Advice in how to organize

[moosetracker]

This past weekend I did my first ever training as the District Training chair the Outdoor Leader training. I think I bombed.. Royally.. And it was all in the organization.. I ran around non-stop All day Saturday and though I had some free time Sunday, still had panic attacts.

 

This is how it went.

 

1) My predecessor hooked it up with the district Fall camporee. That meant no Pavilion, indoor training area, or canopy unless brought, also no tables, and no fire pit unless brought.

2) 2 weeks before the event the person who was to do the cooking backed out. I tried several ideas for replacements but got no one, as most people tied to troops would be with their scouts at the camporee.. So I took on the cooking skills.

 

Friday night

1) I went to set up. But it was raw raining and the wind was blowing horribly. I had the help of my son (19 yo).. Although we set up and cleaned off our gargage tent, we got there and while setting up discovered one of the corner joints holding three poles together was missing. My son fashioned a corner by jamming sticks into the pole holes and lashing it. But the wind was blowing the canapy so we tied it down with rocks. Then everything else had to go under the canopy, I couldn't set up more due to the weather.. My one garage tent was not going to hold 26 people plus staff Plus all the equipment. (luckily good weather was forecasted for Saturday & Sunday)..

 

Saturday.

4) I got there early to set up, (about 6:30) Garage tent blew down, and off into a deep gulley. All that held on it was the lashed joint. So that was worthless.

5) All participants weren't to be there until 8:30 but they started showing up at 7:00).. I started setting up the sawhorses & plywood tables then got their breakfast out (coffee & danish). Then checked the participants in.

6)Then as they started their classes I finished setting up the rest of the training area, and the area to demo the cooking skill place.

Then I prepped for the cooking skill part, Items I couldn't prep ahead of time, like hollowing out oranges.. And setting things on different tables (we had a cast iron skillet, dutch oven, and utensiless cooking area).

7) Then came lunch and I had to organize the participants lunch (again not much just deli sandwiches, tomatoes, lettuce cheese etc.)

They had a small amount of time to fix there sandwiches then while they ate, I did the cooking demo, and had them sample the items from that.

8) They went onto the next class and I had to clean up from the cooking demo, the pots & cooking utensils etc.

9) Next came dinner, Dutch Oven stew (so it was started about 2:30 and simmered all day).. So I was first busy helping all the patrols with their dinner prep.

10) When done with their dinner prep, I then started the prep for myself & my staff.

11) For some reason I was busy with dinner until it was ready about 5:30.

12) Got dinner (this is good because I missed Breakfast, lunch and even a drink of water up to this point.)

13) Dinner over and participants getting ready to go up to the OA fire.. Husband looks over at me and says "Ready to go" I look at him and say "NO way, can't go".. "Why?" he asks. I look at not only the dirty pots and utensils of the staff dinner, but that the serving table was in shambles and needed to be redone. So I stayed until 8:30 pm cleanning up. Husband did stay to help.

 

We got in the car to warm up (no rain but bitter cold).. Stayed there about 45 minutes and when I got out I could bearly move, I had aches all over the place.

 

Sunday (Luckily I could move, I feared I'd be worse in the morning)

1) All I had for meals was breakfast and I made the decision that staff would have left over danish, as it was suppose to be pancakes & bacon.. I did not want to cook or clean.

2) Still had to clean as participants handed me the containers I gave them the day before with milk and eggs for their pancakes back dirty.

3) First trainer did not show up, so I had 2nd trainer go on. Then my son was the 3rd trainer, and when first trainer never showed up, my son got out his backpack and did that part unprepared. Husband helped Son..

4) While son & husband are training, I am breaking down all the things we brought, to put in the trailer to go home.

5) Hand out the training cards..

 

Other help from Husband & son??

Husband set up to do a merit badge with a scout that morning and sat and talked to him about 4 hours. then I found my ice had all melted so he went out for ice and came back about 2 hours later. Later we ran out of one tank of propane, but had another. I thought we were fine, he insisted to go for that, and was gone another 2 hours.. Otherwise he is a sociallizer.. But did help with the dirty dishes in the evening.

Son - set up the fire and manned that, he helped other trainers with their presentations, and helped during my cooking demo, otherwise I might ask him to cut the tomatoes, or potatoes or something, and got back questions like "How do I do that?" When I knew he knew how, and I was not in the mood to explain how to cut a potato. But he organized for the Plants & Animals when I could find no one, and he took on the backpacking when one trainer was a no show.

 

OK this schedule will burn me out... So advice on how to make it look like being the Training Chair is a simple task of checking people in, and handing out training cards when they are done?? Because that is what it always seemed like to me, when I was taking training.

