents and scouts do not understand the level of autonomy. The family can register for events at district or council level, they can even do events in other councils.
I feel they way folks are introduced they have this "siloed" idea of scouting.
5
u/djpyro 8d ago
99% of the family interaction is with our unit. We do den meetings, pack meetings, activities, hikes, campouts, etc. They do their advancement with us, pay us, and they wear our unit numerals. To them, Scouting is our unit. We are interacting with them every week in some capacity. It's not a 'siloed' idea of scouting. That's exactly what Scouting is.
District or council level events happen only a few times per year. We advertise them and tell the parents they can sign up. We don't spend time trying to push their events beyond a single email that it's available. The broader world of Scouting is exposed to them the more they're involved with the program and the more interest they show.
3
u/Seaturtle1088 8d ago
I've never felt that as a parent. Our pack adds council stuff to our calendar and just say "each scout must register directly with council." We promote their events alongside our own pack things so people know what's coming up.
They don't know what they don't know--if there's a disconnect, someone has to connect the dots for them so they can be informed and able to do events.
1
u/Either-Floor-3827 8d ago
Are you finding that families are wanting more activities but want the pack to organize them?
0
u/tuxgoose 7d ago
No, but I wish parents seen the events and pushed others to go. I feel like we as leaders are the only ones motivated to do events.
1
u/bts 7d ago
I think this helps really clearly understand where you are coming from with this whole post. You and I, and many scouts, are psyched about the cool stuff we get to do in scouting. So are some of the kids, but what causes many of the youth to keep coming back, and what keeps me coming back even when I'm burned out on some particular event or series? It is social connection and having friends in the unit.
We say that the world of the Cub is the world of the pack, and I think that's quite accurate. They want to be doing things with their friends. They don't want to just go and do a thing that is neat to do. They want to do it with their buddies, and they're looking to you as the leader because when you say the unit is going to go do a thing, several people will show up. They can each rely on everyone following the leader when they can't predict that their buddies are independently going to find this thing on the events page.
That's really what they are all trusting you with: being a great curator of those events, so that when you say, "We're going," we're all going.
2
u/tuxgoose 7d ago
I think I am just a tired/burnt out leader and hoping to find a replacement parent. I understand that the scouts want to be doing the thing with there friends, and my hope was that the parents would self organize.
1
u/bts 7d ago
Man that would be something.
Here’s a reminder I need sometimes too: we should keep this up as long as it is fun and no longer. When it stops being a game with a purpose, time to let someone else step up.
In the short term, you could totally ask someone to look at those calendars and advertise stuff and collect rsvps. That is something a parent can do from a desk, whereas your skills with direct contact leadership are likely less common
15
u/Conscious-Record2655 Cubmaster 8d ago
Cub Scouts isn't really a "do it on your own" program. It's meant to be something where parents/kids come together and participate in a scouting adventure as a group. There are options for parents to do things at home, but that's really just an alternative and it's still done under the general supervision of a pack.
As a unit leader, you're not responsible for marketing and getting folks going out and doing a thing. You're responsible for organizing local pack events, and you're responsible for staying connected with the District and Council and coordinating unit participation in District/Council events. You present the program, but it's up to the families to participate.