The Big, The Bigger and the Ginormous

[SemperParatus]

OneHour's confession that his Pack is 132 strong, has me thinking about size. I have been a leader in some rather large units (100+), and am currently serving a troop in its fifth year with a current roster of 50 and growing. I kind of really enjoy this size...not too big and not too small. Anyway, there is a troop in our council that boasts over 200 scouts, and I have heard of others in the country that may be even larger than that.

 

Many Councils require a minimum number of scouts to recharter, but I have never heard of a maximum.

 

I have to believe that there is some point where a unit becomes just too big. Restricting trip availability because of facility accomodations, real limits on leadership opportunities (I heard that the 200 troop has 6-7 ASPLs), massive administrative efforts, etc. etc.

 

Should a council consider maximum limits on unit sizes?

 

I would like to hear from the scouters of the superhuge (the greater opportunities available to the big and the limits as well), the mid-size (where do you want your unit to go in terms of numbers), and the small (do the big units hinder your recruitment, do you care?)

 

 

 

 

[OneHour]

Hey Semp,

 

Pack is one thing, but troop is a different story. Let me talk about Pack first. I'd prefer the size of a pack to be around 50-60. It's large enough to have fun. Admittedly, 132 was way too big. Not that District did not try to divide us and our brother Pack (and we were all for it). The problem is the adult leadership! No one wants to go to the new Pack. Remember that 4 Packs that will compete for space, time and resources. Many in our Pack will step up and help, but not many will lead. At the Pack level, a large size group is not that hard to handle if you have a lot of help. You'll find yourself not doing a lot of conventional Pack's activities such as playing games at pack meeting or arts and crafts. Our Pack meetings become more of a show than anything else (for skits, recognitions, etc.). It becomes a production! It's a lot less personal as with a small pack.

 

Troop ... that's a different story all together. Logistics are the biggest headache with the large troop. Our current size is about 52 and we're about to pick up 12 of 13 boys from my Pack ... this is not including the Webelos from other Pack. Yes, we have another troop (our brother troop). Yes, we were separated at one point! We grew ... they shrunk! Recently, recruiting has become nasty, feelings were hurt, and unsubstantiate accusations flew, but that's a story for another day. Our troop would rather remain the size of 30-50 with 35 active boys! It's easier for the SPL to manage! Remember the boy leader can only influence so many other boys! It's a real challenge with a large number of free-thinking boys! That's when adults tend to step in! That's why I don't like large size troop. There are too many chances for the adults to pull the reign and intervene on the SPL's behalf!

 

To answer your question, I prefer 30-50 boys for troop and up to 60 boys for Pack.

 

1Hour

 

 

[Oak Tree]

When our pack grew from the 30s up to 70, we ran into a number of limits. Some of the campgrounds we had used were no longer big enough. We had to move our Blue and Gold to another location. We had to change the way we ran the Pinewood Derby. Our pack meetings had to become more structured. Not all of these are really 'limits', but it did change the way we had to do things. We've gotten fairly good at running the larger pack (I say 'larger', even though I recognize we're nowhere near 132).

 

I don't know of any greater opportunities, really. The small pack could pretty much do everything the larger one does. One thing that does change is that there are more volunteers, so we probably do more activities than we did before. It's easier to dig up a parade coordinator, a ball game coordinator, a camping coordinator, etc, all in the same year.

 

My boys liked the smaller pack better. They felt like they knew everyone. And it's the same thing in the troop; they'd prefer it not get too large, either. But you do experience some natural growth when you run a good program, and it would be hard to put a low limit on the size of the unit. Still, I liked the pack at about 40 and the troop at about 25.

 

Oak Tree

[Oak Tree]

And to answer your other questions:

 

Should a council consider maximum limits on unit sizes? I don't think so. While each unit can set their own max, I don't see any reason to stop a CO from running a 200-boy unit if they want to. I guess National could decide that the patrol method and boy leadership really can't effectively extend beyond some number (e.g. 120, or 64, or whatever.) But most units are pretty much self-limiting anyway.

 

Do the big units hinder your recruitment, do you care? When we were small we didn't have any problem recruiting at the pack level. Our troop, and most troops around here, get most of their boys from their feeder pack, so there's really not much problem at the troop level, either. I think small units can actually have a recruiting advantage, because some people prefer smaller groups.

 

Oak Tree

[Eamonn]

Back when I was SM, we seen the troop grow from zero. Along the way:

Less than 12 was really hard.

24 -40 Was fun.

