Membership
Back to School Night: 17 days and Counting
We are approaching the two week mark from Back to School Night for scouting. At this point, your pack’s to-do list should already have some items marked as “Done.”
First, you should have an annual calendar planned and printed for distribution. The calendar should be sure to include your schedule for adult training, the September 12th Rocket Launch and Pack Family Overnight Campout in October. The calendar does not have to be in depth. It just needs to include the date, time, and one-sentence description of the activity. The goal is all families will be able to block time on their calendar to avoid later scheduling conflicts. The calendar should cover through August 2016. Details such as location, leader-in-charge, rendez-vous times and delegation of responsibilities is immaterial right now.
Second, you have an annual budget for the pack and dens that is broken down to an individual scout. This should include basic information about the initiation fee, the role of popcorn sales or other fund-raisers in deferring the costs, methods for obtaining uniforms cost effectively, and campership opportunities for big-ticket items like Summer Camp. The new family needs to know what this is going to do to their family checkbook. Ultimately, they need to know there is room for all scouts, regardless of family finances. Contact your Unit Commissioner or District Commissioner Jeff Heck for help in designing your budget or sales pitch.
Third, you should now have possession of the model rockets that you are expected to distribute to your new recruits. These were available for distribution at the August 6, 2015 Roundtable. Only a handful of Packs attended to receive their rockets. Contact your Unit Commissioner or District Commissioner Jeff Heck for information on how to arrange pick up of your rockets.
Fourth, you should now know where you are manning tables for August 27th sign up night. Contact District Executive Con Sullivan if you are not sure or have not informed him of your plans for that night.
Fifth, you should now know who, where, and when your Pack is providing speakers for Boy Talk recruiting speeches in advance of August 27th. If you do not, again, contact District Executive Con Sullivan.
Sixth, you should know who your Pack Back to School Night coordinator is.
Seventh, you should have reviewed your website, Facebook page, and other online resources to make sure that they are up to date and accurate. Make sure that the Pack officers names and contact information is correct. Make sure meeting time and place information is included. Make sure that your basic calendar information for special events. If you do not have a Pack Facebook page or webpage, I recommend using wordpress.com. It has free website that a non-techie can learn quickly. Updates can be done as simple posts (like on this website). Old information remains available to review in the archive.
If your Pack has each of these done and you have read this article in full, please have your Pack Committee Chair email District Commissioner Jeff Heck that these are done.
Thank you for your continued support of scouting and Back to School Night.
Back to School: 19 Days and Counting
Part of this year’s Back to School recruitment campaign is to have activities for the Cub Packs to participate in during the first 60 days of the school year. Essentially, these are “just add water” activities.
Pack Overnight Campout
One of these activities is the Fall Pack Overnight. Council has preplanned three different Pack Overnight weekends. All your Pack needs to do is sign up according to the information in the Council’s flyer then show up.
North Star District is encouraging all of its Packs to participate in the Pack Overnight at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway from Friday, October 17, 2015 at 6 p.m. to Saturday, October 18, 2015 at 4:00 p.m.
There are many exciting activities already planned.
If your school, athletic team, or Pack has a conflicting event, there are alternative dates and locations.
While participation in these Pack Overnights, Cubs who camp out on a regular basis are more likely to remain active in scouting. This is what they think scouting is all about. (And they are not far off the mark.)
Back to School: 24 Days and Counting
For August 27th, we still need volunteers (such as Boy Scout Troop leaders and scouts) to man tables at the following schools. None of them have existing scouting units:
- IPS 109
- Deer Run Elementary
- Eastbrook Elementary
- Snacks Crossing Elementary
- Park Tudor (no confirmations but two families contacted; expect a “yes” from one of two)
Pack 625 needs help at New Augusta South and Central Elementary, their normal feeder schools.
Please contact Con Sullivan, our District Executive, to sign up or with questions.
Importance of State Fair Base Camp for Recruitment
Michelle Carroll continues to seek volunteers for Base Camp at the State Fair Grounds. I was confused about the impact Base Camp has on recruitment. So I asked some questions. Here is what I learned.
