Many Small Troops vs. One Big Troop

[Proud Eagle]

I took SM/ASM Position Specific Training today.

 

According to the trainer the target troop size is 24-36 active Scouts. He didn't site a source for that, but I assume it was in some of the instructors materials.

 

I know my home troop had about 24 Scouts when I joined. However, many of these began to age out. Unfortunately, these were not replaced at the same rate, because several new units were started that drew away Cubs that might very well have joined my troop. Fast forward a few years, and the troop has only one patrol's worth of Scouts. The PLC can't exist properly because the troop leadership chart had turned into something like a vertical line. There was no since of patrol identity, because there was only the troop, not really any patrols. Now these other units, all of them only lasted one or two years. Those units then folded. The parents and Scouts in those units mostly lost interest in Scouting due to this and never joined one of the surviving units. Neither the new units, nor the old units, were able to effectively deliver the true Scouting program, because there were not enough boys to make the patrol method work correctly. To make matters worse, while the push was on to create new Boy Scout Troops, there was little resources being devoted to starting new, or supporting existing Cub packs, and in fact, the Cub program began to come apart. This sowed the seeds for future problems for the Boy Scout troops.

 

We should all admit several things:

There are a limited number of willing and able volunteers in any area at any time.

The professionals have only limited time and must therefore budget their efforts.

There are only a limited number of youth with any interest in the Scouting program in any given area.

Very small units cannot deliver the complete Scouting program affectively due to the limitations on resources.

Ultra large units can also be a problem, because Scouts can become lost, and only the most capable adult leaders can manage such a large group.

 

I would certainly agree that those at the district level must seek to provide the Scouting program to the most youth possible. However, I think in many cases the answer to how to do this is to add more boys to existing units. Boys joining an established unit with willing, able, trained, and experienced Scouters will have an advantage. Boys joining a unit where there are already mature youth leaders taking full advantage of the availability of the boy-run program will be more likely to one day have those same opportunities. Boys will benefit more if the troop doesn't fold while they are a member. Boys will benefit more if they are in a unit that provides a quality programs tailored to the needs of specific age groups, such as a unit with specific programs dedicated to new, experienced, and older Scouts. Boys will have a greater opportunity to interact with youth of varying ages in an established unit.

 

All that being said, there is a time and a place for starting new troops. If there is some area or segment of the population not served by Scouting (by that I mean not readily available, not that there needs to be a troop meeting across the street), there is likely a need for a new unit. If there is a large Spanish speaking population, and there is currently no program available for Spanish speaking boys, then a new unit may be needed. If there is no unit close enough to home that a Scout can reach the meeting without great difficulty, then there may be a need to a new unit. If a Scout, due to religious obligations, or other duties, cannot participate on the nights current units meet, there may be a need for another unit.

 

It is my opinion that too often the choice made by professionals, and by volunteers, is to start a new unit. There are many chartering organizations guilty of this as well. It might be beneficial for First United Methodist to support the troop at Second United Methodist, while Second United Methodist helps support the Crew at First United Methodist. Unfortunately, instead of encouraging the establishment of such an arrangement, these charter organizations will likely be encouraged to create their own units that will be in competition with each other instead of cooperating with each other. Often these units compete directly with the existing units, which causes real interference with the delivery of the Scouting program to youth. You cannot rob Peter to pay Paul. If you do, everyone will loose in the end.

 

There is a place in Scouting for new units, and for small units, but in general, I think:

More units doesn't mean more Scouts.

More units doesn't mean more Scouters.

More units doesn't mean more Scouting.

More units doesn't mean better Scouting.

 

So, to review my case, I believe that the highest quality Scouting program should be delivered to the largest number of youth possible. I also believe that this can often be achieved more affectively if institutions worked together to deliver an effective program, units put more effort into recruiting and retention, and district Scouters provided more recruiting assistance and support to existing units.

[Eamonn]

Just a couple of thoughts.

The DE is not the one starting new units this comes under the District Membership Committee. The DE may get involved but starting new units is not what I want our DE working on.

As to who may want a unit that is up to them. If I am the local Catholic Parish Priest, I may want to further my youth ministry by having a full family of Scouting program available to the youth in my parish. It is a youth program of the church. If the Presbyterian Church next door wants to further its' youth ministry with a full family of Scouting program that is the choice of that church. They own the units, we offer the program.

