Getting on My Soapbox

So last Thursday night was the Blue and Gold dinner for Cub Scouts at the church. All of the leaders worked really hard putting it together, cooking, decorating and so forth. I cooked 30 pounds of Teriyaki chicken and others made fried rice, veggies and mooncakes for the dinner. We spent 2 hours setting up the cultural hall that afternoon and another hour taking it all down and cleaning-here is where I get on my soapbox. We were supposed to have started at 6pm - we did not start until 6:25. I had asked my boys ( the bear den) to be there early because we needed practice a skit before we started. Out of the 6, 2 of them were there early, one of them being Caleb, and the others trickled in at 5 minutes till the thing was supposed to start. I had to practice the skit with them 3 different times as each of them trickled in. Then this when I started to get mad-because we weren't starting on time everyone's kids were running around like maniacs and the parents were all just chatting away with each other. The leaders were trying to get the food out on the table and stuff while we waited for the Cubmaster to run home and get her notes that she forgot-that was why we started so late. Seriously, it was a zoo. I had my kids sitting down coloring the papers that were set out for them to do but they were frustrated because everyone else was running around and they couldn't. That is how it is after Sacrament meeting too-the parents stand around and chat while the kids run around and chase each other and jump off the stage. I try to hurry out after Relief Society so that I can gather my kids before they start doing that but hardly anyone else cares. I have heard many times from my kids " Why can't we play? Everyone else is." Of course my response is that we need to be reverent at the church and I am their mother and so they need to obey me. Back at the pack meeting-At one point while we were waiting to start and I was helping put out food I noticed that Cayden had disappeared. We went to find him and we thought that he had gone to the nursery. As we were walking down there we heard a ruckus in the Primary room so we stopped and looked in there and there were about 6 of the scout age boys running around in there with the lights off screaming and yelling. I told them that they needed to go back to the cultural and that this was not an amusement park but the church. We found Cayden in the nursery and headed back to the cultural hall. When we got back in there some of the older boys had taken the chinese rice paddy hats that I had bought for the skit from the my scouts that were wearing them and were playing keep away with them. I took them away from those that were being obnoxious to find that they had broken the string that holds the hat on your head. We had not even used the hats yet and they were already getting broken. AAARRRGGGG!! We finally got started and started eating. As usual the kids got done eating first and so they start horsing around again. At one point there were plates flying around us and landing in our food and then later there were chairs being tossed around like pillows. Luckily no one got hit or hurt. I was getting quite upset with the whole situation but as I was not in charge of the whole thing and I am not those kids' mom, I did not feel like I had the right to tell everyone to sit down and shut up. I could tell that there was at least one more mom that was feeling the same way I did and she actually called me Friday morning to vent about it all. The question is-what do we do about it? This gal that called me about this issue is fairly new in the ward and she says that she was appalled and had never seen anything like the chaos that was going on at a pack meeting and the most "formal" pack meeting of the year too boot. I just don't get why people can't control their kids or how they can be oblivious to the fact that they are running around and messing around in the church. It would be more understandable if we were at the park or something but there is such a lack of respect these days!. It is making me nuts-especially because I am a control freak and want to see things done the way that they need to be done. HELP!! (getting off my soapbox now)