Outings

[Chippewa29]

I have two possible suggestions for the lack of attendance at outings:

1. I hope this is absolutely not true, but a few years back, my troop had a "Scout" that would smoke when the Scouts went exploring the woods on a campout (adults weren't around) and threatened the other Scouts if they told on him (he was older and always had a knife on him). For a few outings, we had lower than normal attendance. Finally, it came out and the "Scout" was exposed and ended up leaving, but not before half of the troop had quit (none of them would come back after he left, unfortunately). You may want to do some investigating in that area.

2. You may have some Scouts in your troop that just aren't into being outdoors. Some kids are in Scouts and like the academic aspects (merit badges), but think that roughing it is a hotel without room service. A troop in our area really presents itself as a tough, outdoors oriented troop. That turns off some people, but the members they do get are really fired up to get outdoors. While they don't have a large troop (15-18 Scouts normally), they usually get 80%+ attendance on their outings. Your troop may not have the right personnel to fit the program you want to have. While I wouldn't chase out any of the current Scouts, I'd make it a point when recruiting to show the Webelos that you are an outdoors troop. If they don't like the message, they won't come. However, if they do, they'll probably be excited to go camping. That is a long term (several years) solution.