Eamonn

[Bob White]

"We should all admit several things:

This is going to be interesting!

 

There are a limited number of willing and able volunteers in any area at any time.

True, but you have no idea what that number is. Until you know every individuals skills, goals and interests, and ask each one personallyto take part in a scouting position that appeals to their personal goals, you don't know what that number is. So, 100% of the adult population is a potential scout leader. How many have you invited this week?

 

The professionals have only limited time and must therefore budget their efforts.

Actually most professionals spend far more hours a week in scout related activities than any volunteer does. Professions have different specific goals than unit leaders and so need volunteers to do the job they volunteered to do so that the pros can do the job they are paid to do.

 

There are only a limited number of youth with any interest in the Scouting program in any given area. And again unless you know what motivates each individual youth, their needs and characteristics, you have no idea what that number is. 100% of the eligible youth population could be scouts. How many have you asked this week. The Scouting program is a franchised educational system used by and offered to ANY qualified Charter organization that wants to use scouting to reach youth they serve or the community in general. Whether or not there are enough youth to support the unit is the concern of the CO not the Scouting volunteer. Whether the CO wants to serve 5 or 50 they is irrelevent to the responsibility of the Volunteers.

 

Very small units cannot deliver the complete Scouting program affectively due to the limitations on resources.

Smaller groups require less resources Delivering the program is about good leadership skills and following the program. You can have a good troop of 8 as easily as 28.

 

Ultra large units can also be a problem, because Scouts can become lost, and only the most capable adult leaders can manage such a large group.

 

Only capable adult leaders can manage ANY SIZE scout unit.

 

 

There is a place in Scouting for new units, and for small units, but in general, I think:

Here we go again

 

More units doesn't mean more Scouts.

Experience and numbers to not support that opinion

I have served on District level for over 20 years and when unit numbers raise youth numbers rise EVERY TIME.

 

More units doesn't mean more Scouters.

Mathematics is your against you here. It takes a minimum of 5 to 9 adults every time you charter a unit. So mathematically, more units always increases the number of scouters.

 

More units doesn't mean more Scouting.

Actually that is not accurate either.

More units doesn't mean better Scouting.

Absolutely true. Better leaders make better scouting. They come from thoughtful leader selection, training, following the program.

 

The Unit Leaders #! responsibility is to deliver a quality scouting program. They should not be worrying about how many units exist noe or next week or how many scouts are in the unit. They need to keep the promise.

 

I believe that the highest quality Scouting program should be delivered to the largest number of youth possible.

 

Absolutely not!!!

 

The highest quality Scouting program should be delivered to EVERY youth possible.

 

I also believe that this can often be achieved more affectively if institutions worked together to deliver an effective program,

That's what the District and Council committees are.

 

and district Scouters provided more recruiting assistance and support to existing units.

That is part of what the District and Council committees do. But we are also the ones working to insure the health and growth of scouting in our communities for the future. It's the Big Picture job.

 

Bob White

 

[Proud Eagle]

Bob, you may be right on a few of those points. Ultimately, my opinions are based on my own experiences as youth unit member in Cub Scouts and then Boy Scouts, and now as an ASM for a troop. My opinions also reflect what may be local problems, rather than programatic or nation wide ones.

 

Bob, in another thread, you mentioned how excited you are that your troop is now offering a programs targeted at three seperate typses of Scouts: new, experienced, and older. Now, I happen to think you have reason to be excited. Such a system is providing a better opportunity to the Scouts. Having a program that best fits the needs of each individual Scout is much more likely to happen if you can break it down into several age levels. I imagine you would also admit that doing something like that would be far less likely in a unit with 5 members. It could be done in theory, but I have never heard of a single unit of that size that has, which indicates to me it is unlikely to happen.

 

Tell me this, how can a unit with 5 members offer opportunities appropriate to the skills and interests of an older Scout and the skills and interests of a new Scout? How can such a unit put on a program that contains multi-day backpacking in the mountains, or other high-adventure of interest to the older Scout? How can that same unit offer the new Scout an experience equivelant to that offered in a new Scout patrol in a somewhat larger troop? (I certainly don't think you will be able to give every new Scout a chance to be patrol leader for a month.)

 

The argument I am making isn't that there shouldn't be small units, or that new units shouldn't be started. Both new units and small units have a place in Scouting.

