Death of a Troop

[ASM59]

(sorry, this is a long post...)

 

The past year or so has been very disappointing. Weve had in-fighting on the Troop Committee and a SM and ASM who have superseded the authority of the boy-leadership (at summer camp and another outing) to the point of making the boys wonder why they even try.

 

The Troop has done well from the standpoint of the boys and their development, growth, and advancement. We have many Scouts who are Star and Life rank and eagerly looking toward getting their Eagle rank.

 

One of the Committee members and I have tried to keep things moving along, but my job has placed more demands on my time (traveling, many times on our meeting nights). Our SM cannot be relied on to show up for meetings and he doesnt bother letting anyone know that he will not be there until 20-30 minutes before the meeting. This results in some parents arriving at the meeting place only to realize that the meeting has been canceled when no leaders show up, because they missed the phone call canceling the meeting. Our last two meetings were canceled (I was out of town) at the last minute and our CO was not notified that the building was not needed. They are now mad at the Troop leadership because they pay an employee to come to open the building for us.

 

Our SM planned the last two outings, only to drop them in the lap of others (myself and the committee member) at the last minute. And, no, there does not appear to be a reason and he will not discuss it or return phone calls from me. The SM planned a Court of Honor; I offered to help get the advancements together with him, but he insisted that hed take care of it. He called me 40 minutes before the start of the COH to let me know that he would not be there and that I should pick up the awards before I head to the meeting. I was barraged with questions from Scouts and Parents as to why certain awards were not handed out. I had no answer other than I did not have them to be handed out.

 

With the troubles that we had at Summer Camp, our other active ASM is not willing to help out anymore. We only have two adults who seem to be committed to seeing this thing work, but I no longer have the time or the type of job that allows me to be present at most meetings and some outings. Our PLC has requested outings in October and November and our SM will not commit to going on any outings.

 

Is this the death of a Troop? No one will step forward to help! I mentioned in a previous post that we are pulling from all the available parents as it is. Now those parents do not seem to be willing to do anything.

 

I know I sound like Im complaining (maybe I am) but I really do care about the boys in this Troop, but I am considering taking my son to another Troop that is functioning. If I go, the Troop will either sink (fast) or someone will have to step forward.

 

Any comments about what else we can do?

 

ASM59

 

[emb021]

While I don't have a full idea of what is going on, it seems clear to me that one thing that needs to be done is replace the SM. Missing an occasional meeting is one thing (which is why a SM needs reliable ASMs for), but it sounds like a lot of missed meetings, cancelled meetings, etc. The COH should have been planned out weeks in advance, AND all the awards already obtained. In fact, the awards should have ALREADY been handed out, and the COH should have served as a time to publicly recognized advancement, hand out cards and parents pins, etc.

 

The Troop Committee needs to get its act together, and prehaps replace the SM with one of the ASMs, and work to get some additional ASMs.

 

Recommend you speak with your Unit Commissioner &/or DE for help in this. Get your COR and CC on board with this as well.

 

[ASM59]

Yes, it is difficult to give the whole story, but as I mentioned, there has been in-fighting on the committee. Everyone thinks everyone else is out to get each other along with gossip and hard feelings. It is almost impossible to get cooperation out of anyone. I have talked to our CO Rep but she doesn't know what to do outside of getting rid of the whole lot of them (Committee, SM, and an ASM). If she did that, there would be only two or possibly three people left, and we have 21 Scouts.

 

Like I said, we cannot get anyone to even help drive boys to outings when we have two leaders to take them. Our August outing was canceled due to not enough seat space. I was out of town with my wife for her birthday. The SM set-up the outing and then a few days before the outing told one of the other parents that his son would not be going. When asked if he was still going, he simply did not answer and made an excuse why he needed to go. The same committee member tried calling the next day and left a message on his answering machine. She was never called back despite multiple attempts and messages. She and another committee member decided to try to make the outing happen. They called the parents of all the boy who were going and not one of them would volunteer to drive a few boys (only needed room for 3 additional boys) 30 minutes from town. After they could not get one of the parents to do it, they called all other adults registered in the Troop who did not have a son going, only to be told no by all and at least one said, "My son's not going, why would I drive other kids?"

 

We are planning to go to the Illini Jamboree in Rantoul, IL in September. The two of us that are planning to go do not have enough seat space to take all the boys that have signed up, so our CO is going to have one of their employees take us in their 15 passenger bus. This is a two hour drive each way. I really appreciate their willingness to do this. I asked our SM 5 weeks ago if he'd be able to go so we'd have enough seats. As before, he keeps avoiding the answer to the question, so we've made these other arrangements.

