PopcornKernal

[MoosetheItalianBlacksmith]

I am thinking about taking on the popcorn postion for my district. Nothing is definate yet but the DE is intrested in having me do it. But I was curious about what some of the duties and responsibilities of this job are.

[SeattlePioneer]

I'm not an Xpert on your question, but I'll mention an issue I have as a unit leader:

 

 

The pocorn sale is a small business, but my council doesn't provide expert guidance in how to run that business effectively.

 

Some units do VERY well, other do poorly. It's pretty much left up to each one to figure out how they do things.

 

That's wasteful, in my view. The council or district will get better results if it exposes the best and most effective ways to do things, especially how units can motivate boys and parents to sell and how parents and boys can be effective sales agents.

 

To that end, as district Cub Scout Roundtable Chair, my plans are to devote our August Roundtable to bringing in the unit leaders with the best sales program and the Scouts with the best sales results to explain to the rest of us the methods they use.

 

In particular, the Scout who sold the most ($4400) in the council last year is in the pack for which I'm Commissioner. He's a great kid and son of the Cubmaster, and I hope to hear his sales pitch. The family wanted a vacation to Disneyland, and by gum they are GOING thanks to winning the council sales contest!

 

And I'd like to hear from other units about how they divvy up popcorn sale profits to help Scouts finance Scouting activities and such. In general, the ways they manage their sale to be effective.

 

Another thing you might consider is to ask units to take responsibility for doing certain tasks needed for the popcorn sale so you don't have to do them all.

 

If units get used to doing those tasks once, they can do them each year and become experts in doing those tasks, so you aren't left trying to build a new popcorn sales organization every year.

 

Also, if you have a well oiled district machine it will be easier to find someone to run it next year or the year after when you leave. If you have units take responsibilities for tasks, you will be able to identify the people who do a quality job and recruit them to tak more responsibility in the popcorn sale next year or to run it.

[Oak Tree]

In our district, it seems to go something like this:

 

- hold meeting for unit kernels

- pass out information on popcorn to units

- show up at roundtable to talk about popcorn

- send email to units that don't have a kernel. Ask them about it.

- call units that don't have a kernel yet. Ask them about it.

- send more emails to units that don't have a kernel yet.

- get popcorn sales data from all units

- if you're doing show and sell, you'll have to do it twice

- locate a place to store your popcorn. This seems like the biggest issue in our district.

- send out emails asking for a warehouse to store and distribute popcorn

- send out emails begging for a warehouse to store and distribute popcorn

- send out emails desperately pleading for a warehouse to store and distribute popcorn

- coordinate day at warehouse

- coordinate with other district popcorn kernels in trying to dump extra popcorn

- store extra popcorn in garage

- show up at roundtable and try to unload extra popcorn

[eaglescout1996]

My wife is on her second year as our District Popcorn Chairman.

 

She does everything that Oak Tree has said, except for the last half, I guess she's lucked out that the Council has taken care of the delivery, storage, and distribution. She basically has to call, then follow up, then follow up again to make sure Packs and Troops are there on distribution day to pick up there stuff. I then I get to spend my Saturday at a warehouse helping hand out popcorn instead of being out at camp.

 

For her is a lot of coordination, contact, and data gathering.

 

 

[MoosetheItalianBlacksmith]

Cool thanks guys that was the type of info i was looking for know ill have a better idea what im getting myself into when i get the okay from my DE. Sounds Interesting to me.

[SeattlePioneer]

Oak Tree has what looks like a good list of responsibilities.

 

 

However, as you can see, there is no place to train unit leaders in how to design a business model that maximizes the ability and motivation of units and Scouts to sell. They are left to figure that out for themselves.

 

Of course, the council structures some of that into their program. Our council does a "popcorn kickoff" which is a rah, rah! effort to juice up unit popcorn Kernels, but that doesn't get into the nuts and bolts of structuring the incentives at the unit level.

 

That's what I want to do at our August Roundtable. We haven't had a district Popcorn Kernel the past couple of years --- the DE has had to do that task lacking a volunteer. My aim will be to provide that additional training and ideas at the Roundtable which I hope will help units improve how they structure their sales and incentives.