 

What I am arguing is this: in most cases, an individual Scout has a greater opportunity to gain the full benefits of the Scout experience in a somewhat larger size troop. (By larger I mean a troop large enough for a few seperate patrols, and preffereably large enough to support all 3 patrol types, but not necessarily one of the 200 member mega-troops.)

 

If new units are necessary to get more boys into Scouting, then I guess that is what must be done. However, this doesn't do anyone any good as far as I can see if those new units can't deliver a real Scouting program.

 

I know in my local area there is no support (none, not a little, not less than ideal, none, unless you count the periodic "go recruit, we need more boys in the district") from the professional staff or the district or council volunteers in the area of Boy Scout recruiting. In fact our DE has even come out and said that he has chosen to help Cub Scouts recruit, because Boy Scout troops should be able to handle their own recruiting. While he may be right that Cub Scout packs require more help, he is clearly incorrect in thinking that Boy Scout troops have no need for assistance. (Yes, I know, today's Cub Scouts are most likely going to be tommorrow's Boy Scouts, so Cub recruiting does help Boy Scout recruiting in the long term. This isn't much comfort to the units desperately trying to find a fifth boy so they can recharter.) It seems that some of the effort being put into starting new units might be better spent doing recruiting at PTA meetings, passing out flyers after church services, talking to Scout age boys in school, or helping troop leaders find Webelos dens to recruit and helping packs find out about the various opportunities for the Scouts bridging to Webelos. (The current system seems to be that if a pack or den leader asks for information on local troops, they are "assigned" to a troop, most likely a new unit, or one that is known to be at risk of folding due to lack of boys. Information is not provided about other units, particularly if they are healthy, established units, with a long history. Fortunately for my troop, (one of the older ones in the area) and for some of the new Scouts (who now have access to an established, if sometimes flawed program, instead of being stuck in a unit with no traditions, no equipment, and adults that are just as inexperienced as the new Scouts), some of the den and pack leaders have made a great effort to find other options despite the lack of help from the district. This is in part due to the fact that our district (both district volunteers and the pro) doesn't exactly do a good job of fostering a good relationship between the district and unit level leaders.

 

I think part of the problem locally is that our past SE (he resigned this past weekend, there is quite a bit to that story, but here isn't the place and now isn't the time) was very good at holding DEs acountable for the quantitative issues like number of volunteers, youth, and units. However, he was not very good at holding the DEs accountable in any qualitative manner. A Scout that was part of a unit that didn't have the resources to carry out the program was just as good for his performance reviews as a Scout that was enjoying the full benefits of Scouting. I know that the DEs aren't directly responsible for the quality of the program, that is a unit leader issue. However, when the DE is being evaluated in large part on numbers, it is very easy for them to start pushing numbers oriented goals and objectives on the district volunteers. The district volunteers then start thinking more about numbers and less about providing the support to the units needed to carry out the program.

 

I don't really blame any one person for these problems. It is really a problem that goes beyond any one person. Everything from institutional heads, to unit leaders, to district volunteers, and even the council staff are involved. There needs to be more focus placed on qualitiative, rather than quantitative issues. If you can't support Scouting in lets say 50 units, what is to make anyone think they can support an effective program in 100? I am certain there are places that do not share our difficulties (at least I hope there are).

 

Let me add something that should have been included up above. I realise part of this is biased due to my experiences as a youth. I had lots of fun with my troop. I really liked my troop, and I still do. However, I feel I was in many ways cheated by the size of my troop. When I was a patrol leader, I didn't really get to fully experience that because often the troop would just combine into one patrol in the field, since there were usually only one patrol's worth of Scouts in attendance at events. I also felt cheated because the PLC didn't really happend they way it was supposed to, becuase it simply didn't work with the number of Scouts, patrols, and youth leaders we had. We tried it, we wanted it to work, we just couldn't figure out a way to make the PLC work. Instead, we ended up using the whole troop as a PLC. Later, as SPL I again felt cheated, because there really was no PLC at all since we were down to one over-sized patrol. I didn't get to face the challenges that many SPLs do, and therefore I missed out on the opportunity for leadership growth that comes with such challenges. I never really realised what I had missed, until I went to Jamborree. At Jamborree, I got to see the patrol method in action, the way it is supposed to be, for the first time. Patrols cooked and cleaned together. There was a chain of command. Each patrol had a distinct identity, beyond just being a part of the troop. Unfortunately the short duration of the Jamborree prevented the developement of many positive features of the patrol method, but I could see it happening. I felt sort of like a kid in a cany store. Here was a chance to experience what I had read about in the various youth leadeship books. In the end however, I didn't really know quite what to do as SPL in that situation, since I had never really had a chance to try it before, and as such some of the Scouts in attendence probably didn't get as much out of their SPL as otherwise would have been the case. Looking back on things, I see many of the problems in my troop being caused by a drop in number of Scouts. This was in part due to retention problems. It was in part due to recruiting problems. It was also in part due to the district pushing new units that swallowed up the traditional recruiting pools for the existing units, only to themselves fail to deliver an effective program for a variety of reasons.

