Is it time for a new troop in town?

[Lisabob]

I had an interesting conversation the other day with one of the SMs in town. He said that he felt it was time to think about starting a new troop in town, and that he and some of the other longtime Scouters whose sons have aged out of the program would be interested in doing just that over the next two-three years. Now I'm on the district membership committee and I had actually approached him with the idea of getting a venturing crew started, but I wasn't really thinking about a new troop.

 

Right now in our town there are four troops. One is LDS only, which is very small in our area. The second is a small troop (10-15 members) that is always struggling to have enough active members to stay viable. The third - us - hovers around 35-45 boys pretty consistently. To my surprise, the fourth troop now has about 75 boys, up by at least 40 in the last two-three years. This last troop had gone through some leadership transition issues for a few years and now has a younger and very dynamic group of leaders involved. They had almost 30 new cross-overs join them this winter/spring. I don't know the LDS troop but the other three troops in town all provide a good program, though the small troop has canceled several outings for lack of adult leadership recently, as I've written about in other posts.

 

Most of the recruiting for these troops comes straight from cub scouts and most of the 8 packs in town are thriving. Total size of this town is about 40,000. There are also 5-6 other solid, healthy troops and 10-15 other packs within about a 20 mile radius, drawing primarily from other school districts in the county.

 

Ours is the fastest growing town in the fastest growing county (population) in the state but as a district we still serve under 10% of available boys in the boy scout age range. At the district level (based on county lines) last year we had a net loss of boy scouts.

 

Given all that - how do you know when it is the right time to start up an additional troop? What are some likely indicators of success that you would want to see prior to beginning another troop in the same territory? If you break off leadership from an existing troop (or from 2 existing troops), how do you go about that without damaging those troops? What red flags should one be aware of in this endeavor?

 

If you have experience you are willing to share, positive or negative, I'd appreciate it. Right now this is just an idea, nothing more, but if we are going to pursue it over the next couple of years, I want to see it done right.

[Beavah]

Wow, a real, thoughtful membership committee!!! Scout salute to yeh! Dat's right rare, that is.

 

I've been involved in a lot of unit startups over the years. For troops, yeh seem to have the right ingredients - a growing boy demographic in a healthy, growing community, with at least one troop showing explosive growth to the point of bein' "too big." So you've got demand. If yeh don't have demand, it's never going to work.

 

Next question is, do you have capital? All the demand in the world doesn't get you the capital resources yeh need to be successful. Human resources are first - you need some young, dynamic leadership that's going to be around a while, and comes in with some skills rarin' to go. Physical and support resources next - CO? Meeting place? District "seed money" or equipment donations to get 'em started? A "sister troop" to help 'em their first year or two? A year's worth of local and area outing & meeting plans they can choose from to get started well?

 

Next is marketing, eh? Not just advertisin', mind you, but real marketing - settin' up your product to match the demand. Generic Boy Scout units, as you've learned, aren't attractive just because they're Boy Scout units. You have a small local troop and a very large, rapidly growing local troop. What's different about 'em? That big troop is doing marketing - they are matching their program to the demand. Yah, yeh have to learn from that. To be successful, your new unit has to capitalize on that - talk that talk, walk that walk. Meet the demand.

 

With all that in place, yeh need a plan. Specifically, you need to identify a "critical mass" of boys and leaders who will join the new unit as a group. That can be a large graduatin' webelos II den, or a split from the big troop in town, or some other group. What you're lookin' for is enough folks to really get things going, who already know/like/get along/work together. I've always found it very difficult to successfully get a new unit runnin' with dribs and drabs, a couple boys here and there. Too much formin' and stormin', not enough to really run right.

 

Your goal should be to have everything possible in place for a great first year, right through second recruitin' season. Even then it'll be tough, eh? But the closer you are to that, the greater your likelihood of success.

 

Beavah

 

 

 

[John-in-KC]

Lisa,

 

I guess first I'd like to know what it would take to strengthen that one little troop, then start a-building...

 

A friend of mine has shown me, more than once, a Commissioner's College thesis on the optimum size for a Troop, based on the Scouting literature. It's around 48 youth, providing for several patrols and a robust set of Troop PORs. Of course, as Beavah has said more than once, if I understood him correctly, a Troop is going to size itself to the comfort level of the adult leaders over time.

