Does your organization have a derby participation charge?

[Da Graphite Kid]

Since TDean asked about charging for the pwd kits, I thought I would ask about a participation charge.

To my knowledge, our Pack has never charged the boys to race.

We have had to pay a racing fee when we went to District though. In the past it has been $1 to $3 charge. This year we were looking at a $5 fee but since we got reshuffled to another District this has changed... The new Districts racing charge? Free - they found a race sponsor and I've been told will be giving out trophies for top three fastest in District as well as top five fastest in each Rank!

So what does your organization charge?

Da Graphite Kid

[Gavin Chafin]

In our Pack, everything is free (the race and the kits). Disctricts has always charged $3 per scout, which has always been picked up by the Pack. But, Districts also only gives out 3 trophiies. There's a chance they may bump up the fee this year and give out a few more trophies.

[ExtremePWD]

In our pack the kits are free and the racing is free. Our district is charging $6.50 in advance and in the past provided trophies for five places. Only four from each age group can advance to district. Our pack has the scouts pay the district fee in advance if they qualify and sign up to attend. We then reimburse the entire fee if they actually show up at the event. This prevents the pack from paying fees for scouts that said they would attend then change their minds.

[TDean]

Our Pack pays for the kits and does not charge any participation fee. I don't believe there is a fee for the District races -- not that I can recall anyway.
We have been very fortunate with our fundraisers (sell an embarassing amount of popcorn every year...), so fees have not been an issue -- I just wish I could get them to purchase a better timing system (we have the flashing led system: steady for 1st, fast flash for 2nd, and slow flash for 3rd -- no light for 4th -- it drives me nuts) and maybe a better starting gate -- but I'm getting off the subject

[BlackDodgeRam4x4]

Our Cub Scout Pack #137 from Terre Haute, Indiana has in the past never had any type of charges to the scouts for the pinewood derby. I took over as cubmaster this year and again there will be no charges for the derby. However we have been working very hard to get buisness sponsers helping us by making donations of decorating supplies as well as donations of drinks and food items to be sold at the derby. We have been given 15 cases of various soda pop, 2 cases of individual bags of potatoe chips, coffee, hot dogs, buns, pizzas from a local pizza chain, 50 individual orders of bread sticks and cheese, 2 full sheet cakes decorated in racing theme from local bakeries, all the paper goods and condiments needed for the event, most of our scouts mother's will be making baked items to offer also. With all this free food and the over 150 people expected to attend our derby we should have no problem selling enough food, snacks and drinks to more than earn the approx. $250 it cost our pack to put on this amazing event for our scouts. We have even arranged for a proffesional photography studio to come and take individual and den photos of the scouts and their cars which can be purchased by their parents at a very reasonable price if they so choose, again at no charge to the pack. With all this and the over $250 worth of race day decorations that have been donated to our pack by area party stores it should be a wonderful derby for our 30 scouts and their families without making the pack's checking account cry in pain. Happy Racing to all and thanks for the wonderful web site.

[Whistler]

We don't even have district races in our area as the district we are in doesn't seem to get it together for many large group participation events (other than a very active summer camp)

I've been trying to get our pack to run the district derby and had not even thought about financing it. This thread has been illuminating to say the least. Will have a committee meeting tomorrow and have a lot to discuss, thanks all

Tdean: we have the same flashing finish gate that you do, but our has a RS-232 interface for a computer hookup. With the appropriate software and a little preparation we have been able to run a very efficient race. Of course we use average elapsed time to judge the fastest cars, not elimination as many of the others here advocate, but you should be able to upgrade your current timer at a reasonable expense to do at least that.

[ranman106]

No participation charges in our pack. I'm not sure about district but I have not heard of any being charged. We discussed PWD at our last leaders meeting and nothing was said about it.

[TDean]

I know this is getting off the subject of participation fees....
Whistler wrote

Tdean: we have the same flashing finish gate that you do, but our has a RS-232 interface for a computer hookup. With the appropriate software and a little preparation we have been able to run a very efficient race. Of course we use average elapsed time to judge the fastest cars, not elimination as many of the others here advocate, but you should be able to upgrade your current timer at a reasonable expense to do at least that.

You know, I do seem to recall a computer interface connected to the timing system -- but I don't believe it has ever been used.
Our races are not what you'd call "efficient" but they sure are fun! We have a wacky system where we race one den at a time -- 2 dens a night for a week -- then have the Finals (top two from each den) race on Sunday (along with the Adult races). This way we spread the fun out a lot. Our space cannot accomodate hundreds of people -- but we can keep the track up for a couple weeks, so we found this works great. No child has to wait forever for his car to race, and we're not pressured to start a new race every 5 seconds -- but each car gets to race at least 8 times, and we finish a den's races in less than an hour. We don't do much in the way of decorations or refreshments though.... hmmmmm....

[KLenort]

Our pack has always had free kits and racing, it's the boy's benny for selling popcorn. We did charge $5/scout for our district Cubmobile race last year, but that included a free pizza ,pop, and a medal (we broke even).