 

Scouting doens't opporate on a zero sum gain. The pie isn't a stricly set size. It is possible to make the pie bigger. The problem is that many seem to find some benefit in dividing up the pie into more pieces without making it appreciably bigger.

 

I am deeply concerned that in the quest to make Scouting available to every boy through every imaginable charter partner, that the Scouts themselves will be cheated out of the very experiences and opportunities Scouting should be offering.

 

Given the choice between two boys joining Scouting in a unit that does not deliver the program, and one boy joining in a unit that can really offer the program, I would choose the one. Better to make a real impact on the life of one boy than to cheat two out of the opportunity they deserve.

 

OK. So now I proved that this is somewhat personal for me. I certainly am not the most objective judge of this issue. I just don't want some Scout to look around some day and realise that there Scouting experience could have been so much more if only...

[VentureScoutNY]

I understand where Proud Eagle is coming from. I also was unable to fully take part in leadership roles due to the small numbers in the Troop.

 

But Professionals set goals, and those goals include starting more Units. Is it all about numbers when it comes down to it in the professionals job?

 

I agree that nurtering a Troop and ensuring it to have the full program is better than starting more untis. Especially when those new units may all have small numbers and may all have dicciculty putting on the full program.

 

So what is a proffesional to do in this situation? Start more units? Whos job is it, beside the Unit Leader to make sure a Troop is running the proper program?

 

(100th post, I'm becoming an addict)

[Fat Old Guy]

"So what is a proffesional to do in this situation? Start more units? Whos job is it, beside the Unit Leader to make sure a Troop is running the proper program?"

 

There's the rub. If a pro doesn't show enough growth in his district he can lose his job. However, if weak units are created, the product suffers.

 

This same problem exists in industry where production numbers are king. "Let's crank out cars, even if they are lemons at least we have cars out there."

 

 

[Bob White]

Let me address the last two posters. First VentureScoutNY.

 

There is no way that belonging to a small troop can keep anyone from taking part in leadership roles. The Boy Scout program is designed for every scout in a troop to hold either a patrol or troop position of responsibility regardless of the unit size. This only works of course if the scout leader uses the scouting methods correctly. Your problem was caused by the unit leadership, not the troop size.

 

Whose has the ultimate responsibility to insure a unit has a quality program? That responsibility rests with the Institutional Head. The IH determines if the organization is going to use scouting and signs the charter agreement. The IH also selects the Charter Organization Representative and the Committee Chair as well as approves all adult leadership applications. The scout unit is a youth auxiliary of the organization, and like all other functions of the organization the success of scouting falls on the IH.

 

Proud Eagle,

Small troops usually happen for one of two reasons.

First, it is a new unit, and all the scouts are the same general age and skill level. In which case you deliver the program level most appropriate to that level.

 

Second small troops of a wide age usually happens when a troop has a rapid loss of membership due to weak program and poor leadership. Often the onle scouts leaft are the leaders kids, their friend, and a couple new scouts who didnt know there was a problem before they joined.

 

The only hope for this troop is new leadership or a sudden epiphany taking place with the leader that they have been doing things wrong and need to follow the scouting program. Unfortunately this epiphany rarely happens and either the DE or Commissioner convinces the CO to get new leadership before it is too late, or the troop folds soon, and the process of rebuilding begins.

 

A troop that offers a good scouting program rarely remains small. If I have a new troop with 5 new scouts this year. Next year I should have 5 First Class scouts and lets say 3 New Scouts join from a Pack. I now have a New Scout Patrol and a Regular Patrol. So year-3 I get 3 more new scouts, Now there are two regular patrols and a new Scout Patrol and a total of 11 scouts. Year-4 3 more new scouts from the pack. I Take my three new First Class scouts and seed them into existing Regular Patrols. I now have 13 scouts and three patrols. Year-5, we see three more scouts join. We know have a Venture Patrol, two Regular patrols and a new scout Patrol, 15 scouts. Year-6, Three more new scouts, Three Venture patrols, a regular patrol, a new scout patrol, 18 scouts. Year 7 I lose my first 5 scouts due to age. We gain three new scouts and still have 16 boys. This does not take into consideration scouts you will gain from transfers in or friends who join.

