Committee Meeting Notes for November 23, 2001

This was a virtual meeting, and was conducted via e-mail. All Pack Committee Leaders and Den Leaders should have received copies.

The following items were discussed (Committee Chair's comments are in standard type, and comments from Committee members are in italic type):

• The popcorn pickup and distribution went very smoothly this year. Kudos go to everyone who helped make this a smooth and efficient process. All of the Pack orders have been picked up, and now we just need to collect the money. If you could ask people to have their checks, made payable to "Pack 222", for the next Pack meeting, that would be convenient; otherwise, they need to get them to me by December 3rd. My address is 136 MacArthur Drive, Williamsville, 14221, and they can either mail them to me or put them in my door.
• Every Scout should have their Pinewood Derby car by now; Den Leaders, please make sure all your boys have one, and let me know if you need any more. Also, we have just been notified that the Gym is unavailable, so it will be held in the Cafeteria. Finally, it was suggested that we bring cars from previous years to the next Pack meeting, so that the new kids and parents can see what they look like; please try to bring some.
• I plan on holding a pinewood derby workshop on Monday, December 3 at 6:30 at the school (I reserved a room). The purpose of the workshop is to give tips on how to build a car. the meeting is primarily directed at the new scouts and parents but anyone can come. I'll make an announcement tonight at the pack meeting. --Bill Sullivan
• The Bobcat ceremony is scheduled for the November Pack meeting, and I believe that Kevin said we would be working on leather crafts.
• The December 17th meeting conflicts with the 4th grade concert at North High School, so we should seriously consider rescheduling. This happened last year, also. I do not know what Kevin has planned for this meeting.
• Den 3 is doing the flag ceremony in November; who wants to do it in December?
• I hope that all of our Dens have been meeting, making progress towards ranks, and having fun. If you are having any difficulties with your Den, please contact Kevin or me.
• Blue & Gold Breakfast: We have put a deposit on the banquet room at Sean Patrick's (Millersport Highway). It's called Emerald Isle. It is less than a year old and is beautiful. The room is much larger than Old Red Mill. The menu (breakfast buffet) and price ($9.95 adult/$6.95 child-plus 16 % tip) are similar to last year. I will shortly be putting together a flier to send out to inform all of our pack members and to begin taking reservations. Last year the pack paid for the cubs and partially supplemented the other guests. How do we want to handle this issue this year? I am hoping to have a B&G committee meeting soon - possibly a quick one after the pack meeting Monday to get going on the other plans for the banquet. --Darlene Carroll
• The FAME Park cleanup issue needs to be revisited. We really need a committee chair for this, who can make sure it's being done, and who schedules what Dens are doing it. Den 14 was supposed to do this in November, but we dropped the ball for various reasons, and we sincerely apologize. The first step would be to contact Mr. Gaughan and let him know that we are interested in this project. For those who are new, Mr. Gaughan had asked if we could have a few Scouts clean up the park on weekends, when the custodial staff is off, as it gets cluttered with garbage quickly, some of which blows next door into the LDS Church parking lot.
• The Summer Camp Committee plans to reserve either session 3 (Monday, July 15, to Thursday, July 18) or session 5 (Tuesday, July 30, to Friday, August 2) for the resident camp. Based on the experience of the past few years, it turns out that resident sessions held during the week are only half full while those including a weekend are very crowded. The theme of this summer camp is the Return of Camelot. I plan to attend an info session at the Council this tuesday at 7:00pm. We will make a first announcement at Monday's pack meeting so that parents, cubs, and entire Dens can start planning for this event. --Jean-Claude Thill
• Advancements: I have all the Bobcat badges and clothespin board ready for Monday. I still don't know from Kevin if he wanted to do the Bobcat ceremony this month or next month. If no one volunteers for the Fame Park Committee, I'll volunteer. That's all from the "advancement committee". --Marian Morales
• I think we're all done with membership for the year; again, if the Den Leaders could review the roster for any last-minute changes, that would be great. As far as I know, all Scouts have official registration forms on file with the Council. We still need to have some of our new Committee members fill out adult leader forms, but we can do that in December.
• I won't be doing the web page or e-mail after February; if anyone wants to take over, please let me know. On a similar topic, the hunt for a new Committee Chair should be taking place.
• Mike wrote a great Treasurer's report. So as not to blur with the rest of the notes, I've attached it below. Any formatting errors are probably mine.
• We should come up with some ideas for events that take place outside of Pack meetings; if possible, we should pay for Cubs out of our Pack funds. I'm thinking that one "extra" event per month would be great.
• Pack meeting agendas for year – It has been proposed that we have a "template" for our Pack meetings that is followed from year-to-year. For example, we know that the Bobcat ceremony is in November, Arrow of Light in January, etc., but if could schedule even some of our guests, such as "December is ZooMobile month", that might make it easier to plan, and give the kids advance notice of what to look forward to. Comments?

