Tag: Pack Committee

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Financial practices for units: Bank accounts

In the first article in this series, I offered some recommendations on being prepared financially through creating and following an annual unit budget. In this post, we’ll look at some banking best practices for your troop or pack.

Let me first say that I am not a lawyer or a CPA. The points that follow are gathered from reliable past practices as well as my understanding from folks who do know better. As always, check with your own people if you’d like definitive advice that applies to you (it’ll probably cost you, though).

Continue reading “Financial practices for units: Bank accounts”

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Financial practices for units: The unit budget

bankbookNow that many troops and packs are winding down the most active part of their program year and are looking forward to scaling back a bit over the summer, and as adult leadership and committee assignments often change, it’s a good idea to review how you do business, from a business standpoint.

While most Scouting units don’t fall  in the “small business” category, they do tend to handle a fair amount of money during a typical year. For a Cub pack, registration and membership fees and other costs such as insignia can run upwards of $50 per year per Scout. Add in fundraising proceeds, family camp, Blue & Gold banquet, Pinewood Derby trophies and day camp, and you could hit $10,000 without much trouble. In a troop, this can skyrocket when you factor in equipment, camping and high adventure. A typical troop can run $25,000 or more through its checking account in a year’s time, and if the troop uses a system of Scout accounts, the amount of cash held in the bank can be substantial.

How, then, does a unit best maintain the safety and accountability of these funds? Continue reading “Financial practices for units: The unit budget”

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What we’ve got here is failure to communicate!

Our pack committees and leaders meet and plan the details of our pack programs, starting before the program year with updates frequently thereafter.

Den leaders make plans for outings, activities and rank achievement work. The coming weeks and even the entire year are scheduled with the boys in mind, so everyone can have maximum fun and earn their ranks while they’re at it.

Packs plan overnighters, special events at pack meetings, a banquet and Pinewood Derby race. Things every boy can have fun doing.

Then we wonder why attendance is so low. Continue reading “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate!”

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Selecting volunteers

raised_hands_200As we get back into high gear with our pack and troop programs, we may find that we’ve had some “churn” in our adult commitments. Perhaps a family moved away over the summer or decided on a shift in priorities. When that happens, an adult who made a commitment to volunteer in our unit is no longer available. This churn is most common in Cub Scouting, as den leaders move up and new dens (particularly Tiger dens) form, membership in the various den levels gets redistributed, or an adult in a key role has experienced a change in outside commitments, such as work or other involvement, and can’t continue in that role.

You might thin the term selecting volunteers is a bit strange – Continue reading “Selecting volunteers”

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Build it and they will come

Field_Of_DreamsAbout four years ago, our community voted on itself a tax increase to build a new library. Even though it was only twenty or so years old, the former library building was way too small. There was hardly any space to hold the burgeoning collection of materials and provide room for modern technology such as computers and DVDs. Though it had lots of programs and regular users, there just wasn’t enough room. A committee of dedicated volunteers and professionals designed and built a beautiful new building so big that six of our former libraries could fit inside. There are quiet areas, conference rooms, a coffee shop and a large conference room, plus room to grow. The amazing thing to note is that in this day and age of being able to look up just about anything online, the parking lot is packed every time I drive by, seven days a week, and it’s difficult sometimes to find an available study room when I meet Scouts there to go over merit badges. Continue reading “Build it and they will come”