 

So as long as you keep the promise of scouting small troops will grow every year. Of course you have to ask boys to join, but if you build it they will come.

 

Small troops are not the result of too many troops they are a matter of program delivery.

 

There are a few exceptions such a single troop in a town of 80 people, or a military base that is transferring families out and not in. But these situations are rare in the overall scope of the program.

 

[VentureScoutNY]

Bob, I like your Perfect Troop analysis. But that is the optimistic view of it, that does not work in scouts leaving for personal reasons and less than 3 scouts coming in every year due to the other Troops in the town that also have good programs.

 

But that is they way a Troop should work, if it is providing the full scouting program.

[Bob White]

Again with few exceptions, If there are multiple troops in town and you are only getting one or two New Scouts a year, what do you suppose the reason is? That you have such a good program the boys are staying away in droves? Or maybe.......

[Proud Eagle]

Sorry about the recent volume of somewhat unorganized posts from me lately. I will see if I can do better as the week progresses. Unfortunately I am a bit sleepy at the moment so this post probably won't make us much since by the time the sun comes up as it seems to make to me at the moment.

 

Bob, I agree that is how things should work under optimal conditions. Unfortunately, many of us live in places with far less than optimal conditions. Your model will fall apart if for say three years you increase the number of troops recruiting by 25% (a not so unrealistic number during a new unit push, at home there have been years when the number of troops actually doubled)per year without a similar increase in the number of Webelos bridging to Boy Scouts. It would be great if the desire/demand for Scouting was constantly increasing everywhere in such a way that it required new units to be formed to meet the demand. However, just because that would be great in the abstract, doesn't mean it is good to have new units being formed in all real situations. New units should be formed when there is a real need for additional capacity or capability to provide Scouting to boys, not when one extra unit is needed to reach the district goal for the year.

 

 

Let me start with a bit of demographics. My home town has about 25,000 people. That is virtually the same number it had in 1990, and that was only a little higher than the number in 1980. The population has stagnated. There is still economic growth. Average income increases, home ownership increases, and average home value increases. However, the number of persons per family, and the number of children born to each woman, have been on a constant decline. The under 18 portion of the population has actually suffered and continues to suffer a significant decline. The average age is increasing far faster than increases in life expectancies.

 

Due to these facts several schools have been closed. I know at least 4 that have closed in 10 years without being replaced. In all cases there was only minimal need to expand capacity at other schools, because the total number of kids in school was dropping.

 

Most new troops started in my home town don't last more than two years in reality. There are a few that have lasted longer in recent years. However, one of the old reliable troops folded up during this same time period, so that freed up quite a few potential recruits to join some of the new units. If that old troop hadn't folded, some of the new units likely wouldn't have survived. Ironically, it was aggressive recruiting by a few other new units that sapped that old units strength. Unfortunately, about half of those aggressively recruited Scouts dropped out about a year later when the unit that recruited them folded. Now in the end things essentaially balanced out. One old troop died, one new troop got itself on solid footing, another old troop continues on, and one or two other new units struggle to survive.

 

The problem is, in this sort of survival of the fittest, recruit hungry environement, many boys are promised a Scouting experience, only to have that promise broken when the unit they joined collapses. Many of those who are caught in such collapses then lose faith in Scouting and do not find another unit.

 

Despite this persistent problem which actually decreases the total number of Scouts that remain in Scouting for the full term, no one seems to be willing to admit there is a problem.

 

There is no sense, in my mind, in trying to increase the number of troops, when every troop in town is really no more than two bad recruiting years away from total collapse. This makes even less sense when the pool of Scouting eligible boys is shrinking. The fact that the vast majority of the new units started fail, should be something of an indicator that maybe starting more new units isn't such a great idea right now. Someone should also have taken note of the fact that many times when these new units are started, it negatively impacts the number of recruits going into the other units in that year. Someone should also have noted that fewer of those who join these new units stay in Scouting, than those that join existing units. (Actually, many of the unit leaders have noted this. Unfortunately, no one with any pull in the district will be bothered to hear such unproductive complaints. Instead the unit leaders get griped at for not recruiting more boys, when the Webelos they were counting on to be the core of the recruiting class got swept into some new, here this year, gone the next, troop.)

