Email communications

[Eagle1982]

This is spun from a thread about contact Merit Badge counselors, where eventually text messaging and emailing for troop communication was mentioned. I think more and more troops are using the latest technologies, including email, to assist with communications.

 

My question, for troops that do the majority of their communicating with email, for things like what's new, what's upcoming, etc. how is it working for you? How often do you send them out? How much lead time do you use? Do you expect replies via email or a different method? Do people reply when necessary?

 

In my son's troop, it doesn't seem to work too well, and perhaps someone has some suggestions.

[Bob White]

Without feedback how do you know that communication took place?

[Crew21_Adv]

Eagle1982,

 

Greetings!

 

 

My troop quite often uses email communications. Our SPL and the PLs are roughly about 50/50 getting the correct word out to the families. If it is about food and video games, they are exactly detailed and accurate. If it is about the monthly program calendar, troop events, or advancement, their patrol (or parents) may not get the word at all. They are a good bunch of boys, but thank goodness they arent brain surgeons or rocket scientist.

 

The adult leadership normally distributes all notices to the families. But similar to the parents, we work and are busy too. Not everyone can make Troop Committee meetings, and then at our PLC usually the PL's (of which a few are home doing homework or at sports practice) are outnumbered by the ASMs (with laptops, cell phones, PDA, and Blackberries doing our regular work at a different worksite "the PLC meeting").

 

Quite often during the PLC, the SM/ASMs regain the attention of the Scouts and state You should be writing this down, right now. And, ____ Patrol Leader, you need to tell your Patrol about this before the _______ Got it?

 

So sometimes our SM, ASM are the best informed about most Troop happenings. Still we are just as busy as everyone else. Also, weather changes, transportation changes, things get canceled or turned on last minute, so our program is "Semper Gumby" or an absolute rigid flexibility. But bottom line, we believe it should be our Scouts, and their youth leadership that should be doing the majority of the communications, and not held to the responsibility of the adults to do 40-50 hours at work and 40-50 hours preparing for Scouts. So when we do email communications with our calendar updates, we usually caveat something similar to this.

 

If you do not know what is happening, ask your Scout. If your Scout does not know what is happening, have him ask his Patrol Leader. If his Patrol Leader does not know what is happening, have your Scout ask the Senior Patrol Leader and ask the PL to do the same. If our Senior Patrol Leader does not know what is happening, we are in trouble.

Now for our calendar for the next month......

 

Some parents view over the emails. Some parents delete it right away. Some parents read it in detail. At least the SM/ASM's attempted to keep the families informed, and we placed the responsibility on their Scout and Patrol if the latest word becomes obsolete. (I wont tell you how many times the SPL doesnt have a clue about what is happening, even though we tell him to write it down during the PLC.)

 

My Troop emails from a few various leaders about 2-3 times a week. Lead time varies. For the monthly items, it is immediately after PLC. But things change, weather, permits, what adults are available, so we attempt 1-2 days out for final notices. We don't expect replies. Replies would be great, but not expected.

 

Comparing our email communications to what you said. My troop's email communication seems to work fairly well. It is not our Troop Secretary that is solely responsible, but similar to our forum or a newsgroup. Whomever is sending, attempts to answer, who, what, when, where, how much, permission slips, and other predicted questions.

 

We have on rare occasion had a dissatisfied parent, when communications break down (or just that our SM/ASM are extremely busy with the paid profession) And we ask them, if they (the parents) asked their Scout what was happening. The few minor problems are quickly diffused, they are disappointed at missing an event, but realize they (the Scout and family) are responsible for communicating just as well.

 

I don't have the "golden egg" on what it takes to communicate well. But hopefully my story may assist you and your troop in spreading the word via email.

 

Good Luck!

 

Scouting Forever and Venture On!

Crew21 Adv

 

[GKlose]

While I don't run a troop, I do use email for just about everything. Contact with other committee members, contact with district people, etc.

 

On the whole, I find it frustrating. I am not convinced every reads the email, or reads it thoroughly. I recently sent out a message with two questions in it, and got one answer.

 

Here's another example: an event is on the troop schedule, which everyone has. At last week's meeting, a reminder went out to scouts there that there was an event coming up. Since I knew they wouldn't necessarily remember to remind their parents, I sent out an email message to about 20 sets of parents (maybe 30 email addresses) that same night. Net responses, one saying they would at the event. About 5 days later, I sent out a reminder, and I got another two responses. That leaves about 17 to go.

 

Guy

[Gunny2862]

Sometimes familiarity breeds contempt... often people see these notices and don't even open them because they'll read them later when they get time (which means they never get read).

