Check out this previous post for a summary of all of the fun activities the pack has planned for our scouts for the upcoming year; you can also take a look at our online calendar, which is right on this website. Parental involvement and support is the reason the pack is able to provide so many fun and educational activities for the scouts. Parents are always welcome to attend the pack’s monthly leadership meetings, and we especially invite you to our annual planning session which will be held on August 20th.
At our annual planning session we will review the pack’s financial status and approve a budget, begin work on the popcorn fund-raising campaign, set the agendas for our monthly pack meetings. If you are interested in working with the pack leaders on these types of activities, you do not need to join as an official leader to help. The pack is also considering some additional special events if there are parents that are interested in helping us coordinate the following:
- Sports: Two years ago the pack took a bus to Wrigley Field for a behind-the-scenes tour, and we have gone on group outings to Chicago Steel hockey and Chicago Rush arena football games. There similar opportunities for tours or games at other venues.
- Conservation: The Village of Riverside is amenable to working with the pack for a wide variety of projects, and some of our scouts have helped with similar iniatiatives. These are a good experience for the boys, and can result in special recognition and awards from the national Boy Scout organization for our scouts.
- Just Plain Fun: Places such as Medieval Times, Blue Man Group, and the Tall Ship Windy all offer significant discounts for groups, and often have patches for scouts to memorialize the fun.
- Pack Meeting Presentations: Last year the pack arranged for special visits from Animals for Awareness and storyteller Chris McBrien, but if we have pack parents or other people in the community that would like to share collections, artistry, stories or other fun activities with our scouts, you are most welcome to let us know.
- New Scout Recruitment: We need to coordinate with the PTO and administrators in each school to promote the Pack 24 Cub Scouts to potentially interested families. We could also use your help in getting the word out, especially to families with boys that are going into first grade and that could be new Tiger scouts in the fall.
- Popcorn: The popcorn campaign is our biggest fund raiser and contributes about 2/3 of the funds for our annual budget. Our Popcorn Kernel, Vince Pecis is looking for a few parents to help him coordinate the site sales and pickup for this year’s campaign. The area BSA groups are all coordinating so there will be some special events like minor league baseball games for families that take a leadership role in this year’s popcorn campaign.
If you’re not available on the 20th but would be interested in helping to coordinate an event, let us know by talking to a leader or emailing us at pack24riverside@gmail.com.
Thanks for helping us make this another awesome year of fun for our scouts.