In article , bizby40 says...


"Beth Kevles" wrote in message
...

Hi --

The gift should not be seen a from the parents, but as from the girls.
THe girls sign the matte, the girls are responsible for showing up to
get photographed ... and EVERY girl should see herself as helping to
give the gift. (Isn't this part of what scouting is about?)

Regardless of whether or not the families give (and you can certainly do
your best to make them feel guilty :-) no girl should feel left out from
the gift giving.

No, certainly I wouldn't want the girls to feel left out. But I'm not
good at trying to make people feel guilty. I'll just have to hope a few
more step up. Enough at least that I don't have too big of an out of
pocket expense myself. I already ended up paying the lion's share
of the cost for the fruit and veggie trays that we took to the Cub
Scout Blue and Gold dinner because the other parents didn't all
step up and give their share.

I've volunteered in Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts (just gave a set of seminars and
activities for the Weather Badge for my troop), and you know what? This has
gotten to be my credo:

If it ain't already explicitly accounted for in the budget (like the newsletter
stamps were explicity accounted for) - I just pay for it. No, I ain't rich, but
I just pay for it.

The 'extra' stamps for the Cub Scout newsletters so that it can go to some
grandmas and both of shared-custody households as well as to the 'main'
households? I just paid for it.

The copying to produce the newsletter so that it woudn't be crooked, white, and
half-smudged copies some eager volunteer offered to get off the school copiers
in the afternoon (I tried that option *once*)? I just paid for it.

The pre-printed weather maps, erasible synoptic weather poster, materials for
the cloud experiments? I paid for it all.

Why??

I'm a chump :-)

No, really - to my mind, it's my *time* that by far the more valuable chunk of
my giving anyway, some money too is a nit. And far and away outweighs the
hassle of explaining why I don't want Mrs. Smith's barely-in-time and
barely-readable, though free, newsletter copies, why Mr. Jones should get a
newsletter as well as Mrs. Jones, why the weather maps stuff is really really
cool, etc .etc.

It's not the right answer for everybody, but there it is..

I also avoid all the organizing type of stuff, frankly, so I can't help you
there. With volunteer work, you really gotta hang loose about what other people
do as far as their committments. A lot of people are just flakes.

If *I* were doing your thing, I'd work with the girls only, talk to the parents
about the uniforms for the picture day and that's it. And have it be a totally
girls' thing. And eat the costs. Not saying that's the answer for you..

I've seen a lot of really neat ideas go by the wayside because money came up.
But I'm not the only chump - in our Cub Scout pack our Secretary srpung for
individual family photo albums with camp photos. Must have been at least a good
hundred dollars.

Cheers,
Banty