 

Now part of the problem is also due to recruiting and retention by the units. Unit leaders are very reluctant to invest time and energy into relations with packs, since it seems about every fourth year the charter orgs for those packs get talked into starting their own troop, or the DE or DC will swoop in and tell the cub leaders that they should take their Webelos to some other troop because it is their current pet project, or any number of other unecessary complications that seems to crop up. This shouldn't however, cause unit leaders to give up on recruiting. Yet many have nearly let themselves reach the point of hopelessness over the issue. Retention is also a problem. While the small unit size makes it easy to see who isn't coming to meetings, and to know who has dropped out, this doesn't seem to really be translated into a system for bringing those who have become inactive back into the program. Another problem is the program delivery is very inconsistent from year to year in many units. Many units, after a couple years of poor recruiting, start to loose the ability to run a good new Scout program, simply because they haven't really had the need to do so, and begin to forget the skills and ideas needed. Other units loose many older Scouts, because they can't do activities that will hold the interest of the older Scouts. Some of these units may only have 3-4 older Scouts, but they may all really be interested in high adventure. Unfortunately, since older Scouts are often the bizziest, that means the unit would be stuck with trying to plan high adventure activites that only 2 Scouts would likely go on. This wouldn't be much fun for the leaders or Scouts. So those older Scouts begin to drift away from Scouting and find other things to do.

 

Here is one real world example: the last time my unit sent a contingent to Philmont, it was necessary to partner with another unit to find enough youth and adults to fill out the group and provide sufficient leadership. This year teh troop is going to send a group to Philmont again. This time the troop has enough youth and adults to fill the group, and to provide leadership. Unfortunately, there aren't enough leaders available to also do a summer camp trip this year. Fortunately, another unit was willing to agree to take the new/younger Scouts from my troop with it to camp, as what you might call "provisional" members. (The troop that is taking the Scouts to camp has several older Scouts that would likely be interested in something like Philmont, but it doesn't have enough older Scouts to make it practical to focus on high adventure, and it doesn't have enough leaders to do two types of programs.) Now you might think that everything is working out just fine with these sorts of arrangements, but I will tell your from experience that creating provisional crews and thing like that is not exactly optimal. Just one exaple of the problems would be when the adults of one unit are used to using the directing style while the youth of the other unit are used to the adults using the supporting syle. That leads to unhappy youth leaders, unhappy adult leaders, and somewhat confused followers. (Yeah, I remember, we don't really like that term, but I couldn't think of a better one right now.)

 

 

[committeechair]

Our town has approx 12K people. We have 3 Boy Scout troops, and two Cub Scout troops (one recently absorbed another that folded).

At one time BS met on different nights, so people picked the troop for the night that was best for them. It isn't all that simple, however. Leadership styles, personalities, what kids are in the troops/packs determines where people want to go.

Our town had a fairly large pack that folded due to lack of a Committee Chair for 9 months, the Cub Master had change work hours

(and quit the pack), plus none of the leaders would do anything without being told what to do. Lots of problems. It was large, but not functioning well. Most of the cubs went over to other packs, but there were several who never transfered. It wasn't the night. They wanted the same people, and the same place! Not gonna happen, but...

In our 3 Boy Scout troops we are very different. Our troop gets the Scouts whos parents want them to do things the right way, not do what so-in-so was doing in another troop. We hear it all the time. Then we have had parents pull their kids after the Scoutmaster wasn't advancing them fast enough. We have a troop in town known as the 'eagle factory' because they don't have to do much to get advanced. That is where those parents move their kids. Later they come back "little Johnny didn't learn anything..."

One Big Troop? One big chaotic mess here in our town! Although it would be nice to have more parents to transport to campouts (we have had to cancel). By the way, we grew from a small group of about 6 regulars to 35. Same number of WILLING adults. We have tried everything to get help from these parents. Phone calls, letters, etc.

We wish we had only 6 again!