 

Questions I'd want to ask:

 

- Is the current "big troop" willing to surrender some of its Scouts, and some of its size?

 

- For that matter, are there Scouts who are willing to transfer to be a nucleus for the start-up?

 

- Is there a potential Chartered Partner who wants to use Scouting, and is willing to do its side of the Charter Agreement?

 

- What can be done, collaboratively, between the Troops to encourage both Cub Scouting and Boy Scouting. A friend of mine, who sits on our Council Executive Board, keeps reminding me "Cub Scouting is the seed corn, and we have to make sure we're giving it all we can!"

 

- How do the area middle school principals and admired teachers feel about Scouting?

 

- How do the area churches feel about Scouting?

 

- Are there activities the town Troops can do together to help make Scouting more "Cool" to youth... attend the HS football game en masse, or have a hayride this fall? What about a "evening at the pool"? I know several Eagles, great campers all ... but they're HS kids, and they still like PS3 tournaments!

 

In short, find the barriers ... and then find ways to eliminate or bypass them.

 

This is a tale to keep telling us about

[DenZero]

Instead of starting a new unit from scratch, why don't they join the small troop, which is probably in desperate need of some fresh leadership. They've probably already got equipment, structure, traditions, chartered org., meeting place, etc. If a new troop is truly successful, the small unit will likely fold anyway from the increased competition for boys.

 

[Eamonn]

Wow!

A town of 40,000 and only four Troops!!

In our little hamlet of 4,700, we have five.

Someone once said to me that Troops should be like restaurants, with enough to cater for the likes and dislikes of every boy in the area.

I think you know that the LDS Troop will always be the LDS Troop!!

But what happens when the small Troop, finally gives up and calls it a day?

I don't see very much choice.

It might be worth talking to the local Cub Scouters and see if any of them have any plans to start a new Troop?

It might be a bit over the top if these Boy Scouters went ahead only to find that overnight there are now ten Troops in town!!

Our newest Troop started up about 7 or 8 years ago. The offspring of the best and largest pack in town. Things seemed to have gone well till this year. The Pack had leadership problems and is gone and this year old one Lad crossed over.

The SM (My old Assistant Cubmaster) has a son who is now 18 and an Eagle Scout, he has young daughters who are involved in girl Scouts, I don't know how much longer he will hang in there?

I'm not sure if 7 or 8 years is a good run?

Many of the kids that have been in the Troop have had a good time, they have learned a lot.

Eamonn.

[prairie]

Several thoughts.

Is a large geographic area of your town without a troop?

If all the COs are religious might a service club CO attract boys put off about joining a church troop?

Is it time to split the megatroop?

 

 

[Eagledad]

>>Right now this is just an idea, nothing more, but if we are going to pursue it over the next couple of years, I want to see it done right.

[MarkS]

Beavah said, "If yeh don't have demand, it's never going to work."

 

You need to be on our DE's advisory panel... We have two Packs in neighboring elementary schools that feed into our Troop. Neither had enough adult leadership to recharter but both had 8 to 10 boys. The DE's solution was to keep both units active as separate units and dual-register adult leadership so that they both can recharter. The units started combining for some of their bigger events of the Spring like pinewood derby and Blue & Gold and will begin meeting together for Pack meetings in the fall. On paper there are two units but they operate as one... They're stuggling and don't really need any perceived quasi-separation that could potentailly build walls between the leaders.

 

A scout is trustworthy. Honesty [and ethical behavior] is part of his code of conduct.

[fotoscout]

I am never very fast to suggest that a new unit be started and in this case I'll stick with my gut feel. You have a struggling unit in the area, help it succeed! Provided that the struggling unit wants the help, put the resources into that unit and help it become strong.

 

Aside from that, I have not become a fan of units that are controlled by "longtime Scouter's whose sons have aged out of the program". At this point in my scouting career, I see too many lame units that are just not offering an exciting program because those units are being run by a clique of old timers scouter's who have no children in the unit. It is the rare exception, when these groups of scouter's are truly in sync with todays youth. In the end they seem to be more enamored with themselves in uniform, than with keeping the program active and exciting.