Whew! February was a busy month for our pack. We had so many events that I promised my wife, "No weekend Scout events in March." I'll write about the art of delegation, and the terrific parents of my pack who step up, in another post.
Today, I'd like to tell you how our month got so crazy.
In years past, we have held our Pinewood Derby in January, which is the traditional month in Cub Scouts. The theme for January 2016 was The Great Race, and the Scout Law point was Trustworthy. We would have gone along with that plan, but our Pinewood Derby Chair was travelling for work, so we pushed it to the first weekend in February.
Our awesome Pinewood Derby Chair found a new track for us on Craigslist last summer. He drove to Milwaukee to buy it from en engineer, who had used it to run a business. We bought a 6 lane wooden track, electronic timing system, stanchions with rope, car carriers, and car display racks, for $500. To make our investment back, we decided to run races for area packs without tracks - we call it the Pinewood Pit Crew. Our first two events were scheduled for January 30 and February 22. This added to our Perfect Storm.
Another event we usually plan for January is our Webelos Winter Weekend. I wrote about our plans in a previous post. This is a campout for Webelos only, and they really enjoy being the only scouts in camp. This year, no one had a free weekend in January, so we planned it for the third weekend in February.
Now, the traditional February event for Cub Scout Packs is the Blue and Gold Banquet. This year, the monthly theme was Friends Near and Far, and the Scout Law point was Friendly. Two of our moms put together a Heritage Pitch In, and every family brought a dish representing their heritage. Since we have first generation immigrant families from several countries, as well as American-born families with strong ethnic traditions, it was quite a feast! I'll write all about it in another post. The point to make here is that we scheduled it for the last Tuesday in February.
The other event that the Pack Committee planned for February was a community service project. The scouts would go to a nearby assisted living facility, where they would make valentines with the residents and play games with them. This project would be a chance for any den who still needed to complete service for an adventure belt loop to do so. It was supposed to happen the Saturday before Valentine's Day, but you can see what happened to all the weekends in February. The Wolf den, who needed it the most, completed it over two den meetings. They made cards on one Tuesday and walked to the senior center to deliver them on the next. Luckily, the other dens had already completed their required projects!
Now, we have some of the best parent volunteers ever, but February called on them so much that I felt like I was abusing their Scout spirit. Here's what we're doing to prevent this from happening next year:
1. We have declared that the Pinewood Derby will be held on the last Sunday in January. Now everyone can plan ahead for this new pack tradition.
2. At the Pack Planning Conference in June, I'll set a January weekend for the Webelos Winter Weekend and stick to it. Whoever can go, will go.
3. We will recruit more parents to the Pinewood Pit Crew and put up available weekends early. We hope to work 5 races next year, which will put us into the black on the track.
4. We have a Tiger Den mom who is a pastor and an expert at recruiting volunteers. She'll come to next month's pack committee meeting and tell us her tricks! Then, we can put one parent in charge of each event, which will prevent ME from changing it at the last minute :)
How does your pack handle scheduling SNAFUs like this? How do you recruit enough volunteers to handle it?
Scout On!
Cubmaster Rhys
No comments:
Post a Comment