 

[dg98adams]

I just chaired the Outdoor Webelos Leader training for our council last weekend.

I know how you must have felt. Been there with BALOO too.

 

Main thing: Participants learned some stuff, and no trips to the hospital.. Can't ask for more than that. A good Campfire can make or break a disaster (or just harried) weekend. This is the same for an leader or scout weekend.

 

So, next time around - STAFF is the key... Can't be a one-Scouter show...(or 1 family).

 

Next time recruit more than you need, but Scouters that are dependable are priority, and don't be afraid to ask some one other than the ones who always do it.

 

This years BALOO, Outdoor Leader Skills for Webelos Leaders and Outdoor Leader skills courses ran at the same time at camp (different areas, different staff).

 

Our Outdoor courses were combined for Registration area, Opening/Closing Flag, Food, LNT, Campfire & Scouts Own Service.

 

Only other thing I would have advised since you were short on staff ... ask the participants to chip in on cleanup.., since they probably have been where you are at as well.(This message has been edited by dg98adams)

[Eagle69]

You are the Chair that doesn't mean that you are supposed to do it all yourself.

 

As has been said you need to recruit a dependable staff big enough to handle everything and then assign them various duties to carry out.

 

Back in the old days 80's - 90's I used to be on Scout Leader Basic Staff and acted as Patrol Counselor, QM, SPL, ASM and SM. The SM only had a few actual parts in the program, he mostly floated around keeping tabs on everything because he made sure that he recruited enough dependable Scouters to do the job. If the QM had a lot of chores he made sure that he had enough AQM to help.

 

Knowing the other Scouters in your district is a key factor to recruiting helpers. If you don't know them personally in order to know their training, dependability and desire it makes it hard to recruit staff.

[shortridge]

Without having been there, it sounds like the meals were a huge pain, given the prep and cleanup. You're not a caterer and shouldn't have to be one! Some ideas:

 

- Set up a DIY registration system: A sign saying "Check in here," with a clipboard and pen hanging next to it and a pile of schedules/handouts/etc. with a sign saying "Take one." When it's time to start, grab the clipboard, scan the names, ask any questions, and go.

 

- Have them eat breakfast before they come on Saturday - don't provide it. Coffee? Sure, but it's the job of the coffee drinkers to get it going if they want some, not yours.

 

- For lunch, have them bring their own bag meals with all disposable items.

 

- Have you and your trainers eat with the patrols. That way there's no separate staff meal to prepare or clean up.

 

- Instead of the staff having to clean up, include the participants. Teaching someone how to cook breakfast over a stove without also teaching them how to wash the dishes covers only half the skill!

 

Sounds like they were taking advantage of your good nature just a bit. None of the participants volunteered to help with cleanup/packup? Not all that Scoutlike, IMHO.

[moosetracker]

I WAS surprised that my training staff was not there for the weekend. Most of them just flitted in for thier part and flitted out.

 

I did have one trainer (who was EXCELLENT in the 2 skills he ran) who I found out speaking to him he use to be the Council Training chair. He stayed for most of it, but didn't help much.. I more felt he was evaluating me.

 

I have two things in mind for next time.

 

1) Hold it at one of our Council camps so that I do not have to provide the shelter, tables, and firepit.

2) DO NOT run the cooking demo.. I had alot of participants that were well trained (we are now getting those who never took the training because they didn't need it, due to required training about to kick in). Anyway alot of them offered to be on my next training staff. I will need to see if they will be willing to not only speak but stay on for staff during.

 

I am also contemplating having the participants not only cook their dinner / breakfast, but figure out their menu and provide there own.. There is just one flaw in that now that we don't have that Friday meeting a week before the weekend course, I am expecting people I am to assume know nothing, to coordinate a meal plan & the cooking gear. They did provide the cooking gear, as I listed this is what you are cooking and this is what you need to bring.

 

I also organized the patrols and gave everyone each others email contact to organize the patrol gear.

 

Does anyone else ask their patrols to plan the menu for the meals they need to cook?

[moosetracker]

Oh they did their own cleanup of their stuff after dinner & Breakfast that they were preparing themselves.. But, for some reason the containers I gave them to hold the food were not cleaned in their station, but were brought back to me dirty. Also if they borrowed something they did not have, like a knife... Returned to me dirty.

 

I just had to clean up after the staff. My staff was not very helpful, except for training and socializing.

