Scouts and Fundraisers

[Eamonn]

I'll own up to being a check writer.

My deal with my son was that I'd pay half of any Scouting expense.

He had to come up with the other half.

He did this by using money earned by doing stuff around the house. (Chores, like mowing grass.) And by using money he received as gifts for birthdays, Christmas and so on.

I seen this as fair.

I also didn't have to try and sell stuff that was in some cases junk or just unwanted to the people I worked with.

We are a very small family.

All my kin are a long way from the USA.

Both of Her Who Must Be Obeyed parents were only children, her Dad passed away before my son was born and she has one brother. Not much of a market there!!

Given the choice of me spending my hard earned cash or me trying to sell stuff (And lets be honest in most cases it is the parents who end up selling the stuff!) I'll gladly put my hand in my pocket.

As kids get older they become less cute!!

They get involved in more activities. It seems every activity has some one or some group who thinks that "Their Kids" have a real need to raise funds. Band members are selling something and washing cars,Soccer Moms are having dinners and making hoagies, prom tickets cost an arm and a leg so they sell chocolates that cost two arms and three legs!!

While my son still has a long way to go till he really understands the true meaning of what thrift is.

I'm however a lot more comfortable knowing that people are not avoiding me for fear that I'll try and sell them something that they don't need or a ticket for some not so great food.

Eamonn.

(This message has been edited by Eamonn)

[packsaddle]

Eamonn, I confess...I actually LIKE those do-it-yourself band pizzas and the cases of citrus in the winter. I actually miss those fund-raisers. Popcorn on the other hand....the smell just reminds me of animal urine. Yech. I really hate popcorn, regardless of price.

[gwd-scouter]

Wow, Packsaddle, what a lovely description of popcorn smell. You may have just ruined the stuff for me. Nah...

 

We have never had much success in getting all the Scouts to participate in popcorn sales. The younger Scouts are OK with it, but lose interest as they get older. Last year we used the incentive that all profits a Scout made would go into is Scout account to help pay for activities. Two Scouts sold enough to fully pay for their week at summer camp, the rest sold very little. So, it seems helping them/their parents save money wasn't incentive enough.

 

The older Scouts may have lost interest in selling popcorn, but they are very good at selling cookie dough, pizzas and fruit for marching band. They say those products are easier to sell than the popcorn. I admit, I do look forward to the marching band fund raisers more than the popcorn sale.

 

Our troop is having its first yard sale in a couple of weeks. We don't expect great attendance for this since it is summer and a couple of our guys are working at camp, a couple more will be on vacation. But, for those remaining Scouts, we will have a pool party/cookout after the sale. The parents have been very helpful with this fund raiser, donating many items to the sale. The guys seem excited about it, too, so I hope it goes well.

 

 

[Ohio_Scouter]

gwd-scouter,

 

Good luck with your yard sale. Our troop has one every summer which earns them about $5,000 per year--way better and much more fun than selling popcorn.

[highcountry]

Our troop has been frustrated over the fundraising issue and have about given up. Most of the adult leaders believe a scout should learn to make it on his own steam as a part of the learning process in scouting, the problem is we have a predominant lazy attitude amongst our scouts and few parents support the concept of thier son getting out and learning to earn their own way. Most of the parents are fine to just write a check. We have gone to the boys on a few occasions on what ideas they had for fundraisers, only 2 significant ideas came forth. The first one was to try and make "easy Money", sell things on ebay and put the sales proceeds in their account. The general idea was they thought they would make a bunch of money easy by selling some old scratched hot wheels car and save themselves any real work. Since this was so easy we told the scouts to gather items they wanted to sell and commence, no one did. Everyone was too busy to come up with items, photo them, lsit tehm run the auctions etc. Several scouts admitted they had hoped thier parents would do it all for them ! Second idea was rent a scout, where scouts could do odd jobs in teh community and they would recieve pay to be put in their scout accounts. Not one scout ever did anything on this and not one parent showed any commitment or support so it died too.

