Follow up on the 2 year road-trip

[concscouter]

I love a happy ending... I have posted on and off about some problems I had with a couple of units. I got some good advise, and I got questioned and was doubting what I was doing too, because really, 2 chartered orgs? Yeah, it was a little nuts... well, I said if it happened again I was done, it was me and my wife and our leaders/parents at the root and something was wrong with us. One person said something along the lines of 'maybe you should take a break, do you really think it isn't you?'... yeah, I wasn't sure...

 

Recap - Son was ready to quit, I started a new troop with some boys but was still cubmaster, chartered org #1 asked my wife and I to quit. Moved to new place, new chartered org that didn't have a troop (closed one down to pack/troop getting along problems three years ago) they had issues, we tried to help them fix it, troop got folded because of a youth protection issue in the pack that one of the troop leaders said something about to the head of charter org president #2.

 

It didn't happen again.

 

We rechartered as a friends of. We were asked by parents in chartered org #2 to start a pack too, we did that as well. So, we have two units now. It has been drama free. It's amazing how it has worked out. Its been a year, and we just rechartered.

 

But, there was some doubt, even I had doubts looking at everything and going 'what the .... ?!?!?'....

 

Chartered org #1( 1 pack, 1 troop) is about to fold the pack they threw us out of for forming a new troop. They are down to 4 boys, refuse to recruit and have not been holding meetings since last year. I hate to see it happen, but the other unit in the school has picked up the slack and is now over a hundred cubs. It appears that nobody really wanted us to go, except the scoutmaster in the troop we were feeding because I questioned him. Oh, he is gone too, left 4 months after doing all the damage he could. The troop is under new leadership and is doing things the right way now, but has no pack feeding them, nor are they actively recruiting, don't know what will become of them yet. Everyone that stood against us is now out of scouting, except one. I hope they can get it back together. But after two years, guess what? It's still my fault... that one person that stood against me at first is claiming its my fault they are about to go under (mind you, they didn't recruit at school night to join scouting or anything else either). Yeah, okay, I don't think so, I am not taking the blame for this one.

 

Chartered org #2 (1 pack, folded a troop) , well... the head of the chartered org was filled by a new person... and the first thing was the new president did was an audit to figure out where all the money went. Turns out the IH was hosting private luncheons for the CO once a month and footing the entire bill back to the CO. The old head of the chartering org was pretty much tossed out of scouts by the leadership in the pack. It got pretty bad at one point as that person continued to harrass us for about 3 months after they folded the troop... but eventually even the district got fed up and told her to go away.

 

In the end, it wasn't really two chartered orgs I had problems with, it was 2 people who happened to be in a position that they never should have been in, and have since been removed. One of those units survived (#2 pack) the other one has pretty much imploded (#1 pack)...

 

Recruiting has been a pain, this year numbers are down everywhere in our council and we don't recruit from a school. Hopefully, after the first unit can't recharter we'll get back in the school... Hopefully. But, we are getting boys word of mouth here and there. We are at about 90% retention too.

 

Overall though, the boys won in the end. They have a troop that THEY run (I sit in the back with the parents and the most I ever say to the anyone is 'let the SPL handle it' or 'go ask the SPL' all of my conversations are before or after the meetings). Well, I do a scoutmasters minute of course, but I even pass the announcements off to the boys. It has been an amazing two years, watching them go from constantly needing help, to doing it on their own. The pack we started was just extra, somehow we got convinced to do that, but I am now out of that, since I have been able to hand over the reigns and just work on the troop stuff.

 

Yeah, 1 year, no drama. Boys are doing great. Hindsight is 20/20 and I would have done a lot of things differently, but even if I had I see all the paths leading back to here anyway. The only thing I would have done completely different is that I never would have chartered the troop under the second CO, I would have done a 'friends of' right then instead. I still would have gotten canned from the 1st pack, but hey, then I just would have chartered a pack as well at that point, and I would have saved myself and my leaders a LOT of headache.

 

Thanks for all the advise. Even those that said 'are you sure it's not you?'. Because I wasn't sure at one point... who runs into that twice!?! And as a final note, we are on good terms with the new leaders in both the of the old units, and are recruiting from the second pack for our troop... that says something too.

[ghermanno]

Happy Scouting and keep a cheerful attitude.

 

"It's only an Hour a week" ;-)

 

 

Rick