Dull question about Scout Troop meeting frequency

[ozemu]

Pls excuse my ignorance. I saw the thread on Cub meeting frequency and am wondering if Scout Troops meet weekly as we do here? Or do you have some other arrangement? Been on this forum for years and never really thought about it.

 

In Australia - I don't know of a Troop that does not meet weekly and camp about eight times per year.

 

Just curious - thanks

[Slouchhat]

Hello,

our troop meets weekly, every Friday from 17.00 - 18.30 hrs.

 

best regards,

Volker

[Ohio_Scouter]

oz,

 

Our Boy Scout Troop meets weekly, every Monday (except Holidays) from 1930 - 2100 hours. We camp out once a month--rain or shine, snow or sleet, hell or high water. We also attend a 1-week summer camp with our younger Scouts and a 2-week high adventure trip for our Venture Patrol every year.

[Lisabob]

Our troop meets weekly, as do most of the troops I'm familiar with. The very few I know who do not also have a rather weak program.

[gwd-scouter]

We meet every Monday, 6:30-8:00 pm, throughout the year. We do take a short break during the school break for Christmas. We camp every month, except January (lock-in and service project for our CO), and August (annual planning weekend at lake house), with service projects or other non-monthly activities mixed in.

[scoutldr]

Our policy is "no school, no scouts"...we meet weekly on Monday except when there's a school holiday. We do not meet the Monday following a campout.

[mk9750]

Our Troop meets 50 weeks of the year. We take off the week after summer camp and the week between Christmas and New Years. Except for Christmas, if a Holiday falls on a meeting night, we either still meet or move the meeting.

 

We have a weekend campout 11 months a year. The month of summer camp we do not have a weekend campout.

 

I thought it was interesting that you mentioned Cubs. Back when I was directly involved in Cub Scouts as a Den Leader and Cubmaster, practically every Den I knew of, even in other Packs, met every week, although some did skip meeting during the week of a Pack meeting. I was one of only two Den Leaders I knew who had regular Den meetings all through the summer. They were every other week instead of every week, and were not mandatory. I also suggested that the boys not wear uniforms, although I asked that they do wear one piece of their uniform at every week. It was almost a contest to see how outrageous the guys could be with how they wore their one piece of the uniform. The best was a Webelos slide as a toe ring.

 

Now, as I have become active with Packs as a Commissioner, and helped with a few Roundups and attended a couple of Pack meetings, it seems that holding Den meetings once a week is ancient history. The vast majority of Den Leaders are holding meetings every other week, and some only once per month. What happened? The sad part is that the explaination I seem to get most of the time is that it's too taxing on adults to meet every week. At the risk of sounding preachy, what the heck is going on? I know we should be thankful for anyone who is willing to step up and help, but come on? Is it now an hour every other week?

 

Does anyone else see this developing? And am just too much of a hump?

 

Mark

[eagle90]

We meet at a public school, on every Wednesday night that school is in session (September thru early June), with a two week break at the holidays. We camp eight weekends per year and do a week's summer camp and a week's High Adventure trip each year.

 

Dale

[hotdesk]

We meet most Mondays from 7pm until 8:30pm. The only Mondays we don't have meetings are when major holidays (Christmas, 4th of July, Labor Day, etc.) fall on Monday. We will meet on holidays such as MLK Jr. Day and Columbus Day. We also don't meet the week of Summer Camp.

 

We usually have at least two weekend activities a month for the troop. They may be Service Projects, Campouts, Merit Badge Opp. Days, Fundraisers, Day Trips, etc.

[emb021]

FWIW, all troops that I am familiar with meet weekly for about an hour and a half. For holidays, they may not meet. Most camp once a month.

 

As someone mentioned, if a troop is meeting less then that &/or camping less then that, most likely they have a very weak program &/or leadership. Even when my troop was going thru a period of poor membership numbers and leadership, we STILL met once a week and camped each month.

 

 

[ozemu]

Thanks everyone, I had made the assumption that meetings in BSA were weekly but only because that is what we do. Our meetings are 2hrs long is about the only difference.

 

Becasue we have four school terms of 10 weeks (or so depending on State) we get three two week school holidays and five weeks at Christmas. Scouts generally do not meet during those breaks.

 

...and summer camp just doesn't exist outside Troop arrangements and they are rare.

 

We (after I read about BSA Troops doing it in this forum) camped every month except Dec-Jan for about three years. It was great but lots of work for us adults. Our Scouts max out at age 15 so there isn't the same planning ability over the long term as I suspect that BSA can achieve. It's all for the adults. All our oldest leave or go to Venturers. Most leave. Bad plan Scouts Australia.

[Oak Tree]

Our troop meets weekly as well. I've met a number of troops that meet three times a month, though, and use one week for PLC. And some, like scoutldr's, that take a week off after a campout.

 

"Our Scouts max out at age 15"

 

That's not all that uncommon in the U.S., either. You can see some of Eamonn's recent posts on this topic. And I think Beavah has mentioned the same thing. The great majority of most of the troops I've seen are boys 11-14. It seems to me that BSA is really targeted at the middle school years, just not officially. Our troop has a number of boys moving into the 15 year-old age range, and it can be hard to figure out how to deal with them effectively. You can use them to teach, but they don't want to teach all the time. Having a couple older boys around has been great. Having a bunch of them - not so much help as you might think :-)

 

[highcountry]

We have a strong program, we meet twice a month and camp every month. One week of summer camp and we are offering a seperate high adventure camp for older scouts. Also offering one week camp for youth leadership (bighorn at Tahosa)

 

Our older scouts ussually make one meeting a month due to time costraints from school sports, tia kwon do, homework, speech team, church related ativities....you name it.

[msnowman]

Nephew's Troop meets every Sunday from 1830-2000. Right now they are trying something new, having a PLC in place of a Troop meeting once a month (small enough troop that everybody has a PLC role).

 

They also camp at least once a month, except for December. They do still have an outing planned for December - SPL (Nephew) suggested a pre-dawn hike up a local mountain to watch the sunrise. That's what the Troop is doing just before New Years.

 

YiS

Michelle

[emb021]

""Our Scouts max out at age 15"

 

"That's not all that uncommon in the U.S., either. You can see some of Eamonn's recent posts on this topic. And I think Beavah has mentioned the same thing. The great majority of most of the troops I've seen are boys 11-14. It seems to me that BSA is really targeted at the middle school years, just not officially."

 

The BSA has stated (if you know where to look) that the Boy Scout program (advancement requirements, materials, etc) is written to the 11-13 year old boy.

 

In most countries, the Boy Scout program runs from 11-14, where upon the boy must then move over to the next program (Venture, Venturing, Exploring, whatever it is called). The BSA is unusual with having its Boy Scout program run until 18, and overlap with what should be its older youth program, Venturing. (have to wonder if any other scout association does that).

 

It causes a lot of problems. Scoutmasters demand that their older youth stay in the troop to be the youth leaders (because the 11-13 year olds can't/aren't 'able' to be the youth leaders), but too often give the older youth any reason to stay (and if they do, it's usually only after they've 'done their choires' of being the youth leaders, etc.) Many boys come over to Venturing because they can get away from being forced to work with the younger youth (yes, Venturing may work with younger youth, but on THEIR terms, not the scout leaders'), be with their peers, do stuff that they want and is more appropriate for their age, etc.

 

But this is getting off the topic.