Cub Scout Roundtable

[Cubmaster-Fred]

I took over as the Cub Roundtable Commissioner in April. The District has never had good attendance at the RT and was wondering if anyone has ideas to help me correct this.

 

This month the meeting will be in a central place and I have informed everyone that this is not a meeting but a place to share knowledge and ideas.

 

Am I on the right track?

 

Fred

[SWScouter]

Cubmaster-Fred, I asked a similar question here about boosting attendence at a Cub Roundtable breakout session. You may find some of the responses helpful.

 

http://www.scouter.com/forums/viewThread.asp?threadID=86092

 

Good luck,

SWScouter

[Lynda J]

I don't know if your Boy Scout and Cub Scout Rt. are held at the same time or not but ours are. It got to the point we were losing the Cubs. We finally told the RT Commissioner that they had to keep the joint meeting short and sweet and not make any announcements that didn't relate to both groups there. To talk about Camporee and such only in the breakout sessions. When we finally convinced them of that we started getting Cub people back. Now the joint meeting is limited to 15 minutes and then we split.

[Cubmaster Jerry]

This is an issue with me as well. In my old district that I just moved out of our RT is set up much like Lynda J's. However, the breakout sessions really were just unorganized discussions. The intent was for peers to talk about problems/successes and others to draw from them. It really never created the intended benefit. I always thought that there should have been some planned teachings, or at least an elaboration on the provided situation for each breakout session. Would have been more beneficial, I think. As it was, many of us felt that we only needed to go to pick up any info that they handed out.

 

Also, plan one or two short activities. Something for the new attendees to do (I had to do some song where I was a bee flying around). Organize your RT around the monthly theme to provide ideas for Pack meetings. Our RT distributed beads to attach to name tags we wore around our neck. At the end of the year, the person or Pack (depending on how you want to do it) with the most attendees over the course of the year receive a real nice scouting related prize for their pack such as camping gear or the like.

 

Hope this helps

Jerry

[madkins007]

When I was involved in Cub RT, we...

 

SHORT announcements- we even used a timer. We gave guest speakers more leeway, but we really had to sit hard on DEs and district chairs- WOW could those guys talk! Also- NO verbal announcements of items on the newsletter!

 

ABSOLUTELY keep joint meeting short. No one wants to sit through a buncha stuff that does not apply to them.

 

RECOGNITION- we used beads for each meeting, excahnge 5 whites for a red, etc. Also used birthday beads, flag ceremony beads, etc.

 

Pre-planned program, printed months in advance. Each month, we focused on a few things- up-coming events, how-tos, etc. By publishing them in advance, packs could send the right people ot the right meetings.

 

Break-outs- related to the above, we also made sure we had DL, CM, Admin, and other breakouts each session- anyone could attend any group.

 

Working the phone tree. We split up the district amongst us and each of us called a certain number of packs each month.

 

Planning the spring 'drop off'. Our numbers always dropped in March to June, so we planned especially fun sessions then, with a strong summer and camping focus. We tried to get outdoors- model camps, dutch oven cooking, and so forth.

 

'Sparklers Practice'- we made SURE we 'tried out' skits, cheers, songs, and games each meeting. A few people resisted the 'silly stuff', but usually not for long! We also demonstrated different gathering activities each time.

 

We did not do this, but another district did and had great luck with it- their RT was modeled on a pack meeting. When you signed in, you were assigned to a den randomly. The RT Chair was the CM, each den had a DL who as a staff member, etc. They ran the meeting like a pack meeting.