Help Wanted!

We need your help: Cub Scouts doesn’t happen without adult volunteers!

There are several roles we need help with:

Pack Committee Member - you would commit to meet at 8pm on the first Sunday of the month (September through May or June), and give your opinions on how to run the Pack. You may be asked to take on ad-hoc projects or activities to help the Pack — such as menu-planning and food shopping for a specific camping trip, or helping supervise an activity, etc. Some Committee Members also have a regular, repeating task — for example the Treasurer would prepare a financial report for each meeting, or the Committee Chair would coordinate an agenda and run the meeting. Committee Members also commit to attending Pack Meetings, 7pm on the third Friday of the month (September through May), and may be asked to attend some of the other Pack activities, like camping or hiking.

Approximate Monthly Time Commitment: Committee Meeting (1hr), Pack Meeting (1hr), plus ad-hoc tasks and Pack activities.

Den Leader - plan and implement 1 or 2 Den Meetings a month for a specific grade-level Den. There is training, and an extensive syllabus to follow that gives you step-by-step instructions for every meeting. (They really make it easy.) Expect to spend about an hour to plan each meeting, and then an hour or two on the actual meeting. You can — and should — ask the other parents in the Den to help with planning and execution. An Assistant Den Leader would help the Den Leader with these activities and commit to attending most or all of the Den Meetings.

In addition to the Den Meetings, you would commit to attending Pack Meetings (7pm on the third Friday), Committee Meetings (8pm first Sunday), and some or all of the Pack outdoor activities - camping, picnics, hikes, etc.

Approximate Monthly Time Commitment: Den Meeting 1 or 2 times (1hr planning ea., 1.5hr meeting and cleanup ea.), Pack Meeting (1hr), Committee Meeting (1hr), plus Pack activities.

Cubmaster - plan and implement Pack Meetings and Pack activities. There is training and a great deal of resources out there for planning a Pack Meeting — science night, fire truck night, bike rodeo, etc. Expect to spend an hour or three planning each meeting, and then an hour or two actually at the meeting. This will get easier and faster the more you do it. You should ask other parents, Den Leaders and Committee Members to help with planning and execution.

You also plan and execute the fall and spring camping trips, summer camp, Fall Fest, Camporee, and other outdoor or group activities. A lot of the planning happens during Committee Meetings, so there are lots of volunteers there to help out.

You would also spend some time each week on administrative stuff — we have a weekly email newsletter, there are recruiting and training activities like Back to School Night and Ice Cream Social, someone needs to go to the Scout Shop to buy badges and books, someone needs to set up the Pinewood Derby track, etc. Again, there are other volunteers to help with these things, but it’s up to the Cubmaster to coordinate.

In addition to Pack Meetings (7pm on third Friday), the Cubmaster also attends the Committee Meetings (8pm first Sunday) and most or all of the Pack outdoor and group activities.

Approximate Monthly Time Commitment: Pack Meeting (2hrs planning, 1.5hr meeting and cleanup), Committee Meeting (1hr), Administrative (2 to 4hrs), plus Pack activities.

Female adult (21+) volunteers - as a Family Pack that accepts girls and boys, we are required to have a registered female leader at every activity. “Registered female leader” in this instance can mean a Committee Member, Den Leader or Cubmaster — anyone who has taken the extra steps to submit an application, get PA Volunteer Clearances, and taken the online training. Your monthly time commitment depends on the role you’ve volunteered for.

NOTE: You don’t have to be a parent or guardian of a Scout in the Pack to volunteer. Current or former Scouts, interested members of the community, college students looking for volunteer opportunities, etc. are all welcome to join Scouting. You must be age 21 or older for all adult volunteer roles in Cub Scouting.

How to Volunteer…

To become a volunteer, we need you to complete 3 things:

1. An application

2. PA Volunteer Clearances

3. Online training

The application is easy: it’s online. Click that link and choose “Adult” and go through the steps. You will be asked to pay a registration fee as part of the application. Since you are volunteering for the Pack we will reimburse you for this fee. (Save your copy of the receipt, although we should get our own copy.)

There are three separate PA Volunteer Clearances. These are the same clearances you would need to volunteer with school, a sports team or a church youth group, so you can re-use those if you already have them and they are within 5 years. (They “expire” and have to be re-done every 5 years.)

• PA State Police Criminal History Clearance: https://epatch.pa.gov/home.

• Child Abuse History Clearance: https://www.compass.state.pa.us/cwis/public/home.

• Fingerprints -or- Residency Disclosure:

• Fingerprints – make an appointment at: https://uenroll.identogo.com/workflows/1KG6ZJ Cost is $23.25 (as of 9/8/23)

• Disclosure Statement – if you have resided in PA for 10 or more consecutive years. https://www.dhs.pa.gov/KeepKidsSafe/Resources/Documents/Disclosure%20Statement%20for%20Volunteers.pdf

Once you have copies of each of your clearances, they should be turned in to our Chartered Organization Representative (Andrew Barnett) and also sent to Cradle of Liberty Council.

For online training, the bare minimum is the Youth Protection Training.

1. As a first step for this and all other online training, register for a login at my.scouting.org.

2. There is a link from your my.scouting.org dashboard to Youth Protection Training, or you can click here. This online training takes about 1hr 20min, though you may stop and start it.

3. Youth Protection Training “expires” after 2 years and you will need to re-take it.

Beyond Youth Protection Training, it would depend on the specific role you volunteer for. Most of the roles listed above have additional online training, of around 3 hours per role. You can stop and start the trainings; you don’t need to do it all in one sitting. These trainings don’t “expire”, they are once-and-done.

There are a few additional training items that are optional, but very helpful to the Pack. Some of these are in-person weekends, but there are also online sessions.

  • BALOO - Basic Adult Leader Outdoor Orientation - at least one leader on every outdoor activity must have BALOO training. This is a weekend in-person training offered 3 or 4 times a year by Cradle of Liberty Council.

  • Hazardous Weather Training - Approximately 30 minute online training course about safely navigating hazardous weather during outdoor Scouting events. At least one leader must be trained in this at every outdoor event. The training expires and must be re-taken every 2 years.

  • Other advanced training, like Safe Swim Defense, Paddle Safely, Aquatics Supervision, Leave No Trace, CPR, Wilderness First Aid, Wood Badge, etc.