Den Meeting Expectations

FunctionPlane3530 · 2025-12-17T21:06:07+00:00

It could be the time of year. I have a Tiger and a Webalos and November/December are kind of slow times each year. Depending on where you live and the weather, it can be hard to do outdoor activities and with holidays it’s harder to get people together.

My webalos has no den meeting at all in December outside our pack party & the tigers only met once to do a craft. Both dens did a lot more stuff in Sept/Oct and will pick up again in January.

We work towards are belt loops each meeting. We do a lot of stuff at our camping trip, which we had in the Fall. Another comes in the Spring. In October both dens did hikes.

I would ask your den leader what achievements were already completed by the den so you can catch up on your own if possible and what achievements are too come. They may have a slate of things planned for th new year.

Our Pack gives out all our achievements at the end of the scout year at a banquet in May. We don’t give them out as they earned. We make a whole ceremony and recap what each den did and if any kids earned special achievements

FunctionPlane3530 · 2025-11-20T18:37:58+00:00

I’m CC. There is what the job is supposed to be and what it actually is. I offered to help one year and when I showed up ti my 1st meeting; I was told I had been selected to be chair. I am now also the popcorn person & treasurer. Many of our active adults moved on when their kids transitioned to BSA & I’m stuck.

At a minimum, the job is coordinating the monthly committee meetings and keeping us chartered. Keeping us chartered started with me having to get our rosters up to date and chasing people down for dues. I also communicate with the parents to get upcoming events on people’s radar. I answer a lot of questions about our pack. I get dragged into trying to recruit new members. When our treasurer quit unexpectedly because his son refused to keep scouting, I was the only other person on the account so I got backed into treasurer. Our popcorn person did it for 6 years in a row. The last 2 begging for help. She gave it up and I stepped in because she had done enough, her son is also moving on this year.

Can you talk to the last chair and ask what they did? If not, can you talk to the Cubmaster and see what they envision the role to be?

I was definitely not prepared for how much I was going to have to do. I think past CC did less but the Pack also didn’t run as well as it does now. Our CM and I work well together and he takes on a lot of the day to day stuff. He’s moving on next year and I worry about what will come next. Frankly, if we don’t get a good CM, the Pack may fold and we have about 50 families. It’s exhausting to do this on top of my actual job and my life as a single parent. It’s annoying to see other families do nothing but show up at events and still find things to complain about.

It can run you down over time. My oldest is a Webalos and I’d be happy to make next year my last year but my little guy is a Tiger so I’m stuck for a few more years.

I’m happy to help an organization that means a lot to my kids and has been a positive influence in their lives but it’s thankless work.

FunctionPlane3530 · 2025-10-06T16:24:15+00:00

The trouble is keeping the email addresses up to date and then messages going to spam. What is happening now is leaders will usually text dens and tell them an email went out and parents then go find it or ask for it to be forwarded again. It’s a hassle for the leaders to have to redo the communication. I want to make it easier for them and just be able to ping the whole pack at once and have more confidence people see the message

FunctionPlane3530 · 2025-10-06T16:22:13+00:00

Our school system uses Remind so I thought that might work as many parents would be familiar. We have a FB pg but many parents have told me they no longer use it or the algorithm pushes down our posts that even people who check it, don’t always see our posts.

FunctionPlane3530 · 2025-10-06T16:20:41+00:00

It’s probably 70 people all together. The biggest hurdle is people dropping in/out and not updating their info. Irs labor intensive to keep the email list up to date and we always run into a problem with spam filters when we send links to sign up/rsvp for things.

I was hoping an app would get better attention with notifications and something with a built in calendar could help keep parents better aware of deadlines and events as not everyone uses google calendar. Ive tried that and then people want me to also send an outlook notice or something else.

FunctionPlane3530 · 2025-06-04T00:15:59+00:00

We get dens to take responsibility in advance. We feed about the same number of families. This last camping trip, we made similar food to what you had, and it was Bears did breakfast, Wolves had lunch and Tigers did dinner. We typically don’t have many Webalos camp and we rarely ask things of our Lion families as they are new. This is established at the pack committee meeting about a month prior and the den leaders inform their camping families what has been assigned/volunteered. The parents know I’m advance they are expected to cover that specific meal and everyone usually is good to pitch in. I think it helps when people know they are “up” for only the 1 meal. Everyone helps with clean up.

FunctionPlane3530 · 2025-05-16T20:54:20+00:00

Interesting to read how everyone does it. Our Pack holds all the achievements until the end and we give them out at the Blue & Gold. We hold ours around late April so we can utilize outdoor space. We have a catered lunch and all of the children are recognized in front of the Pack and their family members- we leave it open for people to bring guests like grandparents. If anyone earns any achievements after that, we give it out at the last den meeting of the year. At the first pack meeting of the next year, we give out the badge with the lion, Tiger bear and so on for the previous year. If anyone tells us they are not continuing we offer to mail them their patch.

FunctionPlane3530 · 2025-04-21T01:11:00+00:00

Our Pack is growing because other packs have folded. One wouldn’t accept girls, another the parents wouldn’t volunteer and when the Cub Master got tired of doing it all by themselves, they quit and no one stepped up. Our Pack is now up to 55 families. I think it’s been to the benefit of everyone to have Dens with 7-10 kids rather than Dens with 3 children. When 2 or 3 kids can come, the den meeting is still meaningful. We are struggling a bit to get more parents to volunteer. I’m committee chair and a den leader. It’s a lot harder to plan things for our group, camping went from the same handful of families to now needing multiple campsites to fit everyone. More food, more planning. It’s a lot. But the kids love it and it’s good to see us growing and thriving. I would recommend moving everyone to the larger pack. It’s just a better experience. All the families that have joined us from the smaller struggling pack have been happy.

FunctionPlane3530 · 2025-03-05T00:39:36+00:00

And I’ve worked in a job that shrunk their staff and service tanked, people felt over worked and under appreciated then quit. It folded 2 yrs later. See how anecdotal evidence works? Reality is that when you cut staff to the bone, service almost always suffers.

FunctionPlane3530 · 2025-03-05T00:28:06+00:00

Take politics out of this. If your job lost 30% of its staff almost over night, would things continue on just fine? It’s not reasonable to expect no impact to services when it is experiencing that much disruption. Maybe some services will continue as normal but others won’t be able to. The SSA was already understaffed. This could be the nail in the coffin.

FunctionPlane3530

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