How big is your committee/troop?

[Eagledad]

^{The only suggestion I give to units as far as committee sizes is that it should be no bigger than what the CC can manage. Interestingly, my experience is that females can manage larger committees than men.} 

 

^Barry

Edited December 7, 2016 by Eagledad

[blw2]

 

3) They are all trained in their role as MC (taking them from the role of "just a parent" to a member of the committee, i.e. focus from just their scout to all the scouts.

 

4) Most apt to react in the affirmative if asked to drive, go on an outing, sit on a BOR, etc.

 

Just because they register, doesn't make them more eager to take the training.  I've seen more that a few hold-up from registered leaders not keeping up with their YPT, and many NEVER doing their specific training.... especially with committee.  Anecdotally, it seems to me that MC's on average don't take things even as seriously as den leaders, ASM's, SM's, etc.... 

^{The only suggestion I give to units as far as committee sizes is that it should be no bigger than what the CC can manage. Interestingly, my experience is that females can manage larger committees than men.} 

 

^Barry

Interesting observation.

I can't say I have an opinion on that angle either way on that

but i have noticed that that female majority committees tend to not get the boy lead thing quite as well as I think most men would.....

[Stosh]

We don't send our MC's to YPT and position specific training, we have the trainers come in and do it in our group.  It's called our annual adult program training potluck.  It is well attended.  It's like a mini-U of Scouting.  Maybe we ought to call it the High School of Scouting....

[Eagledad]

 

I can't say I have an opinion on that angle either way on that

but i have noticed that that female majority committees tend to not get the boy lead thing quite as well as I think most men would.....

Our CCs understood our program very well, which is why they were selected.

 

And typically committees were about 50/50 male female.

 

The thing I learned about moms in general is that you can sell them all you want on boy run and patrol method, but they aren't convinced until they see it in action. Once they see it, they are not only believers, they are the troops biggest cheer leaders. I have a lot of stories about moms all of a sudden seeing the light. I don't understand it, but I saw it happen with several moms. I can't recall a single dad making the same dramatic conversion.

 

Barry

Edited December 7, 2016 by Eagledad

[Eagledad]

We don't send our MC's to YPT and position specific training, we have the trainers come in and do it in our group.  It's called our annual adult program training potluck.  It is well attended.  It's like a mini-U of Scouting.  Maybe we ought to call it the High School of Scouting....

We do the same thing after each SPL election cycle.

 

Barry

[Scoutmaster Teddy]

Our CCs understood our program very well, which is why they were selected.

 

The thing I learned about moms in general is that you can sell them all you want on boy run and patrol method, but they aren't convinced until they see it in action. Once they see it, they are not only believers, they are the troops biggest cheer leaders. I have a lot of stories about moms making all of a sudden seeing the light. I don't understand it, but I saw it happen with several moms. I can't recall a single dad making the same conversion.

 

Barry

 

Ah, yes. Fathers who can't see the light even when their wife pointed it out to them. We have two active Moms in the troop. Both are trusting enough with boy-led that they do not interfere nor question. Unless, of course, they hear something bad happen on a campout or other activity. Dads, on the other hand, especially this fresh from Cubs are a pain in the arse. We don't have helicopter parents, we have helicopter ASMs.

[Stosh]

Women tend to be more resilient to having things a bit chaotic.  They have had to raise children, duh!  Men on the other hand are driven to make things correct when encountering chaos.  Their stepping into "fix" things is not a good recipe for boy led, patrol method programming.  The boys need the opportunity to learn how to fix things themselves.  They aren't going to do that with dad stepping in and making the problem go away before the boy even has a chance to know things are on the blink.

[Tampa Turtle]

We have so many Committee members so 'many hands make light work" and that part of it works. But as each person reports the Committee meetings can be 2-1/2 hours long. AND they broke out a separate Finance committee as those issues take a lot of time to discuss.  

[Eagledad]

We have so many Committee members so 'many hands make light work" and that part of it works. But as each person reports the Committee meetings can be 2-1/2 hours long. AND they broke out a separate Finance committee as those issues take a lot of time to discuss.  

Yep, we were the same way. We eventually started asking the committee members to have their own sub meetings and then just brief the main committee of their conclusions.. The CC would monitor the committee members to make sure they were on track with the program and know what they were going to say before the meeting. That way the CC could control the meeting by minimizing the chit-chat to stay on focus of the main points.