 

[Hunt]

It seems to me that there is a "critical mass" troop size, and that if your troop drops below it, you will have difficulty doing activities, getting enough adults, etc. I'm not sure what that size is, but I think 8 or 9 is probably pretty close. My son's pack dropped below critical mass, and it "de facto" merged with another pack that also had low numbers. The district pushed us pretty hard not to dissolve the pack, but to pretend that there were really two separate packs. Maybe merging was a step back in terms of "spreading the program," but it was a step forward for the boys in the two packs who received a better quality program after the merger.

[SR540Beaver]

My experience is that it takes everyone working together to grow scouting in a community. The district I'm in always leads the way for all of our other districts. That comes from the enthusiasm of the leadership from the disrtict folks all the way to the individual unit leaders. We have a pretty active group of district scouters and an active unit commissioner staff. We have pretty good attendance at roundtable each month. If Scout units don't know the Cub units and vice versa, it is the unit leaders own fault. When my son was a Webelos i and a Webelos II, he had four opportunities to camp and visit with different troops. Two Camporees and two Webelos Woods. We coordinated with a different Troop each time. There was a lot of competition because the units we had already visited/camped with would ask us to go with them again. We had an obligation to show our boys the different troops so they could make an informed decision. We crossed our entire Webelos den over to two troops. The Webelos den the prior year crossed over a large percentage of their boys to two entirely different troops than our boys. The troops can not depend on using us as a feeded pack. They have to work to get our boys. We can't assume that our boys will just cross over unless we give them a variety of flavors of different troops. The district encourages the interaction of packs/troops to facilitate retention of Cubs to Scouts. It is working for us. Do we have some Troops that are teetering on the verge of collapse? Sure. Is it due to the fact that we have a good number of troops in the area or some fault of the district and professionals? No! It is because of poor leadership in the individual unti and a bad program. Each of our units has a unit commissioner and district support if they are only willing to accept it. Troop size is dependent strictly on the unit itself. Off of the top of my head, I can think of 6 units within 5 miles of my house. Some are small, some are large. But their are literally thousands of scouting age boys in that 5 mile radius. If anything, we don't have enough units for our potential. If everyone did what my son and I are currently doing (working hard to recruit my son's best friend), you could double you troop size overnight.

[greenSM]

As the SM of a small troop this thread hits home and is fascinating to follow (even if I am Late to the party).

 

Yes it is difficult to run a program with only 5 participants. "Multi day backpacking trips" may not work but, camping still does! We have gone to summer camp with as few as 6 scouts (in years past this troop has had 3 at summercamp).

 

After three years of work we now have two patrols (one for older scouts working on Life and Eagle and one NSP). Although I would love to have 20-32 scouts just being able to split into two patrols has re-invigorated the troop! Even I was surprised and I have been the one dragging the leaders (including my CC/CR) to use the WHOLE Scout program.

 

I disagree that the size of the Unit is solely a reflection of the program. I have had parents- even entire Webeloes dens- shy away from our boy-led Troop because we were "disorganized" and the adults "had no control over the Scouts." The two large, adult run "Eagle Factories" in our city seem to fit the parents better and therefore that's where the Scouts go. My PLC can put on 9 campouts, three fundraisers, remodel the Troop trailer, and do dozens of hours of service work but, my DE and DC will refer inquiring boys to troops that don't even attend the District Camp-o-ree. But they're big and organized....

[Bob White]

Do not confuse Boy lead troops and patrols, with adult lead programs. Dont assume that boy lead troops and patrols cannot be organized. Keep in mind that it is the adults leading the program who are responsible for training the scouts to be organized.

 

Will a boy lead troop or patrol be perfect? Of course not, but you can be organized and not be perfect, but still be fun and effective.

 

Based on average population demographics you can expect a community of 12,000 to have approximately 1650 youth who are eligible for members for Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts and Venturing. You should be able to have at least 18% membership. That would be about 300 scouts in town. On average a community your size would have 10 to 15 scout units (DSteele can check my figures but I think Im close). Unit size will vary based on many elements.

 

Boys dont choose troops and stay in scouts based on whether it is organized or not. They join and stay based on one thing. Is it FUN? Boys will join and stay if they enjoy being there. The scouting program is designed to meet the needs and characteristics of youth at various ages and stages of development. Size does in a way help to determine the effectiveness of a units program. But it cannot be used as the sole barometer. There are a number of other elements that must be considered. Growth of membership history, program, leadership, Charter Organization resources and goals, unit tenure and development stage all play a role. So size does tell part of story but only when viewed with the total information on the unit.