Camp Cards

[midrewest]

I would like to have some feedback from Scouters that have participated in your Council's Camp Card program this year.

 

We have had the program in existance for years and it has been extremely successful. The difference from the first year untill now has been amazing.

 

Camp participation has gone through the roof!!! and unit trailers are filled with equipment!!! for the scouts.

[moxieman]

There was a short thread on this back in April with the subject "Finally".

 

http://www.scouter.com/forums/viewThread.asp?threadID=349114#id_349114

 

But I'm sure some will have more feedback on this kind of program since then.

 

Our council doesn't do this (yet). The other Maine council does and it appears to be very successful for them.

[SeattlePioneer]

Camp cards? What dat?

[Eagle732]

It kinda like selling popcorn without the popcorn.

 

Camp Cards are a discount card you buy for $2.50 from council, you sell them for $5 and keep the difference.

More info here.

 

http://www.baltimorebsa.org/support-scouting/2012-camp-cards/44450

[mikecummings157]

We sold some, but it was tough. Feedback was that the lineup of participating retailers was weak. We might do this on our own, design a better card, and keep all the profits.(This message has been edited by mikecummings157)

[howarthe]

Our pack was required to participate, which was strange. We checked out a whole bunch of cards, passed them around, and the turned them all back in. We are in a little town on the edge of the district boundary. The cards try to target local merchants, but they had not drilled down far enough to be useful in our community. Personally, I HATE buying coupons, which is how I think of these things. When kids come to my door, I always try to buy what they are selling, but magazine subscriptions and disc out cards are the two things I will not buy. Sorry. We had much more success selling $1 chocolate bars.

[Eagle732]

Who required you to sell them? The pack leadership, District, Council?

[howarthe]

I think it was the council. Something like: if you are going to participate in the candy sale, you still have to participate in the card sale, so we checked out a bunch of cards, and then we checked them back in again a few weeks later. We did very well in candy sales, I think. My son earned all $180 of his camp fee. I was very proud of him.

[Eagle732]

Well I guess that's one way to deal with an unreasonable rule.

I would have been inclined to tell council I'll go to the discount store and buy my own boxes of candy bars and keep all the profit fro the boys.

 

[moxieman]

Small problem with your approach, Eagle732. You're suppose to file a Unit Money-Earning Application with your council for every one of your non-council-sponsored fundraisers. Not so council can get a cut, but so council will know that Troop 111 is selling Christmas Wreaths on such-and-such a date when nosy Mary Jane calls the council office to make sure that the "scouts" wearing Troop 111 t-shirts out in front of Big Box Mart selling wreaths really are scouts. Seriously. We've had people call our council office before to verify a scouting fundraiser.

 

This form from the national (hard-to-navigate) website can be found at: http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/34427.pdf

[Eagle732]

Yea, I'm well aware of the fundraising rules and there is no problem. Are you assuming that no UMEA would be filed?

Council won't turn you down for doing your own fundraiser unless it violates the rules.

If howarthe's council is telling her unit if they don't do one fundraiser they can't participate in another, well that just stinks.

Either work around, order cards and send them back or just do your own fundraiser works for me.

 

 

 

 

[Tampa Turtle]

We had it as an option but most boys opted out. Boys that did it made more money for Scout accounts than selling popcorn--as least as on a per hour basis. I think it was because of the $5 price point. Did have to be careful boys did not break the break off sections of cards.

 

Had some resistance from people who had bought the popcorn from.

[jc2008]

We did camp cards last year but the offers on them were really weak. The best offer was for a store 2 hours away from us. I am hoping we don't have to do camp cards and popcorn will be all we need this year to cover expenses. If we do need another fundraiser, making our own camp cards would be a very attractive idea since we could get local retailers and the cards would be useful to the people we sell them to then.