 

The first Breakfast & lunch were to be eat before you came, & bring bag lunch. Problem was I estimated a smaller enrollment, not realizing I was the ONLY district in the council offering IOLS this season. Due to the large turnout, I would have ended up with a 40% profit for the council, if I did not add the Saturday Breakfast & Lunch.. I did try to keep it simple with little prep & little cleanup.. Danish & deli sandwiches where I put out the fixings and you made your own. I just felt I was cheating the participant if I didn't use more of what they paid for the course on them. (no way to refund, either spend or the council would keep)..

 

We did have 1 guy stay and help with cleanup for about 1/2 an hour. Then he had to book.

 

the starting of coffee, really was not quite accurate. I provided instant coffee. Then I started up a big kettle on one of those turkey burners.. If just coffee water was low, close to cleanup time, water was raised, and all patrols could get their hot water for cleanup from it. The water needed to be started in the morning, then it just ran non-stop all day long. You could have coffee/ tea / or Hot chocolate.

 

 

[bacchus]

Moose,

I have found that in new assignments I have often faced a "baptism by fire". Sometimes it is me not knowing the best way to get something done. Sometimes it is others "initiating" me into a new position. Either way, in the future things have gone much smoother. I think that is just part of life. I'm sure you did well.

 

Keep up the good work serving the youth!

[Lisabob]

You may need to provide more explicit guidance to your training staff. A checklist with "Here is what your position entails" kind of thing. Not just show up and do your 40 minute song and dance, but also a, b, c, and d. Also, it helps to have one "gopher helper" type on your training staff - somebody who you are not related to - who will just hang out and handle all the little stuff that was forgotten, overlooked, or just didn't work out as expected. A past course director can sometimes fill this role, depending on their personality and ego.

 

You'd be surprised at how few people intuitively grasp all the very hard work that goes into prepping for and wrapping up a class (no matter the subject). People who get that probably are teachers, or have done it before, or are true gems who you need to recruit! As for everyone else, spell out everything you want them to do or it just won't get done.

[ScoutNut]

Obviously, every council is different, but we very, very, rarely have the District Training Chair act as a Course Director.

 

Although I have asked our Training Chair to help staff if I was in a bind.

 

As others have said, start getting staff lined up as far in advance as possible. Line up more than you need, so that if an emergency occurs you will be covered, and if it doesn't then you will have extra help. Make sure that each member of the staff gets a copy of the syllabus, and knows what section(s) they are responsible for. Make sure that everyone knows what your expectations of them are.

 

After every course have the participants fill out an evaluation form. As part of that form have a place where they can indicate if they would be interested in staffing future courses. Don't forget to ask for contact info.

 

Do not allow walk-ins. Advertise far enough in advance that you can give yourself a cut-off date for registrations that allows you to plan for the correct amount of attendees. Get regular (weekly) updates from council on the numbers registered, so that by the time the cut-off approaches you will have a pretty good idea of what the totals will be.

 

 

[GKlose]

One of my WB patrol-mates is a district training chair, and has been so for quite awhile. I've since volunteered a couple of times to assist her with some events, and what I've found is interesting. She has an "operation" in place. She has training people she trusts, and are highly experienced. They are people she trusts and she can count on.

 

Although I don't see everything behind the scenes, I think she spends a good portion organizing what is going on, not actually doing things herself. For example, I attended her "Trainer's EDGE" workshop (6 hours over two evenings), and she only presented an opening, a closing, and one small section herself. Everything else was presented by someone else.

 

I'm assisting her with OWL for Webelos Leaders in a couple of weeks. I think she has a staff of at least 10 people for that. There are two of us that are assigned to the cooking portion -- I like the idea that if the other guy or I have an emergency that pops up, we'll still be covered. I would think it also advisable that a training chair have a "floater" nearby just in case someone backs out at the last second.

 

Guy

[The Blancmange]

 

I provided instant coffee.

That's why no one helped. It was pushback for this fundamental error. On a more serious note, every single outdoor training that I have been to or looked into attending has been at council property that is already equipped with the basic necessities. I think you decision to only hold them there is sound. Tell the training committee that if no one else helps with support, the course won't be run.

[moosetracker]

Yuck.. Yuck.. Now I have to sound like my son.. "How do you make coffee?".. I am up there in years, and have yet to see the necessity to learn.. And an outdoor purcalator is not in my home, let alone my camping equipment.

 

My husband either buys on the way to work, or lives with instant. I have never touch the stuff.. It smells awful, and looks like mud!!!! I guess for indoors events I at least have to hold my nose & pick up Dunking donuts coffee box, or learn what the parts of a purculator are for, and how much goes in to make coffee just taste ickky, and not too weak ickky, or too strong ickky.

 

Yeah, I guess some of our district volunteers asked for it at camporees because they didn't want to be away from family for two weekends in a month (the training & the troop event)..