 

By the way, the adults learned this from the PLC, which meets once a week 30 minutes before the troop meeting. The PLC had to learn how to keep on point so they wouldn't be late for the troop meeting. That wasn't intentional, it just worked out that way. The key to short meetings is a CC (or SPL) who communicates with all the members before the meeting and knows how the meeting will go before it even starts.

 

Barry

[T2Eagle]

On the books our committee is bigger than in practice.  I would say the best size for a committee is the size necessary to achieve a good consensus among all of the stakeholders (parents, experienced scouters, SM/ASMs) about what direction the troop is taking.  If you don't successfully reflect the widely held views of all of them you just set yourself up for conflict and resistance.

[The Latin Scot]

Our pack is combined from 3 small units; we maintain our own unit numbers but have all pack activities as a combined group. Units 1 and 2 have combined dens (Wolf - Webelos), while unit 3 has its own set of dens (Wolf - Webelos); we don't run a Tiger program:

 

Unit 1: 5 boys, 3 den leaders, 2 committee members

Unit 2: 4 boys, 1 committee leader

Unit 3: 11 boys, 4 den leaders, 1 committee member, 1 cubmaster

Total: 20 boys, 12 leaders

 

The troop has its own unusual arrangement. It has taken in a few boys from a struggling unit that meets in the same building; they are still registered with that unit's number, but for all intents and purposes, they work with our troop. They only go through their own unit for rechartering and the official paperwork 

 

11-year-old patrol: 4 boys with 3 from the auxiliary unit, 2 ASMs

Core patrol: 7 boys with 4 from the auxiliary unit, 1 SM, 3 ASMs, 7 committee members

Total: 18 boys, 13 leaders

[blw2]

Our pack is combined from 3 small units; we maintain our own unit numbers but have all pack activities as a combined group. Units 1 and 2 have combined dens (Wolf - Webelos), while unit 3 has its own set of dens (Wolf - Webelos); we don't run a Tiger program:

 

Unit 1: 5 boys, 3 den leaders, 2 committee members

Unit 2: 4 boys, 1 committee leader

Unit 3: 11 boys, 4 den leaders, 1 committee member, 1 cubmaster

Total: 20 boys, 12 leaders

 

The troop has its own unusual arrangement. It has taken in a few boys from a struggling unit that meets in the same building; they are still registered with that unit's number, but for all intents and purposes, they work with our troop. They only go through their own unit for rechartering and the official paperwork 

 

11-year-old patrol: 4 boys with 3 from the auxiliary unit, 2 ASMs

Core patrol: 7 boys with 4 from the auxiliary unit, 1 SM, 3 ASMs, 7 committee members

Total: 18 boys, 13 leaders

that certainly is an unusual arrangement.  Why not merge?

what sort of CO's do the units have?  All different churches?

I really can't make sense of doing it that way...... except maybe for the year of merging, just to wait on the paperwork till recharter, but otherwise where is the advantage?

[The Latin Scot]

We are three neighboring congregations of the same church, which is organized geographically, so each congregation has its own units registered at all times, even when they don't have the best numbers to support them. That way, as the numbers fluctuate from year to year, we still can maintain our charter and all our information. But in lean times like these, it becomes easy to combine with the neighboring congregations so that we can maintain the numbers to run pack activities. So with our arrangements, one unit contributes the cubmaster, another the advancement chair, etc., along with all the other committee positions. The committee is thus composed of all the parents and leaders of the combined pack. These arrangements obviously change as boys come and go and the numbers rise and fall, but it somehow works pretty well, and it lets the boys work with kids from other neighborhoods during the times that we are combined. Especially since our unit is over 50 years old; it would be a shame to erase it just because our numbers are low for a few years. They always go back up after a little while. :-)

Edited December 8, 2016 by The Latin Scot

[Ankylus]

We just rechartered with 96 scouts (down a bit) and 91 adults (up a bit).

 

But that's not reflective of the actives. We have a core of about 10 SMs (including ASMs). The monthly committee meeting usually draws about 12-15 people, of whom 5 of us are SMs there to provide reports to the committee. On the youth side, we'll probably take 60 or 65 boys to camp this summer.

Edited December 8, 2016 by Ankylus

[Hedgehog]

44 Scouts

1 SM

9 ASMs (6 that will camp with the unit)

10 Committee (Including Committee Chair, Popcorn Chair, Treasurer, Advancement Chair and 6 members at large)

 

 

11 Crew Members

5 Advisors

3 Committee