Starting a New Troop

[Beavah]

 

In a previous thread, John-in-KC gives some spot-on advice for folks to consider when lookin' at starting a new troop. Seems like a worthy enough topic to dedicate a thread to, eh? Hopefully, we're not shrinkin' everywhere.

 

So, first an open invitation to anybody who has started a new troop from scratch to share your experiences, insights, and dos-and-don'ts.

 

Then an invitation to anybody who is thinkin' about goin' the new troop route to ask questions or share their plans for comment.

 

Beavah

[John-in-KC]

The year ahead of Eagle Son, the Pack had 18 Webelos II in two dens. The kids decided they wanted to stick together in joining a Troop. They visited all 1/2 dozen Troops operating in a 4 mile radius from the elementary school they called home 9-3 daily. NONE of the Troops wanted to absorb 18 kids at one fell swoop.

 

Web DL was an Eagle Scout, Brotherhood, had earned several Cub training awards. He approached the VFW about starting a Troop.

 

... And so they did.

 

A bit over 3 years later, he wanted to form a Venturing Crew. That is where I get my first piece of personal advice in forming a Troop... be prepared to stick it out for five years, until program succession is truly in place. Founding SM pushed another guy to be SM. I've seen the consequence Beavah described of sorta caring SM.

 

Next thing I saw when we got there was a bunch of 2d and 1st Class Scouts trying to act like they were 14 going on 15 or 16. SECOND LESSON: Recruit some start-up older youth to be TGs, SPL, PLs, and so on. If necessary, sponsor them through Brownsea (NYLT these days).

 

First couple of years we had good recruiting. Kids went back and served as Den Chiefs. Then we hit a class of recruits and parents which didn't understand "give back." Troops must, from Day 1, reach back to Packs if they want to survive. Automatic Feeder is a crock of excrement that stinks. It doesn't work.

 

I was CC when another Troop, which also hadn't sent out enough Den Chiefs, folded. We merged their operation. Through my tenure as CC, the SM would not arm-twist kids into going out to Den Chief, or even J-staff day camp. This Spring, the Troop merged into a strong area Troop.

 

LESSONS:

 

- Good adults on both the Committee and the SM/ASM sides. Make sure they're trained with good outdoor skills and good indirect leadership skills.

 

- LONG TERM COMMITMENT at the start-up. If you're not (all things being equal) planning to be there 5 years down the road, revisit why you want to start a unit.

 

- Steady flow of youth in at the bottom.

 

- Lots of room for growth as they hit 14-16 years old. You can retain youth, but you need to help them find Scouting opportunities matching their interests!

 

YIS.

[Cubmaster Randy]

Excellent advice from John

We formed a new troop last March. Originally we had 5, now we are at 7 ....all weblelosII crossovers

 

I would add

*Start Early...Around here, most webelosII know which troop they are going to by the end of December. We had our open house in January. Several scouts and parents I spoke with would have been interested, but had already committed to other troops

*Equipment and Finances- Can you borrow equipment or will you need to purchase. How are you going to do this?

*Have a vision about the troop- share it with the other adults on the committee and with the ASM(s). Make sure everyone is on board.

*Have a plan. Potential scouts and their parents are going to ask questions. Get a troop policy maual togther. You can borrow one from another troop and modify it Get the boys outdoors. camping hiking, summer camp. Let the boys lead from the beginning. In the beginning you need to be more directive, but after a while they will begin to understand. Otherwise you may end up with a Web III patrol

* Get everyone trained and involved... Scouts too

I've found that many of the cubs and parents inititially did not understand the boy scout program and what is different. and what they needed to do to support the troop

*Get older scouts involved. If you can't get any older scouts to join, check with other troops, OA, or perhaps a local crew. They could send over guest instructors to come in and teach T-FC skills during skills instruction time

*Talk with other SM's. Observe their troop meetings

get ideas.

 

[Eagledad]

>>*Have a vision about the troop- share it with the other adults on the committee and with the ASM(s). Make sure everyone is on board.

[Lisabob]

This is something I've been thinking about a lot - thank you Beavah, for starting this thread.

 

I'm looking at things from the perspective of a district membership committee member. We're helping to start two new packs this year (September), and potentially a troop and one or more crews in the next year or two. I will play a role in helping these new units get up and running, but I am not the primary unit leader in any of these. Nor have I had personal experience starting new units in the past. I'd like to learn from you, as much as possible.

 

So what I'd love to hear from those who have "been there, done that" is, how can the district help you? What sorts of advice, support, or guidance did you receive from district, and/or what would you have LIKED to receive?

