The Great Popcorn Debate

[sctmom]

Luckily our community sports program caught on that their candy sales was losing money. Selling candy does not have anything to do with playing baseball, no matter how you look at it.

They were requiring each player to take a $40 box of candy and the association made $20. If someone had 3 kids, they had $120 worth of candy to sell! Also, every other house in the neighborhood had this candy to sell.

 

Now you can "opt out" of the candy sales. I just give them the $20 and be done. For some people who have the extended family or the co-workers who will buy everything, they can still sell. For me, I have a job and don't want all that candy in my house.

 

I've heard of some Girl Scout troops really pressuring the girls to sell cookies. I don't want that happening in the Boy Scouts I'm involved in. Because of all the reasons listed above why people don't like the sales. If the kid can't go door-to-door for whatever reason, they can't sell and they aren't learning anything from dad selling at work. As so much else, it all depends...on the family, the community, the kid, the unit, etc.

 

Just PLEASE don't try to sell those knick knacks and cheap candy the school tries to pawn off on people!

 

 

[k9gold-scout]

We live in an urban area and our troop has had the best luck with garage sales and pancake breakfast (we also sell Sees Candy). Our best ones have been in local shopping center parking lots - brings out a lot of community support. The Fire Dept always shows up in force, the Police stop by and even some homeless people come and try to pay. Get a banner for your troop and display it anytine you have a fundraiser or a service project, just about all the feedback we have received has been good!

[eisely]

I personally don't care for door to door sales, but have supported it when my sons wanted to try it. That was a long time ago. My impression is that younger kids do better with that kind of thing. Recently at work, one of my colleagues balked at buying a car wash ticket for our troop. He had no qualms about bringing his darling little girl through with the cookie sign up sheet. He had to agree that cute little girls have a huge sales advantage over teen age boys.

 

Fund raising burnout happens everywhere. Sports, PTA, scouts, church groups, and other school fund raisers create a lot of static. Those who are successful with popcorn should keep at it. We do car washes.

 

By the by, I think that there is a clear BSA policy against anything resembling a game of chance. Someone correct me if I am wrong on that.

[evmori]

eisley,

Yup your are correct. Games of chance are forbidden. And this includes Chinese Auctions!

 

Ed Mori

Scoutmaster

Troop 1

[eisely]

I don't think scouts should be selling lottery tickets to the general public, but let me describe something to you that is fun and relatively innocuous.

 

When we first became involved in cub scouts, the pack we joined had a cake raffle every pack meeting. For each meeting a particular den was tasked to bring in baked goods. Everybody bought raffle tickets at the start of the meeting, and later we drew the ticket stubs from a hat, and kept this up till all the cakes were gone. We routinely raised $50 - $75 per meeting this way. The kids loved it. When we learned of the BSA policy, we decided to keep up the tradition for the fun of it. Oops. Broke another rule.

[Bob White]

Eisley,

I hate to spoil your smirk, but what the parents are willing to do among themselves as far as donations is not heavely controled by the BSA. The fundraising rules are to keep you from inappropriatly raising money from the public.

 

Bob

[Weekender]

Our cub pack also used to do the cake raffle but it was only among parents so as Bob White says that is not much of an issue to the council.

 

A scoutmaster I met at summer camp last had a rather interesting fundraiser that his troop does. For $25 a year the troop will install a flag mount at your business and 6-7 times a year on special occasions the troop will come out and put a flag in the holder in the morning and then take it down again that evening. He said the troop makes around $2000. per year.

 

It's a long term commitment and you do occassionally lose a flag.

[eisely]

Do you also provide the flags and poles? Interesting concept.

[ScoutPro]

We use sales and popcorn is just part of it but we also have a raffle. To get around BSA policy our sponsor holds the raffle and says the money will be donated to youth organizations. Mattter of fact, council came out and complained or at least tried. Our sponsor sent them packing saying they cannot tell the sponsor what to do. Our sponsor asks all members to help and if they do a donation will be made to their camping fund. Our troop benefits but so does the Girl Scout's etc. They distributed the money based on % of tickets sold. So yep, you cannot do a raffle but your church can, or legion, VFW etc. and donate the money to your scouts.

[Bob White]

ScoutPro,

That's not entirely true, while the BSA cannot stop an organization outside of the troop from holding a raffle, the State can. One reson that the BSA does not support raffles as a fundraiser is that several states have made raffles illegal. The BSA did not want to give blanket approval to fundraising event that many state laws did not allow. The other reason is that all scout fundraisers are to provide a service or product of value to the participants. A raffle only provides the hope of a product and so is not in the spirit of the program.

 

Bob White(This message has been edited by Bob White)

[yaworski]

I think that it is horrible that parents will sell the product at work and the kid gets the bragging rights. Sure, the parents should help but there needs to be a better system.