Pack 222 Virtual Treasurer's Report

This is so cool. The beauty of technology.

Assuming that many of you may not have Quicken, I typed out the latest treasury report, which is accurate as of the Pack meeting last night. At first blush, it may appear that our funds are low. I will address this after the report; no need to worry, as you will see. Popcorn to the rescue.

As of the end of September, we had a balance of 422.33 AFTER paying $500 to the Scout Store to get our account up and running. We also paid Dave back for some minor expenses (34.01), which he incurred during Roundup. The monies for the Little Rock sleepover went in and out, which effectively cancelled each other out. However, we did have an additional cub show up that was not paid for, so we had to pay an additional $33.00 for that scout. (Check # 802). Below is a summary of all expenses incurred since September.

CHECK #	PAYEE	AMOUNT	PURPOSE
799	Chris Sabuda	147.63	ice cream (spring)
800	Dave Yearke	8.50	Roundup expense
801	East Amherst Fire Co.	100.00	Pack meeting
802	Little Rock sleepover	33.00	adjustment
803	Sean Patrick	100.00	B/G downpayment
804	GNFC (Scout store)	300.00	account balance
805	GNFC	50.00	Scouthaven dwnpmt
806	M. Steffan’s	150.00	Pack/leather wkshop
	service fee	2.00

The expenses add up to 758.13. On November 13, I deposited ALL the checks for the cubs that DID NOT sell any popcorn, as well as a miscellaneous check for left-over ice cream that was purchased by one of the cub families. That amounted to a $1,286.98 deposit. After the deposit was added, and the expenses deducted that left a balance of 818.18. However, it seems I overpaid the "leather lady" last night by a total of $9.00, so I have 9 bucks in cash to deposit that was reimbursed to me by her. Therefore, our OFFICIAL total as of today is $827.18.

At this point, I need to point out that we have additional incomes as well as expenses coming our way very shortly. Our Pack sold $3355 in popcorn, a good number, but far short of last year's output. The pack receivers 30% of that which means we will turn a profit of $1005. The fact that we had far fewer cubs sell than last year has significant impact on the funds available to plan our year.

We also have an additional $112 for 2 scouts who just paid the registration/activity fee, and we still have one unpaid scout and a partially paid scout for an additional $92 in revenues.

We also have 20 scout families that will get a partial refund of various amounts because their cub sold popcorn. Estimating that they will get on average a $30 per family refund, we will retain 25 or so per family, which is an additional $500. This of course is purely an estimate.

However, add the 827 current balance, the 1005, the 112, the 92 and the estimated 500 dollars, and that will give us approximately $2536 for the remainder of the year.

(Question: is the $50 down payment to Scouthaven refundable after families pay? If so, consider it income.) We also have received, in the past, small stipends for renting out our pinewood track to other dens. If the same occurs this year, this will bring in an additional $50 - 100 income. That's all the good news ----

Now, the hopefully not so bad.

Expenses will take a good portion of the above projected income. Registration will be approximately $1100, which is an average of $21 and some change per scout (20 for the old cubs, 25 for the new).

The pinewood derby expenses last year were $210, but we are purchasing fewer trophies, which will probably cut down on the expenses. However, every participant will get some sort of a medal (I believe that is the plan), so the expense may be the same or slightly different based on the cost of the trophies/medals. For purposes of this report, I'm going to assume it may not change much, if at all.

The Blue and Gold has already been paid a $100 down payment, which is the equivalent of already paying for approximately 13 cubs (estimated cost per cub will be somewhere around $7.50 per cub). Assuming we will have and additional 40 cubs attend, that will be an additional 300. The committee under the fantastic leadership of Darlene Carroll is looking at possible entertainment, and that is an additional expense usually in the range of 200-300. Allow 50-75 for decorations, etc., and the Blue and Gold will cost us somewhere around 600 including entertainment.

We also have to allow for 4 to 5 more Pack meeting speaker fees, even though we may not spend that exact amount. Allow for 400 dollars.

Add the 1100, the 210, the 600 and the 400, and our expenses appear to be somewhere in the neighborhood of $2300. Subtract that from the projected balance of 2536, and you can see we are in decent shape, leaving a positive balance of somewhere in the neighborhood of $250. This will allow some additional monies for other activities such as a Bison's game in the spring or a ride on the Maid of the Mist (subsidized).

Keep in mind these numbers are purely estimates, and if the B/G committee feels that den skits or songs might fit the bill, that would save a substantial amount of money for the Pack.

Respectfully submitted -

Mike Townsend