Time For A Time Out?

[Eamonn]

I never thought I would ever say this!!

But I'm starting to feel a little in over my head with the Sea Scout Ship.

We had 3 new members join today, which now brings us to over 30.

Nearly all the committee members are new to being Committee members. Great bunch, but heck we have only been doing this for six months.

The Petty Officers are doing a great job. But we don't have the experience and expertize that comes with time.

I have two Mate's. One is ex-navy, likes to wear a uniform and doesn't do much. He works for a company that calls him out of town. At times at the very last minute, which has caused problems with transportation in the past.

The other Mate is the father of two of the Sea Scouts. He is a very willing and helpful chap, but doesn't really even have the basic skills. He has taken the Training's, the Scouts like him. I really like him, but I'm beginning to think he has adopted the "You can't teach an old dog new tricks" philosophy. He drives the Scouts any place they want or need to go, but seems happy to stand back and become a observer.

Trying to hold the attention and interest of 30 young adults at a meeting is hard.

This afternoon we were working on a couple of sail boats. They need work!! But it really was a case of too many cooks.

Having the boats ready is important to our future plans, but working with a large group just isn't working and trying to do it at some other time makes more demands on me!!

Next week we have rented our local community pool and will cover swimming and Life Saving, but the boats will still be there waiting for to be worked on.

I hate, really hate to turn any potential Scout away.

The Committee is working on finding adults that want to get involved or who just want to cover something that they are good at!!

I'm sure we will find these people, I'm just not sure when.

We very easily could have 50 or 60 Sea Scouts by the end of the year, but without more active adult help the program is really going to suffer.

I kinda think that by this time next year, the Scouts we have now will be more able to do more, as they will know more. But the problem is what is happening now.

Maybe it's time, for a little time out from recruiting new members, while we use the time to get the Scouts that we have up to speed and able to train new members?

I'm not sure that I have it in me to turn around to a young person who wants to join and say no or come back later. Of course with every new recruit there is the possibility of a new leader.

Eamonn.

[CNYScouter]

Eamonn - Sounds like a good problem to have!

 

In my area it seems that Troops and crews often have adult leadership but can't seem to draw in any youth members.

I know of many Troops that have as many adults involved as Scouts.

It seems that the same goes with Venture Crews.

Venture Crews seem to have no problem finding adults willing to be leaders, but the youth don't want to be involved.

 

I am still trying to find a CO willing to charter a ship.

I hope I can be as sucessful as you in recruiting youth, when/if I can find a CO.

 

 

 

[Beavah]

Tap the brakes lightly, Eamonn.

 

Take the time to get your current youth up to speed and workin' well together.

 

The world is full of companies that grew too fast and imploded because they didn't have the infrastructure to support the growth. That wasn't fair to their customers or workers.

 

Your ship growing too fast for your available infrastructure isn't fair to your adult leaders or your kids.

 

Not for too long... crews and ships need to be recruitin' all da time to stay healthy, eh? But for a little bit, slow it down a touch, and work on gettin' better, before you work on gettin' bigger.

[Eamonn]

Part of the problem or parts of the problem are.

Recruitment is a requirement for advancement in Sea Scouting.

We are the "New Kid" on the block. The only Ship in our Council.

The Scouts seem to be coming from two places:

Our local HS Marching Band.

The OA.

There is a very good and successful Crew in the area, but it is in a School and is kind of a Club.

It is chartered by a local church, but the meetings are during club time. It does a really good job of keeping the kids busy with monthly activities.

The other "Crews" (And I don't think they are Crews!!) Are just Boy Scouts, who seem to never do anything as Venturers other than help out at District Camporees.

We don't have any active Girl Scout units and there is a need for something for the females in the area to do.

The adults (Me??) Are not doing anything to actively recruit new members, they just seem to come.

Eamonn.

[AnneinMpls]

Hi Eamonn

I know Patrol Method is not a Venturing method, but could you do kinda the same thing with squads?

Have three or four squads, and each meeting, one of the squads is in charge of training new recruits (drill? how the Venture crew operates? orientation?), the other squads work on whatever is underway at the time...?

you do still have to solve the lack of adult leadership issue of course - sounds like right now you're needing someone with a particular skill set. What are those needed skills? Where do you find those sorts of people? You know how to do this of course

Peace!

Anne in Mpls

[John-in-KC]

What Beavah said.

 

Additionally, have you considered split meetings? Divide your roster into smaller chunks, each chunk meets less frequently (or just as frequently but maybe not at the primary meeting site) but when they do you get more effort out of them.

 

There's a reason the Army and Marines operate in squads and platoons, and the Navy and Coast Guard divide the work into departments and watches: Span of leadership.

 

B-P called it the patrol method. He approached it from a Cavalrayman's perspective. The name doesn't matter, subdividing the leadership and the numbers is what will help you and the other leaders.

 

 

[CNYScouter]

Last night I was looking through the Sea Scout Officers Specialized Training powerpoint presntation, and on the slide withthe Chart about the Ship organization it does show Crew Leaders (another confusing term.

 

The next slide talks about Crew Leaders & Assistants.

* For administrative purposes, the ships company often is divided into crews of about eight

* Each crew elects its own crew leader and assistant crew leader from members of the crew.

* Each crew leader has the job of molding his or her crew members into a working unit.

* He or she is responsible for the conduct and participation at ship meetings and activities.

 

It sounds like your ship is reacdy to move to this step and be divided into Crews with Crew leaders

 

 

[emb021]

Sea Scout Ships (unlike VenturING Crews) are subdivided into (boat) Crews. The organization of Ships is very similiar to Troops. Explorer Posts used to follow the same style until 1959, when they went with the general 'club style' that Venturing follows today.

 

Boatswain is like the Senior Patrol Leader.

Boatswain's Make is like the Assistant SPL.

 

Each Crew within the Ship is lead by a Coxswain (sometimes called Crew Leader) and Coxswain's Mate (Assistant Crew Leader).

 

Each crew is usually 6-8 members.

 

This is one of the reasons why Sea Scouts have their own training program! (Sea Scout Leader Specialized Training, Sea Badge, SEAL, etc)

 

 

[Eamonn]

We do have 3 crews. Along with the Petty Officers.

I'm not mad about splitting the meetings,I think this would take away from us being one Ship.

In time this will sort itself out!!

Some of the Scouts are getting really good at some things and are starting to take on passing the benefit of their knowledge to the new Scouts.

We have a Committee meeting tomorrow, I think it's time to change some of the Committee members over to the Leader team.

Eamonn.