 

Last year, my daughter sold 500 boxes of Girl Scout Cookies going door to door. The father of another Girl in her troop sold 500 boxes at his office (he works night shift and everyone is hungry) so his daughter goes around telling everyone that SHE sold 500 boxes of cookies. My daughter just about started a brawl when she said, "No, your dad sold 500 boxes you just sat on your butt."

 

My pack sells popcorn and does quite well at it. We sold $12,000 this year and $15,000 last year and $10,000 the year before that. The odd thing is that five boys sell 90% of the popcorn and they all do the lion's share of their selling door-to-door.

 

Perhaps units should recognize the top parents and the top scouts.

 

For the record, my son is one of those top five and in the four years that he was a Cub Scout he sold about $10,000 of popcorn.

 

We can't get more boys to sell. Or maybe we can't get more parents to get out with their kids and sell. Only about one quarter of our town gets hit with a door-to-door visitor. The prizes don't help because most of the kids seem to get everything that they want. Our council offers free camp if you sell $2,000 but that hasn't helped. We give 10% of the gross to the seller for Scouting expenses but that hasn't helped either. My son likes the idea that he gets a nice fat Wal-Mart card that he can spend as he wishes (within reason).

 

The folks around here like the popcorn. I see former customers and they'll say, "When are you coming around with popcorn again. I need more of that Chocolate stuff." (not everyone finds the chocolate stuff disgusting).

 

People say that girls have the edge on teen-aged boys in selling. Not if the boys act like salesmen and not hoods. When I was a teen, I did plenty of door-to-door selling and I did quite well. Why? Because I presented myself well.

 

If a teen boy comes to the door with his shirt unucked and his pants hanging halfway down his butt, who will want to buy. However, if that same boy comes to the door wearing a clean shirt that is tucked in, pants pulled up and his hair combed he has a leg up. Now add a proper sales presentation and you've got a 75% chance of a sale.

 

Sales presentation? Too many kids just go to the door and say, "You want to buy a candy bar?" They don't get my dollar. A kid who rings my doorbell and says, "Hi! I'm Johnny and I'm selling candy for my football team. We have Reeses cups, Hershey Bars and KitKats" will get my dollar.

 

Selling is a skill and needs to be learned just like knot tying.

 

 

 

[JaRae876]

Hi,

I have been active in my son's pack for a year now although he has been there two years. The first year there were no show and sell dates (going to stores and selling popcorn) and no door to door selling. The pack didn't do well with nearly 30% of the boys selling. However this past year we did the show and sells as well as door to door. We tripled just about our sells with less than 15% of the boys selling. Believe it or not three boys did the door to door selling and they together earned over 800$ in two weekends. The money raised in popcorn goes for the pack.

 

Around the holidays we have a baked good auction. The kids bake the goodies and then they get to bid on them (of course with the parents permission). Last year we had nearly 20 goodies and made over 350$. Nothing went under 10$ and I believe one went for nearly 65$.

 

Then around Jan-March we sell candy. The boys are not allowed to wear their Class A uniforms in selling the products as it is against the rules however they do were their camp shirts from day camp or their pack shirts. The money profit from the candy goes into an boys account to be used for camp. However if the money is not used for camp then the pack keeps the money for pack activities. Again with the candy there are show and sells as well as door to door selling and all have gone well. The best show and sell that we had with the candy was Superbowl Sunday. Got more in donations from people than them buying the candy.

 

When ever we do the door to door selling it is in the 2-deep leadership.

 

JaRae

Pack 37

[KoreaScouter]

We sold popcorn in Virginia, but didn't do it here last year (first time popcorn sales were offered in Korea). We'll probably have to do it this year, since our other main fund-raising opportunity may not be available to us again.

 

Here's my question for any of you who may know. I've seen unit profits from 22% (Virginia if we took prizes) to 40%. Is this a local Council determination? I think last year, units here got just 15% (I'm probably off on this). It's hardly worth it for that, but for 40%....

 

KS

[AdvanceOn]

Yes, apparently it is a council decision on the profits. Our council, Greater Pittsburgh gives higher profits as incentives for attending a training, getting paperwork in on time, etc. Troops and Packs could get up to 41% profit last year. The profits were much higher than in the Buckskin Council we previously belonged to.

[KoreaScouter]

OK, I just got the package from District the other day. Our units are getting 34%, no prize option (fine with me). We need to turn in our commitment not later than August 3rd. Our choices are:

 

-28 oz carmel corn

-24 oz chocolate carmel corn

-12 oz carmel corn

-24 pack variety microwave

-15 pack butter microwave

-15pack butter light microwave

 

All you old popcorn kernels out there; which of these are popular and which are not? When we turn in our commitment, we need to give our product mix, too, and I don't want us stuck with a dog, although I do want to offer some variety.

 

Our committee voted last night to commit to just $1500 worth, which will net us about $500 when it's all sold. I would have gone for a higher commitment, but last year was the first for popcorn in our district, and this year will be the first for our troop, so we have no idea how well it will sell...

 

KS