 

Also, I'm curious about whether new units typically have, or take, the chance to build a better/more active relationship with their new COs, and whether those relationships tend to remain active over time. This matters a lot to me since I see so many units where the CO hardly knows they exist - until a problem arises, at which point the CO often compounds it since they know so little about the program.

 

And finally, I'm REALLY curious about the time commitment. How much time should a reasonable person expect to put into getting a brand new unit up and running, in a typical week/month?

[John-in-KC]

Lisa,

 

From having a "paper tiger" UC:

 

The best thing the District can do to help is get a really good Unit Commissioner to the start-up. This needs to be someone who understands both the program and the support side of Scouting. He needs to have the District calendar graven in his eyelids, and be able to recall it at a snap.

 

The UC needs to understand and participate in how the Troop communicates. I had a UC who didn't do email. Guess what: That's how 90% of the support side got done. Needless to say, he was a mushroom.

 

If the startup Troop doesn't have someone who has used Troopmaster or internet advancement/rechartering, this is good technical skill development for a 1/1 environment of District Committe expert to new unit worker.

 

From an advancement perspective: I budget:

- a man-hour to load 1 family into Troopmaster when they join.

- 1 hour each week outside of meeting for routine updates (blue cards).

- 2 man-hours per patrol for Scout book audits and updates.

- 4 man-hours before a Court of Honor to summarize all advancements and feed to the activities person to help produce the program.

- 4 man-hours per Life Scout to cross-check Eagle Candidate records.

 

HTH.

[jambo]

How to start a new Boy Scout Troop ? The example I will provide , I know,that some will disagree , and be claiming again, that it is not the way the national training manual has it set up.!

 

""""many years ago I was approached by an individual from a Catholic church, that they had 60 boys that wanted Scouting. He said, that , training cadre came to the parents meeting, and lectured them how to organize this new unit. He said it scared most of the parents away, and they got discouraged, and were not sure if they wanted their boy to join ?. He found out that I had a very successful troop, he wondered if I would meet with this new established group of men, and give them the advice on how to get this new unit off the ground ?

 

In a nut shell, I told them some of my basic theories :

 

a.... choose a young man, who has been in Scouting for A good while, and has a good rapport with the boys. Send him to the training courses, but he should have an open mind, and use only the concepts he can implement .and work with .

b...Keep your committee membership to a minimum. Choose such members who will not have a personality conflict WITH THE NEW SM, but they will be willing to support the Scoutmaster/PLC program decisions. DO NOT SEND YOUR COMMITTEE MEMBERS , TO DISTRICTS TRAINING COURSES. This will only confuse them, and they will develop an ego, that they are in charge, and can fire the SM at will. This most likely demoralizes a new leader..Many times the new leader leaves and the troop committee ends up choosing an other one.

C.... I volunteered some of my " Leadership Corps " scouts to come into the troop and act as temporary PL, SPL until their New Scoutmaster sets up an election of the leadership of the Troop, and is able to explain, the PLC concept to the boys. The leadership corps, had a very action packed meetings,challenges. games , scout skill competition., until the unit got itself on the feet . With a lot of praise and awards issued to the winners...etc.

c.... I Suggested to have the Holy Name Society to be the primary sponsor,( since they had 2000 members, and were better of financially then the church . The church provided the GYM, classes for patrol meetings, and a room for equipment.

d...I suggested to have an overnight camp to a cabin,ASP... where the SM would have a chance to find out ,bond, train and find out who is who,....Stimulate, and motivate potential boy leadership by creating games ,.....to observe what boy has good leadership qualities.

 

I could go on and on.!...but then I might end up writing a book. The rest of the info , or ideas you can get from basic training courses, Scouting magazines,literature , Youth psychology books, found in research libraries.

 

I returned back to this Troop, a few years later,and I noticed that they had a very successful unit in operation. For an example : They chartered a bus to go to summer camp..The committee gave me a certificate of appreciation. They used most of my theories, and also some from the district unit commissioner's.

I hope you learned from my example that there is: " more then one way to skin a cat " Ha,ha, ....jambo

 

 

 

 

[CNYScouter]

Its now been 14 months since the Ship was started.

 

I have had little help from the district.

My DE went with me to pitch the Ship to my COs board meeting and hung out at our first open house but I have got nothing beyond that.

 

Some areas where I could have used more assistance:

 

I would have had more meetings with the CO to explain the Scouting program.

Again I would have liked an experienced person (a UC) to work with our CO to explain how things worked in Scouting and how to get a unit started.