We live in a rural area so selling is more time consuming but add to that 90% of the scouts in our troop are LAZY. We sell Wreaths, candles and popcorn and very few scouts do any of the selling, it is parents or relatives buying. I took my sons out to sell to neighbors and buisinesses and they were tops in sales this year, but complained non stop becuase no one else in the troop was being made to go out and sell. We used to do Firewood but help from adults and scouts has become so pathertic that we have discontinued that as a fund raiser as well. We were just offered lawn chore work that will pay the scouts $15 per hour per scout, so it is something different, I am trying to get nother adult to coordiante this so I don't have to run that effort too. I will see how that goes.

 

We get an annual grant from a local company and dues as well that cover all troop overhead expense, with that we allowed our scouts to keep 100% of the funds they raise in their scout account, we hope this provides incentive. I no longer have to stress about having succesful fundraisers to obtain 25% of funds raised to cover troop overhead....one less burden on my mind.

 

This past year I managed to complete the re-outfitting of the troop for camping (It had outdated junk for camping gear when I inherited it from the previous SM 2 years ago). Now we can support teh putdoor program we have converted to from the previous "parlour Scouts" suburban activities the troop used to do.

 

One of the sad things is, the scouts who are in poor families and need to take teh most advantage of fundraising, do so the least.

 

We are hearing the same issues being common with other troops at monthly roundtable, many troops have already given up on fundraising.

 

This fall we are offering the landscape work offered at the academy, popcorn sale, wreath and candle sales and that is it. Otherwise parents can write a check. I hate loosing this battle but you get burned out fighting against the tide after a while. Last Fall due to the failure of other adults I endedup running popcorn, had wreth sales dumped on me when teh coordinator was only half done, plus I ran teh firewood effort putting in 54 hrs on wood and 6 hrs keeping the books and collecting checks. I was becoming very bitter at the parents who never helped and when asked to get their kids involved, being told that they didn't want to participate and the parent felt no commitment to get their kid engaged. I hate to give up but sometimes you have to preserve your sanity.

[Novice_Cubmaster]

Fundraising teaching thrift?

 

Have you looked at the price of Trails End popcorn lately?

Despite being for a good cause, the markup on Scout popcorn

is high enough to discourage a lot of people from buying it.

Why - perhaps because THEY'RE thrifty?

 

Of course, if they mark it up high enough, all you've got to do is get 1 scout to sell 1 can every year.

 

NC

[Gold Winger]

Have you priced good popcorn at a store recently? Sure you can get your giant cans of Chinese made popcorn at Wallyworld for $5 but find some of quality similar to Trail's End. The price isn't that different.

 

Grandparents? I'm pretty confident that not one of my kids' grandparents bought anything from my kids, mostly because they are all hundreds of miles away.

 

Kids are lazy today because we let them be lazy. If the troop had ratty old tents because the funds weren't there to buy new ones what would happen? Would the boys get out and raise money? The ones that really wanted to be Scouts would, the others would quit.

 

There's the fundamental problem today. Most kids are in activities not because they really want to be there but because their parents want them to be there. Baseball, karate, etc..

 

Look around at where you see kids doing their own fund raising. Cheerleaders, debate teams, bands . . . those are the kids who are working to accomplish what it is that they want to do.

[Gold Winger]

" And as far as calling it "my troop", I did not mean that in the possessive form, I meant it as "being a part of". If anything, I consider it to be the boys troop."

 

Acutally, it belongs to the CO but I refuse to use the pedantic construction of "the troop that I serve."

 

Look around us, how many times do we say "my" without meaning actual possession?

 

My company makes a good product. . . I don't own the company. Should I say, "the company that employs me makes a good product"?

 

My doctor gave me a prescription . . .I don't own the doctor. Should I say, "the doctor who treats me gave me a prescription"?

 

My bank? The bank in which I deposit my funds?

 

The list is endless.