But really you are not at the troop event except for sleeping if you are in training.. So those people should just take the training and have others of the unit do the event whether it falls on the same weekend of the troop event or not..Now we have others who do not have the unit coverage to do the training during the Camporee because they have no one to provide adult leadership to the unit if they do. So putting training on a different weekend will help them.

 

We used my sons Jeep Cherokee, my husbands HHR with a trailer in tow, and my pseudo son's pickup truck just to lugg everything we needed to the Camporee.. I can't guarentee that I will have that type of caravan for each training. And organizing equipment for 3 patrols & staff took alot. (Patrols were asked to provide own stoves, coolers, lanterns, cooking equipment). But my cooler had to lugg a patrols worth of food up anyway, we needed the shelters, and the tables etc.. for each patrol.

[Lisabob]

OK moose, here's the deal.

 

You are the CHAIR, not the DO-IT-ALL person and not the district training equipment quartermaster.

 

As training chair, your job is fundamentally to organize and promote training. The only reason you might find yourself running a lot of trainings is because you don't have a deep training staff to support you. And since you only just began as training chair, that's understandable, but it needs to be your priority to change this, or you will burn out in a big way. Make a Wood Badge style ticket if that will help you identify real structural needs and find strategies for addressing them in a methodical manner. (I think you've done WB from my hazy memories of your other posts?)

 

Start by thinking through what you can, or can't, actually manage. If you can only do something by seriously imposing on family members who love you too much to say no, then you really can't manage that something. (not more than once or twice, anyway) If you are wearing yourself out and letting other important commitments fall away so that you can pull off some training thing, then you really can't manage that training thing, either.

 

Once you figure out what you can and can't manage, be firm and say NO to those that are unrealistic. Set some boundaries to protect yourself, and your loved ones, from horrible crash-and-burn personal downfall. In the short run that is very difficult if you are a "get it done" type (which is why you got tapped to be the training chair in the first place) but in the long run, you and your district will be better off if you can do this.

 

Now about that coffee:

 

HANDS OFF MY COFFEE!

 

As a coffee-holic, frankly, I don't want somebody like you anywhere near my precious coffee supply. You won't make coffee worth drinking (no offense but there it is). Delegate the coffee selection, equipment procurement, and coffee making to somebody else. Trust me, the coffee drinkers in the crowd will understand and will probably thank you for not messing with their caffeine supply. While we're at it, no powdered coffee creamers! These are hideous and should not foul up what otherwise might be a decent mug of coffee.

 

 

 

[Eamonn]

Now might be a good time for you to sit back and look at what your role as a Training Chair. Is really all about.

A great example of how it should work can be found by looking back to what the CD did when you attended Wood Badge.

His or her job is all about developing the staff.

When the course starts he or she has very little to do.

Your job as a Training Chair must be about developing a Training Team.

Depending on how well the District Committee is set up you might be able to cross "Committee Lines" and involve other Chairs to look after some tasks. Maybe the Camping Committee could take care of providing the tents and Patrol Boxes, using tents and equipment used at Summer Camp?

We all hopefully learn from our mistakes. While offering Training's in conjunction with other events may sound like a great idea and more user friendly, if it isn't going to work? Then what's the point?

I found when I was Council Training Chair that having each of our four Districts (We are a small Council)Offer the Training's twice a year on the same weekends each year, worked for us. It wasn't perfect, but at the time it was the best we could come up with! It meant that each District only needed to present the outdoor twice a year, but the participants had eight opportunities a year to attend. Not having the courses on the same weekends meant that if need be we could ask presenters from other Districts to help if need be.

A big part of being a Training Chair is to always be on the look out for new people that will join the team and who can be trained to multitask maybe coming on to help the Quartermaster Staff and doing the odd presentation.

While you should know the syllabus for all the courses and in an emergency be able to jump in. This doesn't mean that you have to be actively involved in the course.

You might just want to introduce the staff and be happy to hang out keeping an eye on what's happening. Seeing who is doing a good job and who might be the Scoutmaster for the next one.

Ea.

[moosetracker]

Thanks for all the advice.

 

My council training chair is winding down with her last year (and she really wanted out last year). So I asked for help and advice, but really went it alone.

 

It has been years since I took IOLS myself, so although I did not remember anyone running around like a lost chicken, and I remember the training chair in the wings without stress. I couldn't remember who ran what for everything else. It just seemed like there were 4 or 5 people there the whole time, and things just ran smoothly.

 

I did get lots of people (even those taking the class) who have offered help in future trainings. It's just that I will definately have to get through to my current trainers & future trainers, what happened at this training, will not happen at the next. I will need to look for people willing to stay and support the training for more then their 45 - 60 minute training session.