divvying up costs for meals

[yknot]

The day is here when they can do all this online and have it delivered. 

[DuctTape]

51 minutes ago, yknot said:

The day is here when they can do all this online and have it delivered. 

yeah. they can also spend two weeks at summer camp living under canvas but never once preparing their own meals, or doing anything resembling the patrol method.

[desertrat77]

1 hour ago, yknot said:

The day is here when they can do all this online and have it delivered. 

True.  And when they stand before an Eagle board of review and are asked what they learned as a grubmaster, PL, SPL, etc., they'll give the same blank looks that I've seen on the last several Eagle boards I've sat on.  These duties are designed to challenge scouts.

 

[mrkstvns]

18 hours ago, fred8033 said:

... A smart shopper will have scouts eating like kings for $10.  A sloppy shopper can horribly overrun the budget.  Always hard to figure out whether to penalize the scouts in his patrol for poor shopping or unwise spending.

This is where the beauty of patrol method and scout-leadership come together.  Nobody needs to have any penalties for scouts who don't do a good job ---- the scouts will take care of that themselves. They'll make mistakes. Their peers will roast them. They'll learn from the experience and do better next time...

 

[fred8033]

2 hours ago, mrkstvns said:

This is where the beauty of patrol method and scout-leadership come together.  Nobody needs to have any penalties for scouts who don't do a good job ---- the scouts will take care of that themselves. They'll make mistakes. Their peers will roast them. They'll learn from the experience and do better next time...

 

I think I agree with your thoughts.  I'm just not sure on the remedy you suggest.  ... and finding a remedy is a real hard problem ... here is the real case that happened in our troop ... The scout was buying for his patrol and had the menu for his patrol.  He had around eight scouts.  At the time, the target budget was around $12 per scout.  $12 times 8 = $96 budget.  ... Well, the scout was a bit of a space case and instead bought enough for all scouts in the troop.  We were around 35 scouts at that time.  I suspect the parents badgered the scout and decided to play it safe.  Even then, they missed the $12 dollar budget per scout.  Receipts were over $500.  Should the scouts in his patrol pay the penalty and owe around $65 each for the food for the weekend?  

We ended up with adults buying and separating some of the extra food.  Troop did reimburse high for that camp out, but it was more like $15 or so per scout.  

True beauty of patrol method is peer pressure if you can route the peer pressure to be positive and not just "roasting" ... but that does happen too.  

 

 

[perdidochas]

21 hours ago, yknot said:

The day is here when they can do all this online and have it delivered. 

They still need to do this by comparison shopping. I don't see it as a real big difference. I'd much rather have the Scout use online grocery delivery than to have his mother do all the shopping.  

[mrkstvns]

38 minutes ago, fred8033 said:

 ... The scout was buying for his patrol and had the menu for his patrol.  He had around eight scouts.  At the time, the target budget was around $12 per scout.  $12 times 8 = $96 budget.  ... Well, the scout was a bit of a space case and instead bought enough for all scouts in the troop.  ...  Receipts were over $500.   

🙂

Youch!  That would be a painful mistake!

A few of the funny grubmaster faux pas that I've witnessed include....

* Grubmaster planned a pork chop dinner for his patrol of 7 scouts. Dinner time came and ...ooops! .... looks like there's only 6 pork chops in the package!  How did the scouts solve their problem?  Well, there's 7 scouts and only 6 pork chops, so obviously, only 6 scouts would eat pork chops.  Later, the Scoutmaster found out,  and the patrol had a "Scoutmaster conference" about fairness and problem solving...

* Grubmaster planned to serve hamburgers for dinner. He went and bought everything a couple days before the campout.  When dinner time rolled around, there was no hamburger in the cooler!  Did the grubmaster actually buy it?  Yep.  But in his rush to get out the door Friday afternoon, he'd forgotten that he'd put the meat in his fridge to keep it cold.  The patrol dined on plain white buns that night...