Council uses Base Camp to put BSA programs in front of families and to have conversations with families about what Boy Scouts is. Depending on the year, weather, and scheduling of the Fair, between 400,000 and 1,000,000 people pass by Base Camp. Of those people, just short of 15,000 enter Base Camp to see what it is about. This means that as many as 1,000,000 people see BSA in the community, and many have contact with BSA members.
At the shooting range, boys are given an opportunity to express interest in scouting, by the parents’ signing a contact list. Persons on this listed are sent emails to inquire about joining.
Volunteers are important to this process for several reasons:
- Base Camp volunteers have contact with prospective families, telling the scouting adventure stories.
- Base Camp volunteers’ story telling increase the number people who express interest in scouting by signing up in the shooting range.
- Base Camp volunteers cause prospective families to have warm feelings about scouting before the prospective family walks into a scout sign up night. These prospective families are more committed to joining scouting and more likely to draw other interested families to the sign up night.
- Base Camp volunteers help boys experience parts of scouting that no story telling can match. These volunteers help stoke the flames of passion for scouting before any sign up occurs.
Help making recruiting more effective this fall by volunteering your unit for Base Camp.
Back to School Night: 28 Days and Counting
Once you get your new adults enrolled as scouters, they will need training. They are expected to complete Fast Start position specific online training within 48 hours of registration.
Remember Council accepts no registrations accepts without a Youth Protection Training certificate of course completion being stapled to the adult application. This is available online at myscouting.scouting.org or can be offered in person using a video available from the Scout Service Center or District Commissioner Jeff Heck at jheck@cacnorthstar.org.
District is working on its training schedule. Online training is available at myscouting.scouting.org for most positions. Council already has some in-person training scheduled. Cub position-specific training (e.g., Cubmaster, Pack Trainer, Den Leader, etc.) will be offered at the Scout Service Center on the
- evening of Tuesday, August 4th,
- evening of Wednesday, August 12th,
- evening of Tuesday, September 1st,
- evening of Tuesday, September 8th,
- evening of Tuesday, September 22nd,
- evening of Tuesday, October 6th,
- evening of Tuesday, October 13th,
- evening of Tuesday, November 3rd, and
- evening of Wednesday, November 18th.
BALOO training, which is required for Pack overnights, will be offered in conjunction with boy scouts Introduction to Outdoor Leadership skills on Saturday, September 12 from 9 am to 5 pm at the Scout Service Center. Every pack must have one person trained in this for a pack overnight campout. This session is highly recommended because future cub leaders who plan on serving as assistant scoutmasters in the future can obtain the necessary training for both at one event. These trainings never expire, so they are “one and done.”
Back to School Night: 29 Days to Go
At Back to School Night, new parents will be looking to answer the following questions:
- How much does Cub Scouts cost for the year?
- How does it fit with the family calendar?
- Does the Pack have a vision for its success?
To be able to answer these questions, your Pack Committee needs to be able to deliver 3 key documents to the prospective Cub parents:
- A document telling the parent how the program is paid for. This could be a budget for out of pocket expenses in neighborhoods with well-to-do families. This is more likely to be a statement of costs for each Cub and the role popcorn sales is used to defer the costs. This could be a statement describing how financial assistance is offered to families who need it. Your Unit Commissioner should be able to get you guidance for these items.
- A year-long calendar of Pack events. The dens should be meeting in early August to discuss with their den leaders what they would like to see the Pack to do. The den leaders should report those results for a mid-August Pack Committee meeting to schedule the year. The results should be listed on one sheet of paper and be specific about arrival times and departure times. For example, the North Star District fall family overnight at Indianapolis Motor Speedway should tell families to arrive at the track at a specific time and expect to leave by a specific time. This allows new families to put the event on their family calendars with specificity. This prevents double booking as easily. Successful packs are good at calendaring by habit because they simply say, “We customarily go to . . . in November so that we can . . . .” Newer or struggling packs can duplicate the clarity of vision by simply stating, “We are scheduled to go to . . . in November so that we can . . . .” Prospective families are looking for programs close to home that can clearly describe the program. They will avoid wishy-washy units that only say, “We are thinking about doing something this fall.”
