Boy Scout Roundtable

[sfischer]

I am looking for some new and interesting ideas for Boy Scout Roundtable. Right now our attendance is low and those that do come are seasoned veterans so I thought if I could come up with some different ideas that it might bring some back that have just gotten bored.

 

thanks

[Trevorum]

I usually have to force myself to go to our roundtables. Our RT guy is a good fellow but he's been doing it for too long I think. I'm not fond of being talked at. I'd rather have an activity (just like troop meetings!) to learn a new skill. Why couldn't we all do the Tenderfoot fitness requirements (except for the run), use various backpacking stoves to see which was fastest at boiling water, or have a lashing contest?

 

I've notice the most popular RTs (and troop meetings, too) seem to involve food somehow. We made ice cream once -that was great! And, we should have a cobbler contest at least once a year! I also enjoy the spontaneous discussions that arise when someone has an issue in their troop and they bring it forward to the group.

 

btw, welcome to the forums!

[moxieman]

It has been pointed out to me that we don't follow national recommendations with our roundtables as we don't follow the national theme plan for upcoming months. Despite this we have very good attendance with what we do.

 

What do we do? We let those who attend/who will potentially attend have a stake in what we're going to present. In the last roundtable before summer, we run it like a troop annual planning meeting where the volunteer leaders act as patrol leaders and myself, the roundtable commissioner, acts as SPL. The leaders throw out ideas of what they want to learn about in the coming year. I write'em down a large flip chart/chalk board for all to see. They then decide which month we will do what, saving the last roundtable before summer for the next planning session.

 

I then turn to those "seasoned veterans" like you would your older youth and put them to the challenge of helping with some of those topics or providing suggestions on who would be good at presenting this or that. I admit that I don't always find someone/someones for a topic, but for those, we make it an open forum and let those in attendance talk about the topic (like Trevorum's group), which gives the seasoned veterans a chance to help-out the newbies. When the topic was on "How does a Patrol Leader Council work?", we got one of the local troop's PLC to hold their meeting right at roundtable and take questions from attendees as they went. For "Troop Games", we dug out the Troop Planning Guide (formerly Woods Wisdom) and tried-out as many different games as we could in the time period we had. Dutch oven cooking--got some of those veteran volunteers who could double as "Iron Chef-Dutch Oven" to show-off their skills and share samples of their creations.

 

We get the word out on what is going to be presented in advance. Topics are sent out to all units in a calendar format flyer at the fall kick-off meeting/BBQ our district holds each August. These are placed in the kick-off packet that includes other important info from district/council on things like the annual popcorn sales that each unit receives. Unit commissioners deliver packets to their units who can't make this meeting. We also email that flyer on our email list.

 

We are a sparsely populated, large area-wise rural district (imagine Connecticut and Rhode Island combined but with less then 5% of the population of those two states). We stretch from the Augusta, Maine area north to the Canadian border. We have leaders attend every month who travel up to 2 hours one way from one of those border-crossing towns. We average 75% unit representation (30 out of our roughly 40 troops in our district) in any given month and 35 to 40 attendees.

 

 

Our biggest problem: we've outgrown our current meeting place (a protestant church with several meeting rooms) and can't get into the area schools for one reason or another. Both Cub and Boy Scout Roundtables and the local OA Chapter meeting take place on the same night/location. This enables the OA youth to get rides from their adult leaders attending RT. This means we need a minimum of one large room to hold everyone and at least two break-out rooms (third group stays in main room). Some months we need a fourth room for one reason or another. That's where the problem lies currently, we don't have a fourth room available and our numbers have grown too large for the rooms we do have (except the main one). We try to hold our roundtables near the center of population in our district, but there isn't much available around here in the way of free multi-room meeting space.

[sfischer]

Thanks for the great advice. I have asked several times for suggestions and generally I get nothing. If I have 10 people at the Boy Scout meeting I would be thrilled. Used to have more but I believe several things changed that.1- we moved to better accomodate everyone at least in space not conveniece. (not my idea). and those that use to come our now the seasoned veterans and they do not attend regularly. The Dutch Oven idea sounds good. Also I just found a recipe for ice cream that you can make at a campout. Will try this at home first and if it works that might be something we do at a meeting.

I do not want it to be a meeting where the adults present are being talked at...would love to have a brief instructional part and then exchange between all present. I will keep trying and thanks again for any and all ideas. They are very much appreciated.

[jambo]

Sfisher...moxieman ...It is a nice controversial topic.! We have lot of the old time Scouters who have left Scouting, mainly because they don't agree with the modern 'Boy run units ', where the program is not that successful. The new generations of Scouters are having a difficulty in pushing their agenda, because it does not work that well. I think, we should bring in the active SPL to the round table , so he can see and learn, and then go back to his unit and show them what he has learned ????.(this hardly ever happens !)

 

In my naive days in Scouting, I though that a round table was, where all the unit adult leaders would get together, and voice their opinions, then take a vote to implement or approve or disapprove councils decision on scout matters pertaining to them. But, to my dismay...I found that was not the case..it was a demonstration meeting, and a social club.

 

 

[John-in-KC]

Things we do at our RT, thanks to a former RT Commish who earned his Commish doctorate on the subject of RT:

 

- ONE STOP SHOPPING FOR UNIT SERVICE:

-- Eagle Projects are done by advancement committee on RT night at RT site.

-- NLE, MBC, and YP training are done by training committee on RT night at RT site.

-- ALL THREE RTs (Cub, Boy and Venturing) meet at one site on one date.

-- DE's set up and man a service table. If you need DE help (or even have stuff to go to Council), they deal with it.

-- DC mans a service table, plus Commish roam the RT. Got a question, get an informal answer.

-- Lots of people work late. We have a "chuckwagon corner." We make a few $ for the end of year program fair door prizes, Scouters can come straight from office if need be.

-- All operating committees of District Committee have unit service tables.

 

We do a couple of wacky things as well. Yes, Scouting is about the youth, but good friendships amongst the adults help keep things rolling along:

-- We have a car show every spring. Lots of Scouters love to show off their restoration skills. We tie it into auto mechanics and metalwork MBs among others.

-- We have a chili cookoff every fall. Bragging rights.

-- OA Chapter is concurrent with RT.

 

As to program, we seek out opportunities to showcase people and places. Sept RT theme is Athletics, for October. Our Program Feature is an area Scouter, who is an NFL referee. He's bringing his "show and tell." You don't think Scouts don't want to hear about this stuff?

 

Last year, one of the themes was Nature. The Kansas City Zoo brought their community education truck... including animals!

 

The one that seems to matter the most, though, is one stop unit service. Look at what RT does from the perspective of a new ASM or CC. How can you make his/her life easier to deliver the promise?

[insanescouter]

Make Roundtable:

- Interesting

- Active

- Informative

- Challenging

- Fun

 

The informative part is announcements of sorts ... what is happening and coming up and make sure there are flyers, etc

 

An example that happened here is we had a Lawyer come in who explained what personal liability we are taking on taking the Scouts camping... the answer will shock you... then he went on holding up the guide to safe scouting point out specifically the sweet 16 and explained how following those 16 items will keep you out of trouble and claimed if something did happen and you were following all 16 they would provide you a lawyer...

 

As another example we have also had some of the shorter trainings done at roundtable...

 

Another one as I recall some leaders brought in patrol boxes and compared notes...

 

I guess I have babbled enough ... hope you like my wacky 2 cents...

 

Scott Robertson

http://insanescouter.org