 

This is really bad and very hard to explain. It goes deeper, but I think it's impossible to get a year's worth of history out...

 

ASM59

[orennoah]

Not to sound "touchy feely" or anything, but one thing is crystal clear. There is a total lack of "shared vision." To the extent that anyone is working, it's at cross purposes.

 

No parent volunteers to drive 1/2 hour out of town? I doubt that it's because they don't care about their kids. It's more likely that they're fed up with the adult leadership.

 

PLC not planning outings? Sounds like a lack of understanding of the program by the SM and consequent apathy by the boy leadership.

 

Flaky, controlling SM? In addition to the lack of understanding of the program, a lack of leadership ability and, likely, a lack of caring anymore.

 

Solution? Get the adult leadership and the parents together, along with someone outside the Troop who can properly express the aims and methods of Scouting (Unit Commissioner? District volunteer? Former SM?) and get everyone (or at least a significant number) to share the vision of a properly operating troop and commit to assisting to bringing that about.

 

Good luck!!!

[Hunt]

I'd bail out if I were you. I suspect it would take too much time to correct the situation, and the boys currently in the troop would lose out in the interim.

[BrentAllen]

"They called the parents of all the boy who were going and not one of them would volunteer to drive a few boys (only needed room for 3 additional boys) 30 minutes from town.

 

Sounds to me like y'all are running a free baby sitting service, not a Scout Troop. Time to let those parents know that is not the case, and if they can't lend a hand, their boys don't participate.

[Eamonn]

"When the going gets tough, the tough get going"

The big question is where will they go?

Sounds as if a good sort out and house cleaning is in order.

I think the COR really does need to get involved.

While no one seems to know what reason the SM has for not doing his job. It seems clear that he isn't doing it and this just isn't fair to the Scouts, the parents and the CO.

The Committee Chair. Needs to take charge of the Committee. If there is dead wood there and a couple of people are disrupt the smooth running of the unit they need to be put in their place.

A nominating committee should be got together and should start working on selecting a new SM and maybe a couple of new ASM's.

You don't say the size of the Troop? But if getting them to camp is a problem why not rent vans. A 15 seater van in our area costs about $80.00 for a weekend that's only about $5.50 a Scout.

Eamonn

[Venividi]

"Everyone thinks everyone else is out to get each other along with gossip and hard feelings. It is almost impossible to get cooperation out of anyone."

 

And this is the adults. What a poor example they are setting for the scouts. One of the things that I have noticed is that boys coming into a troop want to be the leader. Gradually, more of them want to avoid the leadership positions, because they want to avoid the responsibility of leadership. I have seen patrols that would not elect a patrol leader, because the patrol members wanted to sit back and hang out, and let someone else do the leading. Makes one wonder whether the parents understand the aims of scouting.

 

Good Luck, (and Go Illini!)

[ASM59]

Yes, there is a lack of shared vision, but mostly a lack of commitment. I mentioned that we have 21 boys in the Troop, and that we are utilizing every available parent (on Committee or SM/ASM). There simply is not one additional parent that we have available due to a variety of reasons.

 

I didn't mean to imply that our PLC does not plan outings. When I said that our SM "planned the last two outings", I should have said that he was going to be the adult leader in charge of facilitating the outing. The PLC has been doing a great job of planning outings for the last year. They have planned outings for October & November, but I cannot get another leader willing to go so we'll have two deep leadership; so there may be no outings after September's outing.

 

I really think the reason that we could not get parents to drive the boys 1/2 hour away is because the "Boy Scout thing" is not a priority or not as important as other things that they have going on in their lives - including the SM, ASM's, and Committee Members. It is not because of being "fed up with the adult leadership" yet. You see, most of the problems were not visible to anyone outside of the Troop leadership until this outing. This is because there were a couple of us committed to doing anything possible to make sure things didn't fall apart. In the past, I have missed family activites and other engagements for the sake of making sure that the Troop could have an outing. There have been other times in the past where I was not scheduled to be a leader on an outing and someone canceled at the last minute and I put the Troop (and the Scouts) ahead of my plans; even going when my son did't go. But lately this has happened too many times. I could have changed my plans and helped take the Scouts on last month's outing, but I felt it was time to place my priorities on my wife and not make her take a back seat to a Scout activity again. The fact that nobody else would volunteer to take the boys really shocked me and made me realize just how bad it is.