- Having a vision statement for how the Pack will perform is very important. This vision statement is not a formalistic business plan gobbledy-gook. It is simply a some concrete goal that can be understood. To be a strong unit, look at the Journey to Excellence criteria for bronze, silver, and gold. Pick a level that makes sense to your Pack. Then tell prospective families what your goal is, “We plan on being a Gold Award Pack.” Most parent don’t know the criteria, and don’t care. They will be interested in knowing that the Pack has a vision of meeting the highest criteria. The statement could be focused on the boys, too. “We plan on each boy making rank by February’s Blue and Gold Banquet and going family overnight camping in the fall, in the spring, and at summer camp. We plan on attending {insert two Council Circuit of Fun Activities}.” The vision of success is contagious and exciting for prospective families.
Remember that part of your programming is already done for you. The Rocket Launch on September 12th and the Pack Family Overnight with District at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in October.
New Pack Start Ups Need Troop Help Now
Currently the District is looking at starting or rebooting 3 to 4 packs in the next 30 days. These packs will need help from veteran scouters to make them work.
Each troop should always have an eye on one or two packs that feed Webelos into the troop. These prospective scouts are the lifeblood of our troops.
All too often, the scoutmaster corps and troop committee members are exhausted of their time and energy after giving to their home unit. They don’t have anymore to give.
One of the best ways for a troop to support a Cub scout pack is identify a past den mother who is not currently active with the troop. Through cooperation with District Commissioner Jeff Heck, she can find a role to assist a pack. She would not be asked to join the pack committee, be a cubmistress, or be a den leader. She would simply be an advisor.
We need four past den mothers who can serve in this role. Please contact Commissioner Jeff Heck at jheck@cacnorthstar.org to find out how this can work.
Whoever places the former den mother in a pack has the best chance of recruiting scouts in the future.
Pack Membership Coordinator Recruitment
This is the time of year that it is so important for a pack chairman to recruit a pack membership coordinator.
One of the hardest parts of recruitment is explaining the nature and duties of the position. Units that have had the luxury of having one parent assist in year one and then do the job in year to have the advantage of on the job training.
For most other packs, most of the training has to be done using other resources: classes, literature, or on the job experience.
BSA has put together a wonderful website for all packs, troops, and crews to be able to use for different recruitment purposes. There are even YouTube videos for the membership coordinator to learn their job. This is different than the usual E-learning process because there is no login required.
Take a look at this website to find out what you can do to improve your recruitment this fall.
Volunteering at State Fair Scout Base Camp
REMINDER: Thursday’s Recruiting Rally at Victory Field
Remember that all Cub Scout Packs should have a representative attend the Recruiting Rally at Victory Field downtown west of the Convention Center on Maryland and Missouri Avenues this Thursday, July 16, 2015. Food is served but that required an RSVP last Monday. Now it is an open house, but no additional food reservations are being accepted.
The Rally starts at 7:00 p.m.
Your Pack representative will receive the recruitment package that you will need to run the August 27th sign up including paperwork, yard signs, and rockets.
Scout Troops and Venturing Crews are encouraged to send a representative. While the bulk of the recruitment goes to Cub Packs, Troops and Crews can learn how they can help support their sister Packs. We have over thirty elementary schools to staff on August 27th and only 18 Cub Packs. We need Troops and Crews to help cover the balance of the schools that night. We also need volunteers to present “Boy Talks” at the elementary schools. Troops and Crews would be wonderful in this effort.
Remember, Troops, most of your future recruits come from Webelos. If we don’t recruit Cub Scouts aggressively today, your Troop will fewer recruits in the near future. Your help is critical now. For more information on the plan, read this article.
The District Executive Con Sullivan, District Chair Steve James, District Commissioner Jeff Heck, many Unit Commissioners will be in attendance. This is a great opportunity to ask questions.
CAC North Star Unofficial Website 
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