* No ASM advisor had been assigned to the new scout patrol. Their Troop Guide wasn't there when they planned their first campout menu (5 meals). When we got to the camp site, the other patrols found that the new scouts' grub box contained 5 of those big "family pack" boxes of frosted strawberry Pop Tarts....and nothing else!

[fred8033]

26 minutes ago, mrkstvns said:

... 5 of those big "family pack" boxes of frosted strawberry Pop Tarts....and nothing else!

That happened in the case I listed too.  Without intervention, the patrol had about 1.5 to 2 large boxes of pop tarts for each scout in his patrol.  They were very happy with that so they each kept their pop-tart supply.  They had less use for pounds and pounds of meatballs, pasta, sauce, eggs, lunch meat, milk, etc.  ... I think the scouts in question ended up sharing the pop-tarts with everyone at some point.  

Edited September 27, 2019 by fred8033

[Eagledad]

As the troop trailer was being loaded, one patrol realized they forgot to buy food. What was interesting about that was all the parents pulled in tight around ME to see what I would say. I said figure it out. Let's go. Strangely, the parents where happy with that response. The scouts manage to get enough food on the drive to the campout.

One patrol brought food, but left their Patrol Box. That forced them to learn how to cook on a fire. They enjoyed that experience so much, they cooked most of their meals on a fire from that time on. That was my older son's patrol and he told me after his first family camping trip that his wife was impressed with his fireside cooking. She grew up on a working cattle ranch and said they never eat that well on cattle drives. When my son was a troop guide, all the scouts under him learned their cooking skills on the fire. He always cooked a turkey on the new scouts first camp out to show them how good camp cooking tasted. Picture attached. 

My sons told me that patrols made mistakes forgetting food all the time, but since they knew the adults wouldn't help, the patrols just got good at helping each other out. I think that is a good habit to learn for life, but it did hurt to hear that they thought we adults were callus of these things. Truth is that we brought extra food just for such of emergencies. They only needed to ask. 

 

Barry

[yknot]

1 hour ago, perdidochas said:

They still need to do this by comparison shopping. I don't see it as a real big difference. I'd much rather have the Scout use online grocery delivery than to have his mother do all the shopping.  

That's what I was getting at but I wasn't clear enough. The skills are the same but the process is changing. They are also managing budgets by Venmo instead of cash. I don't think it matters how they do it as long as they do their best to do it on their own and do it safely.

[Eagledad]

5 minutes ago, yknot said:

That's what I was getting at but I wasn't clear enough. The skills are the same but the process is changing. They are also managing budgets by Venmo instead of cash. I don't think it matters how they do it as long as they do their best to do it on their own and do it safely.

Ah, this old timer has a lot to learn. Thanks

Barry

[shortridge]

I’m frankly a little surprised to see troops having Scouts (and parents) front the cost and then get reimbursed. That would have been impossible in my day - some Scouts barely had the $10 food fee, let alone affording $80 for the whole patrol. We were a fairly rural area with some lower-income youth.

We just brought cash to that week’s meeting, gave it to the shopper, and doublechecked receipts on Friday to make sure he hadn’t pocketed any cash. That almost never happened - leftover money usually went toward picking up an extra box of Pop-Tarts or hot chocolate mix.

[perdidochas]

On 9/30/2019 at 4:35 AM, shortridge said:

I’m frankly a little surprised to see troops having Scouts (and parents) front the cost and then get reimbursed. That would have been impossible in my day - some Scouts barely had the $10 food fee, let alone affording $80 for the whole patrol. We were a fairly rural area with some lower-income youth.

We just brought cash to that week’s meeting, gave it to the shopper, and doublechecked receipts on Friday to make sure he hadn’t pocketed any cash. That almost never happened - leftover money usually went toward picking up an extra box of Pop-Tarts or hot chocolate mix.

Sons' troop is very middle to middle upper class.