60 -80 was hard.

When we got to 90 it was almost a full time job, so we split and lost 10.

Cub Scouting wasn't so hard we never went over 70. But finding places to hold banquets was a problem. We were fortunate to have a really good committee and great Den Leaders.

The big problem with small units is that they need such a high percentage of interested parents. When the parents don't step up we have people wearing multiple hats and when they burn out you need to fill multiple positions.

I don't know if National should set limits. I do know that Troops over 60 do need very Strong leadership.

Eamonn.

[Kahuna]

When we had a 90 boy troop, we had 12 ASMs, so there is more adult support, but for the SM it's a full time job. Our SM was his own boss and content with low income during those years, so he really did it almost as a full time job.

 

A big troop is a lot of fun, though, if you have the ability to do it. We owned a bus and traveled all over the country. We also planned, set up and staffed a district camporee with Green Bar Bill as Camporee Chief. You can't do that with a 24 boy troop.

 

Not everybody would want to either.

[woody01]

I wish we had your problems there are so many packs

in my town were luckey to have 10 boys. The town has

Pop. Of about 5,ooo & we have 5 or 6 packs in town.

[Cubmaster Jerry]

I transferred from a Pack of 45 to a Pack of 135 last year. There are a few limitations that my larger Pack has to endure because of the larger size. Probably the biggest hurdle we have to face as a large Pack is where to hold our big events such as B&G and PWD. For example, for this month's B&G we have to make sure we have room for 400 people to sit and eat as well as space to do the program. Pack meeting activites are another big adjustment I had to make as Cubmaster. It's kind of difficult to play a game at a Pack meeting with 100+ boys. However, the overall administration activities of each Pack were no different. Each of these Packs had plenty of Committee members. In my current (larger) Pack we did have to "encourage" a few parents to be leaders of newly formed dens but I can't say that is a direct result of the size of the unit. One glaring difference between the two was retention. In my old Pack of 45 boys, we averaged one boy lost in the four years I was there. In my new Pack we are probably looking at 20% lost this year. Those lost do not include graduation or transfers.

 

I would be hesitant to limiting the size of a unit. The downside to establishing a maximum size is that leaders may see that as a directed cap. Once the unit reached that limit, they might be inclined to cease recruiting. I, for one, am not in favor of preventing boys from joining scouts for any reason.

 

Now, we will only recharter about 90 boys this month due to graduation and those who have decided to leave the program (I am amazed at the number of boys/parents who sign up and pay at SNFS and then never show up). However, our last three fall recruitments have been 50+. Seeing that this trend will continue I hope to have a plan in place this spring that will funnel the majority of the new boys who sign up in this fall into a newly formed Pack in an adjacent community and as a result, reduce the size of our unit.

[gwd-scouter]

Our Troop is small - 12 boys. It's been around for 8 years and the largest it's been is 16 boys. We have always had trouble recruiting. Our feeder Pack has never been well organized and usually has to start over every year. Last year we got one Scout - this year we aren't getting any.

 

We have two very large Troops in town. One fed by a huge Pack, the other by the YMCA. The other Troops and Packs are small and have similar recruiting/organization problems that we do.

 

I was Cubmaster of that huge Pack (100+ boys) and loved it. However, when my oldest crossed over to the large Troop, he felt lost in the mix. So, he transferred to the smaller Troop that my youngest and I are involved with now.

 

I have often heard from parents that their boys join the large Packs and Troops because they feel these units must be doing something right to be so big. Many times, our smaller units aren't even given a "look see" because families think they are small because they aren't a good unit.

 

Having a small Troop does allow us to go anywhere we want and never poses a transportation problem. However, it is difficult to consistently use the Patrol Method when we only have 50% turnout for a campout (5-6 Scouts is the norm). On the plus side, patrols of 3 Scouts does require them to work together more and get more practice in cooking, cleaning, planning, etc.

 

A small Troop also allows all the Scouts to have a POR almost all the time. The younger Scouts usually have the less demanding POR which gives them experience for when they are older and take on the more demanding POR such as SPL and Troop Guide. In our small Troop, everyone has a job to do so no one feels like he is just along for the ride.

 

The biggest downside to our small troop is adult leadership. We only have 3 active adults that go to meetings, but only 2 (husband and I) go on outings every month. We've had to schedule all our monthly campouts around my husband's schedule to make sure we have enough adults. I would certainly like to see our Troop grow a bit - perhaps to about 20 Scouts - and hope we can get more adult leadership to help share the load.