LovetoCamp Posted September 7, 2003 Share Posted September 7, 2003 Our annual District Dinner had less than 10 people attend last year and 7 of them were from our troop alone. I am the District Dinner Chairman for next year. They had the last one in May, I plan to hold the next one in February, not to conflict with baseball, graduation, finals, etc. Please share with me ideas that you think we could lay on that would make this a first rate event. Door prizes? Dancing? What kind of awards? Speakers? How did you get Scouters and spouses to attend. Thanks very much for any info!!! Pounder Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nldscout Posted September 7, 2003 Share Posted September 7, 2003 one of the things we started 3 yrs ago was to do our district dinner on a roundtable night. People are used to meeting on that night. We did a short presentation then awards and such. we use door prizes and gifts and trinkets. When we started to go to this format we increased attendance by 200 percent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LovetoCamp Posted September 7, 2003 Author Share Posted September 7, 2003 That is an excellent idea! Thank you very much!!! P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gidget Posted September 7, 2003 Share Posted September 7, 2003 We have ours in March so we don't conflict with Blue and Golds. We have drawings for donated prizes, but the real focus of our District Dinner is the District awards. The TL, DL, WDL, CM, Pack CC, SM, ASM and Troop CM leaders of the year are awarded, along with Pack and Troop Jockey awards for the person in the unit that helps the pack/troop to move along. These people receiving the awards are all nominated by people in their units. We also award the District Award of Merit, and some of the other district awards. Ours is held on a Friday night. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gidget Posted September 7, 2003 Share Posted September 7, 2003 Whoops, Troop CC, not CM! Also, we do have one speaker that's about 10 minutes. We've had a new Eagle scout, a TV news person that's into scouting, etc. Stay away from a politician. Doesn't matter how big they are into scouting, people from the opposite party will view it as a political commercial for the politician and may stay away. (This came up in our district about 4 years ago.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LovetoCamp Posted September 7, 2003 Author Share Posted September 7, 2003 Gidget, Thank you so much for the ideas. Keep 'em coming. There's a lot of room on the white board!!! Roundtable night, Yes!!! Lot's of awards, yes. Door prizes, yes. Speaker, Absolutely. How do I get a commitment out of the Scouters and Spouses to attend? A formal invitation with tickets and get a check in advance. I always attend something when I send my check. P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dancinfox Posted September 7, 2003 Share Posted September 7, 2003 A few years back, we went to all the banks in the area of our district and asked them to sponsor tickets for the Eagle Scouts. We had about 6 banks donate 40 tickets for the Eagles. The dinner tickets were around 10.00 each. The parents or leaders from the troops where the eagles came from all attended with the Eagles. All told, we had around 150 people in attendance. That was one of the bigest dinners the district ever put on. Dancin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matuawarrior Posted September 9, 2003 Share Posted September 9, 2003 We normally have ours during Scout Week. But we held it in May due to recovery efforts from the December SuperTyphoon. Being a small District we had the same problems you had. We started thinking of making it Fun for the Adults and family oriented also. We had the food brought in Pot Luck with the main dish supplied by the District Committee. We honored one Scouter per unit with our District Spark Plug Award. We also recognized the Scoutmaster, Cubmaster, Crew Advisor, and Commissioner of the Year. We even honored a Scouter with his beads, neckerchief, and woggle for finishing WoodBadge. This year we had a troop and pack provide entertainment to the audience. Next February, We plan to do a slide show presentation of the various districts events with differnt units living the Scouting Program. Well see what happens. Matua Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LovetoCamp Posted September 9, 2003 Author Share Posted September 9, 2003 Matua, Good stuff! We could have the new Eagles there and present them with something. We could present completers of Wood Badge, Powder Horn, etc., their awards, and have a speaker for 15 minutes. Matua, would you like to speak in Chicago in February? Oh. Your right, nobody should have to live or work there in February, except wooly mammoths and Yukon Moose Cholak. Pounder Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matuawarrior Posted September 10, 2003 Share Posted September 10, 2003 Pounder Thanks for the offer but I have prior arrangements with my district around that time. :-) This is the one time a year that the district or council can recognize the volunteers and/or parents. We decided a couple of years ago to make it a family event. What better way than to recognize the leaders in front of their charges. This last May, we had over 200 attendees. It was so much fun. Matua Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gidget Posted September 10, 2003 Share Posted September 10, 2003 One of the ways our district got attendance was through the unit awards. Once a person was selected as, say, the Den Leader of the year, all of the people that nominated that person were told. -The catch is that they didn't know anyone else was told. They were/are told that it's their responsibility to get the person to the dinner. -And usually they signed up so that the person wasn't alone. One year we had two awards coming out of one pack. Each of the people that were getting awards had nominated the other person. It was fun to watch how they made sure they got each other there, and then to see their face when they saw their names on the program! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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