[Scoutfish]

You missed one Oak:

 

-pass out popcorn to unit leaders at RT as door prizes.

[moosetracker]

Another question about it.. MIB was seriously going to take this on and emailed the DE about it.. But the person who did FOS is warning him because with the FOS she was constantly phoned about those units who had yet done the FOS, and that the donations were down.. She fears the same will happen with the popcorn..

 

He is fine with promoting it and taking and organizing the orders, He was told there was no driving around from unit to unit to deliver popcorn, and we never had anyone come to the troop to promote the selling..

 

So how much pressure is there for the popcorn kernal to reach a specific goal? I would imagine sales will probably be down this year, not as many people buying.. And of course the units that have already backed out of selling it due to it being over priced.

[SeattlePioneer]

Hello Moose,

 

 

I'm not an experienced Popcorn Kernel, so I'll answer as a district committee person who works pretty closely with the DE.

 

As a volunteer, I decide what I will do and how much I can do. I often have a meeting with the DE and outline what I figure I can do on a project. I'm open to negotiating with the DE about what I'm willing to do to work out the best fit I can.

 

But if the DE or district officer want more done, they can rustle up some additional volunteers, or the DE can chip in his time should he wish to do so.

 

I wouldn't let anyone push me into doing more than I wanted to do, especially if I'd informed district leaders in advance of what they could expect.

 

Frankly, someone willing to be district Popcorn Kernel is taking on a pretty important and generally thankless job. SHAME on any district leader who dumped on a Popcorn Kernel!

 

Another approach might be for a person to volunteer to do some specific things that might improve the sale results for the district ---- I mentioned the August Roundtable training I'm planning to spread to more units the popcorn sale business methods that the best units have found to be effective. Doing something like that might be very valuable, and there's no reason someone could volunteer to do just something like that, or offer to contact units to encourage participation as their only contribution to the sales effort.

 

A volunteer like that might be appointed a Popcorn Captain, or perhaps a Popcorn Major reporting to the Popcorn Kernel!

 

One advantage of offering to do that is if you can tell someone you are recruiting as the Chair for an activity that there is already an assistant to help, it makes it easier to get someone to take on the job.

 

 

 

 

[ScoutNut]

It is the DE who has fundraising goals to meet, not the volunteer District Popcorn Kernal.

 

The District Kernal has plenty enough work to do coordinating - training, popcorn info packet distribution, popcorn paperwork, popcorn distribution (show/sell and final), popcorn return, volunteers (unit and district), popcorn problem followups, etc, etc.

 

As your District's mileage may vary, talk to your DE to find out EXACTLY what they expect from you.

 

[pchadbo]

Moose and MIB,

I know the outgoing Pocorn Kernel in my district, he will be my asst Tiger leader next year and is an ASM with the troop. He is leaving ONLY because if the lack of support that he and his wife got from the DE, District and Council. They were just expected to "make it happen" and were not given any meaningful assistance or gratitude for the MANY hours they put in for the cause. They did all of the logistic work and made sure people had what they needed while the DE demanded more from them while helping less and taking all the glory. Just my $.02 from around the water cooler.

[SeattlePioneer]

 

Hello pchadbo,

 

 

 

The DE is a fool. If I were treated that way I'd quit too.

 

[eaglescout1996]

I know our district did not meet its popcorn goal last year and my wife was a little upset since she only recieved about 15-20% participation from the Packs and Troop in the District. The district missed its goal by about 10%, but last years goal was about 15% more than the previous year. I told her that wasn't too bad, especially with the amount of participation and the ecomony.

 

This year's goals are lower and I believe are less than what the district raised last year. She did say that the Council seemed more concerned in tripling the number of units who sell popcorn than the actually "goal"....but she knows that if she gets more units, $ goes up as well.

 

She doesn't get bombarded from the district/council, as they seem happy she's willing to help out.

[Doc Meyer]

Unless you have a great pre-existing relationship with an executive, any executive worth their salt should have prepared a written job description for any position offered.