 

ASM59

 

[ASM59]

Eamonn,

 

I was interested in you comment about being able to rent a 15 passenger van for $80 for the weekend. What rental company is that? We rented two 15 passenger vans for our Church Youth Group and the best we could find was about $100 per day which ended up costing aroung $300 for the weekend per van.

 

Just curious...

 

ASM59

[Eamonn]

http://www.georgestradingpost.com/about_us.htm

George charges us $39.95 a day.(We are PA tax exempt) This covers 250 miles at no cost after the first 250 it's 15 cents a mile.

We normally pick up the vans on Friday afternoon and drop them off on Sunday.

We don't pay $300.00 for a week.

But for long trips that 15 cents a mile can start to mount up PDQ.

Eamonn

[MarkS]

Sounds like the Troop has already died and doesn't really know it.

 

My son and I crossed over to a Troop last February and I am fortunate to say that it has a nice number of active adults sharing leadership and an excellent Scoutmaster who really knows what it takes to make the program a success--everything from being a great recruiter, program/budget planner, boy leadership facilitator, and trainer. I'm the newest leader in the Troop and he's really showing what it takes to be a successful unit.

 

However, when I was in our feeder Pack, I was pretty much doing everything myself because the rest of the adult leadership was somewhat apathetic towards scouting and minimally trained.

 

What I have learned is that if you can not motivate adults to serve actively in their son's program in two or three months, if you provide them ample lead time to make room on their busy skeds to take training and they don't, if they have higher priorities such as baseball or soccer for their free time, then they will never activly help, they will never take training, and scouting will always be a lower priority.

 

If I ever find myself in a similar situation as I was in the Pack (or in a situation similar ASM59), I will work for one year to turn things around. My theory is if it can't fixed it between recharters, it's best to move to another unit where I can direct my efforts towards the boys rather than the parents. If you don't have first time success in motivating a parent, you probably never will.

 

If I was in ASM59's unit, I'd be devoting my time to find a unit with more committed adult leadership and better program that I can really contribute to.

 

The current adults will have their boys age out in the next three years and I'm really worried about the future of our Troop because I see a vacuum in leadership coming.(This message has been edited by MarkS)

[scoutingagain]

I hate to say it, but if I were in your shoes, I'd probably be looking for another troop. You don't have the time to fix this unit and your son(and maybe a few of his friends) will be better off with a unit that's functional. Volunteer to do what you can. You sound like you would be able to do your fair share in a unit with functional adults.

 

On the other hand I sympathize with the loss of a unit. Especially one where there are 21 scouts that, based on your description, seem to have some level of interest. But I think your COR has the right idea. If the current adult leadership isn't cutting it, clean house and give an opportunity to others that are willing to give it a go, the right way. If they can't be found...well maybe it is time for the unit to fold.

 

Just my thoughts.

 

SA

[campcrafter]

59,

I feel your pain. As I described in a previous thread the troop our boys croseed over to is lacking leadership. I cannot be SM but am ASM and willing to help were need if there was leadership.

 

This weekend myself and 2 other parents took boys to a campout the OA was doing for boys on trail to first class. Only the boys who crossed over this year went. Our SM did not attend. He did however meet us a the church to pull the gear we would need. Which was just some tents and cooking gear since the OA was doing the program.

 

Well again since I was ASM I was "in charge" the SM had given me copies of the Tour Permit and permission slips.

 

Well silly me didn't check through everything he gave us so when we arrived I was short one permission slip for a boy. No prob only 30 mins from town, met parent 1/2 way.

 

After the leader's meeting the campout with the event staff I decided to check the equipment boxes to be sure we had enough pots /pans/ etc to cook as two patrols ( we could cook as one since we only had 10 boys if need be)

 

Here is what we had : a box with a few assorted cooking utensils

2 large pots from Trail Chef kit, one small pot from kit, a few disposable aluminum baking pans and pie tins. One stove had all the parts but was filthy and the other was missing the grate.

 

So off to WalMart to buy frying pans, spatulas, detergent, scrub pads and 2 stoves. ( wasn't going to take a chance that either worked)

 

And since this getting too long I won't go into my rant about other parents.

 

Suffice it to say my advice to you and myself is this: all is futile - bail out and find a new troop both for you son's sake and yours. I just came from Scout office with contact names for 3 other area troops whoe were also at the campout this weekend and seem to have good leadership, so we'll be going for visits.

 

YIS,

cc

[Scoutmaster Ron]

Is the troop dead ..no does it have the making of a mass exodus.. yes. In my opinion you need to repl the SM. Then ask each family to serve the troop in some capacity either on committee or ASM or just drivers but the most important they need to be trained.