Pack 3025 Parents Meeting
Monday, November 14, 2016
(Find your Pack 25 information at http://www.winnebagobsa.org/Pack-3025-Waterloo-IA/)
1) Meeting called to order by
John Henry
2) Attending: Matt
Hennig; John Henry; Chris Klaren; Chris Mayer;
Tom Novotney; Jeff Patrick; Mike Treinen; Andy Wolter
3) Approval of
previous meeting minutes –
October minutes approved
4) Reports:
·
Cubmaster
·
Would
like to establish a planning committee for campouts and other activities.
·
Does
someone want to look into building human foosball or gagaball?
·
Would
like to organize a canned food drive, need someone to help.
·
Secretary
·
Review
pack schedule for next 3 months: John
Henry is in contact with the Waterloo Fire Department to schedule a fire
station visit in early December, probably some day after school. Date and time to be determined. Jeff Patrick will contact St. Eds to see if the pack can help deliver Christmas presents
in December as a service project.
Pinewood Derby and the Blue/Gold banquet will be held March 5; Pinewood
Derby car cut out will be done in early February. Other activities in mid-January through
February include a possible sledding trip (weather dependent) and a visit to
UNI for swimming and rock climbing. The
online schedule will be updated as plans are firmed-up.
·
Pack
management software evaluation, update.
3 software options have been investigated: ScoutTrax.org (free), Cub Scout Tracker
($40/year), and Scout Book ($35/year). Focusing
on advancement and remote (smartphone) access, the first two packages were
found to not be smartphone-friendly for access and update. Scout Book is very smartphone-friendly, but
maybe not as convenient as the first two for data management on a PC or
tablet. It also is configurable to let
parents monitor their scout’s advancement progress and enter completion of
advancement activities, for no extra cost.
There are at least 2 other highly featured packages ($100/year or more)
that can be potentially evaluated. Given
that Scout Book appears to meet our needs, at least for now, we will use it to
see how well it will work out for us.
More information will be shared as additional users are set up.
·
Health
forms needed – we currently have about half of the health forms from scouts in
the pack. A reminder will be emailed to
parents to submit their completed forms.
·
Treasurer
–
Troop financial report – The pack has $2220.41 in our bank accounts, split
between the general fund with $2115.57 and scout accounts of $104.84. $90 in checks and cash are waiting to be
deposited. Scout account balances will
be linked from the pack web page so parents can access the information for
their scouts.
·
Little
Eagles flights, report: 5 scouts and 1
sibling were able to make the flights, and all had a great time. Thank you David Arntz
for making this happen.
·
Fall
Frolic Day Camp – Spooktacular, Sat Oct 29,
report. Many of our scouts and families
attended, and had a good time.
·
November 5-6 - Cabin campout at Camp Ingawanis, report.
10 scouts camped overnight with 10 parents and siblings. Two other scouts, parents, and a sibling were
able to spend Saturday afternoon at camp.
Reportedly a great time was had by all.
Thank you leaders for pulling this together in a relatively short time
to take advantage of the great weather.
· December activity: visit to fire or police station, update: Refer to previous notes in schedule review.
· January activity: Snow sledding, and visiting the UNI climbing wall and pool are being considered for Jan-Feb.
·
Advancement
– advancement
activities. No awards earned since the
October parents meeting. The Bobcat
badges earned in October will be presented at the next den or pack meeting.
·
Service Projects – The scouts and parents at the November can drive removed the pull tabs
from a number of cans and saved them for the Ronald McDonald house. As described previously, service projects for
delivering Christmas presents from St. Eds and a
canned food drive are being considered.
·
Chaplain – Religious awards information, update:
Matt is working with the diocese, parish, and the pack to determine the
timing and which awards are appropriate for the dens to work on. More information will be shared as plans are
established.
·
Training
·
Cub
Scout leader and committee training, United Methodist Church, Clear Lake, Nov
5, report. The training has been
postponed due to an insufficient number of registrations.
·
Basic
Adult Leader Outdoor Orientation training on Nov 19 at Tosanak
Recreation Area, Marble Rock (previously Scout Camp WSR). Do we have any
leaders or other adults interested in attending?
·
Equipment
–
The pack has been using the Troop 1 equipment for its activities, as previously
agreed with the Troop committee. This
was very handy at the November campout.
·
Fundraising
·
November
5 pop can drive, report. A very good can
drive with 16 bags of aluminum cans, 17 bags of plastic bottles, and 14 boxes
of glass bottles collected. 9 scouts and
8 adults participated. The next planned
can drive is December 3.
·
Membership – no report
·
Round
Table Update – Round table
report from November 10: The focus of
round table is for all units to complete the recharter
process by Nov 30. The cub scout breakout demonstrated the construction of collages
with themes to keep cub scouts busy and engaged.
5) Old
Business
·
Pack recharter update – Work is underway to reconcile the
council’s membership records from mid-October with our current pack
membership. Journey To
Excellence and other forms will then need to be filled out before submitting
for signatures.
·
Pack
committees – what should we establish first?
The group discussed the following, based on imminent need: Scout Sunday, Blue/Gold banquet, Pinewood
Derby, and Outdoor activities.
6) New
Business
·
Pack rosters
– It was suggested that the pack should electronically distribute rosters of
our scouts, with parents names, and contact information to help keep all
members’ families connected to the pack.
Chris will send emails to pack parents to see if any would prefer to
withhold some or all of their contact information before sending out a roster.
·
Pack
photographers – The group discussed the need to have some volunteer pack
photographers to capture a few images during activities. The pack has a private Facebook page that
they can be uploaded to for sharing.
Please let us know if you can help us out with some photos.
7) Announcements
·
Boy
Scout Nights with the Waterloo Black Hawks, Nov 18 and Dec 10. $8 tickets, Scouts will receive a Black Hawks
patch, and Scouts in uniform will receive discount concessions. Email Chris Klaren at cklaren1@mchsi.com
to register, registration deadline Nov 15 and Dec 7 respectively.
·
Next
parents meeting Monday, December 12, 2016 at The O.P. (on Ridgeway Ave across
from West High), meeting starts at 7:30 PM.
8) Adjournment -
Upon having completed the evening’s business, the meeting was
adjourned.
Respectfully Submitted,
Chris Klaren
November 14, 2016
Future Items:
·
Spring
campout (April/May) with Pack 88 (Matt)