I assumed my DE or someone from the District would do this but the DE did very little, no one from the District did anything and everything was left up to me.

 

We had an organizational meeting to put the ship together.

Unknown to me the head of our CO invited a bunch of potential youth members and their parents to this meeting.

As this was our first organizational meeting I really had nothing for them.

None of these kids or parents ended up joining as I think they were scared off as we really had no plans.

I think that if we had spent more time up front with the CO and had more involvement from Scouts this might have not happened.

 

Helping to set up a Unit Committee.

I had a person agree to be the CC, They filled out the application and even delivered it the next day to my house and I never saw them again.

If I could do it again I would have had 3 or 4 committee meetings, hopefully with a UC, to help put things together.

I would tell anyone putting together a new unit to make sure you have a committee together and have multiple committed adults, before even bringing any youth together.

 

Even after 14 months I feel we are still in a startup stage.

I am still struggling to get parents involved and getting a functional committee.

I am making headway as I just got one of the parents to do popcorn.

 

I think if I had a UC around to make sure we had everything in place before starting we would be in much better shape.

I think that a District might be able to handle things better, even if they are short handed, if they have some commissioners to work with new units during the early stages and get them off to strong starts, even if the commissioners cant stay with the unit for the long term.

 

 

[OldGreyEagle]

Not that I would ever disagree with anyone on this forum, but I think to start a troop you need a committed individual to Scouting to be the scoutmaster, it doesnt matter his age, as long as he is dedicated to providing Scouting to the boys, although it would be a good idea for him to have a scouting background, but in light of the recent thread on whether or not Eagles make good adult leaders, I dont see it as a necessity.

 

I would not want to limit interested people nor would I want them to be untrained. The scoutmaster and committee members should all commit to be trained. It would be best if all committee members would take the Scoutmaster training and the scoutmaster take the COmmittee training (of course so do the committee members) the idea is to let everyone see where they fall in in the set up of the unit.

 

I am not sure why anyone would want to have committee members who have no concept of what they are supposed to be doing supporting a program they know nothing about, but there are plenty of ways of doing things

 

It may be a good idea to have some initiative "games" amoung the boys at an outing for them to decide amoung themselves who is the best choice to be their leader.

 

(This message has been edited by OldGreyEagle)

[Eagledad]

>>So what I'd love to hear from those who have "been there, done that" is, how can the district help you?>Also, I'm curious about whether new units typically have, or take, the chance to build a better/more active relationship with their new COs,>And finally, I'm REALLY curious about the time commitment. How much time should a reasonable person expect to put into getting a brand new unit up and running, in a typical week/month?

[Oak Tree]

I know Beavah asked about starting a new troop, but Lisabob broadened it to other units as well. I was not one of the people who chartered our pack, but I became a den leader the first year. I can relate our experience, but every situation is unique. We had no unit commissioner, and we had no help from our DE. Nor did we really need them, as far as I can tell. The books are pretty self-explanatory, and its not rocket science. The one key thing that we did have was a dedicated, enthusiastic leader who knew what he was doing. He was able to get others involved and share the vision. I think that more than anything, this one key leader who is able to recruit other leaders is the fundamental element for a successful pack startup.

 

We did have a good relationship with our CO. The Cubmaster was a member of the church and a reasonable percentage of the initial Scouts were also from the church. This was helpful to us, but its clearly not essential as our CO appears to be well above average based on anecdotal evidence.

 

We did lay out a calendar of events so people knew what to expect and had some excitement to look forward to. Pack meetings, Blue and Gold Banquet, Pinewood Derby, campouts, the whole deal. Get some other volunteers in place den leaders, committee chair, treasurer they dont need to know a lot about Scouts, but getting a set of people with the right attitude is very helpful. You need to get a set of people who all believe they are working together to build the pack for their sons.

 

I know its heretical on the forum, but Im not as focused on the importance of training. I dont object to it, I do encourage it, but I dont know that its all that important.

 

Our troop was starting at the same time, but I do not have direct observational data on that. I do know that the Scoutmaster did have a long-term vision for the troop and was dedicated, and recruited some ASMs who helped out a lot. These people carried the troop along for a number of years. I do not believe they were as successful as they could have been, primarily due to the organizational chaos that surrounded the troop. Someone a bit more organized probably would have experienced better growth.

 

And Barry's estimate of 10 hours/week sounds reasonable to me.

--

 

Now, on another note, how much doubt is there that jambo is juris?

 

Heres how jambo signed his recent post: Here is to Scouting, jambo-www and juris used to sign his Yours in Scouting, juris, www

 

And jambos philosophy on committee membership Keep your committee membership to a minimum. Choose such members who will not have a personality conflict WITH THE NEW SM, but they will be willing to support the Scoutmaster/PLC program decisions. DO NOT SEND YOUR COMMITTEE MEMBERS , TO DISTRICTS TRAINING COURSES. This will only confuse them, and they will develop an ego, that they are in charge, and can fire the SM at will. This most likely demoralizes a new leader..Many times the new leader leaves and the troop committee ends up choosing an other one.

 

Compared to juriss comments 2...Choose your commitee and not your commitee choosing you. Three member commitee all you need to be legal.

 

I cant decide if I really care. But juris was suspended back in July 2005 (http://www.scouter.com/Forums/viewThread.asp?threadID=102783&p=1) Maybe this is a trial run at reenlistment under better behavior.

 

And I actually do agree with the sentiment that you want committee members who support you. I just probably wouldn't phrase it the way jambo did.

[John-in-KC]

OT: Gung-Ho.

 

As I would hope Gunny would tell you, it doesn't stand for enthusiasm (although it's gotten that connotation). It was actually selected by Lt Col Evans Carlson of the Marine Raiders because it meant "All pull together."

 

I do not care whether it's a Pack, Troop, Team, Crew, District, Executive Board, or work group. If the DO folks and the SUPPORT folks don't pull together, whatever you're working on is going to be one bloody mess.

 

I think we have to remember that most of the time, a unit Committee should have no reason whatsoever to vote. It serves to support the Program. The Committee should be sized to support the program of the unit. A Venturing Crew may well require only 3, if most of the work is done by the young people themselves. OTOH, a Pack? 3? You must be kidding.

 

My thoughts. Others may disagree. That's ok

[Beavah]

Yah, some good new ideas, eh? And some common threads. I've been very involved in 5 new troop starts over the years, a few more restarts.

 

Required Ingredients

A good market - know that targeted, interested kids are available, cub contact lines are natural, etc.

An enthusiastic, committed person who is good at workin' with kids, and who likes being outdoors, to be SM.

Some adult with real experience, either a dedicated UC (this must be his only unit!), or an experienced SM, who serves as active, hands-on mentor/coach. Figure SM-level commitment for the first couple months, then a slow 1-year fade. "Traditional" UC's are awful at this. Yeh need to find the practical, get dirty types.

A real vision and somebody who communicates it well and loudly to adults and kids. Yeh want the vision to be specific enough and strong enough that some people look and say "no, that's not for me." It's vitally important that your startup group be all on the same page, and that means selectin' out a subset of the available market.

Several adults with a long-term commitment to the effort who enjoy working together.

 

Really Helpful Ingredients

A reasonable "stock program" for the first six months to a year. Enough stuff to get 'em one year of success - contacts, how to make reservations, plans, etc. They're free to modify, but at least they have somethin' to build off of.

A designated "sister troop" that can provide some older boy support, have the SM/ASM/CC over a few times to see things in action (annual planning conference, COH, etc.), and invite the new troop along on a couple of events.

A strong start with a "real" CO. Not one of these DE-generated one-night-wonder CO's, but the real deal, with somebody who understands youth programs as COR. (I personally tell CO's they've got to budget at least a $1K startup donation, and at least $500 per year in support for training, needy kids, etc. A CO needs to have some skin in the game).

Some seed money for initial basic gear if not from da CO, or some available "loaner" equipment.

Some real practical help in settin' up initial rules for handlin' money.

Separate hands-on experienced UC or other person to guide the TC through the first year and ensure a "good dynamic."

One or more local troops that think they're gettin' "too big," and who have some folks interested in spinnin' off. (but yeh gotta be careful about common vision!)

 

As far as trainin' goes, I'm with Oak Tree. Trainin' is somethin' that needs to be brought to the new unit as "on demand help," not somethin' they need to sign up for and go to when it shows up on the calendar 4 months from now. Da typical BSA trainin' session I find is too abstract, not practical enough.

 

Things to avoid

Settin' up a troop because the DE needs one to make a performance benchmark.

Settin' up a new troop with the complainers who just quit a current active troop.

Settin' up a new troop with cub parents who haven't done much camping, and are lookin' for Webelos III experience.

Avoidin' getting clear commitments and support from a CO... just getting a meeting place and a CO on paper.

Showin' new parents promo slides and video, but not explainin' too 'em that they're joining a start-up unit that will be real fun, but also a real effort.

 

Beavah