 

Occasionally try and sneak in a reward that will be meaningful to the reader, that will increase their likelihood of reading it. What that reward might be? a Paid adult or Scout weekend coupon, free entry to an OA event, a weekend where they don't even have to drop off their Scout you'll pick them up? But only if they reply with in x time frame.

 

If there isn't a way for you to see that they at least opened the message then there is no communication - broadcasting yes, communication no.

[highcountry]

Communication is always a major headache in our troop. We use email a lot as we can forward and reply, add attachments and there is a time trail on when communication was made, where you don't have that with calls unless someone is dillegent about making notes about the calls they make and recieve.

 

Email unfortunately has a terrible rate of response, it has been this way with other groups I have been involved with as well, it is nothing new to scouts. parents either don't open theri email very often, don't bother to read, forget, don't feel like responding etc. We have about 30 on our emil distribution list and if I ask for important feedback, I am lucky to gt one response, if I get two I am floored. Anything of a critical nature, we have a phone tree, SPL, and ASPL's drive it down to teh PL's who contact all in theri patrol and return teh tree with feedback where required. We make sure they reach someone live as about 50% of the time people feel it is optional to return voicemail ablout fairly important issues. Pesrsonally I get very tired of many adults thinking it is fine and dandy to simply say I'm busy and I and otehr leaders are supposed to understand and compensate for their lack of respsonce.

Unfortunately this alloof attitiude in the parents is fully ingrained in the youth and it requires a non stop battel to get most of teh scouts to follow up, take responsibility and do things for themselves. They are so used to ignoring things and saying later "oh, I was busy" and think that is the end of it.

 

 

[skeptic]

My experience is pretty much frustration, with email, a troop site with a calendar, and phone messages. Seldom get any responses to anything. Scouts and parents complain they did not know, but there were verbal reminders, paper reminders, calendar entries, and emails. Being busy is not an excuse. Unfortunately, I think it is simply a reflection of our society again. Unless it is a high priority at the moment, it is ignored. Commitment to anything is contingent on something more interesting or fun not coming along.

 

But that is just me; maybe I am all wet, or simply too old.

[highcountry]

I'm with you, it is not only the email that gets blown off. The previous scoutmaster had the same issues and frustrations. I tried to step up communications and organize proceedures to not give anyone the excuse of "I didn't know". No one dares complain to me or other adult leaders about not getting information as EVERYONE is completely clear that we make contact clearly, in advance, with reminders and sometimes with follow up calls and paper to go with the scouts, announced at meetings and spare copies on teh sign up table. I sometimes wonder how some people hold jobs and mannage through life. We all get busy and miss getting, comprhending or returning communication from time to time but some people in my troop, it's the way they run thieir lives on a daily basis.

 

We did a number of things, organizationally and policy wise to combat some of the non sense.

 

1. We have a permission slip for campouts, one we designed, adult signs and teas in half, they keep the bottom half to amgnet to the fridge since writing things on a calendar is a foreign concept to many now a days. Thier half has contact info in case plans change and tehy cannot make it so we know when someone doesn't show we are not waiting around. No Permission slip in 2 weeks before the event....scout does not attend.

 

2. Scout does not show for an event, they get charged the published cost for the event (Ussually food) from their scout account

 

3. Scout cannot go on event if there is not enough money in theri scout account to cover the event.

 

4. Signup for event cutoff is 2 weeks prior to event, no exceptions.

 

5. Scouts who are habitually absent or cannot bother to communicate don't pass the next scoutmaster conferenceor.

 

6.The parents who did grip about not knowing what was going on were reminded to check theri email or theur lack of follow up on voicemails left on critical issues. We puublish an annual calendar and there are hand outs as well. As I noted, even the biggest slackers know to not dare bring up gripes about not knowing as they are well aware how much we reach out with communication and nulify that bogus arguement.

[allangr1024]

Our troop has a web site, mainly for outside visitors, and then a Yahoo Groups site that all our adults are registered in. The message board in the Yahoo Groups site will let you post messages to the group, and these messages are then emailed to all the members of the Group. I put announcements and SM minutes there, and store documents like tour permits in the Files section. All the adults know to look there for postings, and they also get the emails, although these usually come a day later. It is their fault if they do not log on and read the stuff. In general, I would say that most do get the message this way if they are on line at all.

[highcountry]

Oh...yes and we do have a troop website, one o my excellent asm's keeps it up. Almost no one bothers or remebers to check that either despite constant reminders.

[evmori]

5. Scouts who are habitually absent or cannot bother to communicate don't pass the next scoutmaster conferenceor.

 

A Scoutmaster Conference is not a pass/fail requirement, it is a "participate in" requirement. While I understand where you are coming from & agree with pretty much everything else you posted, highcountry, you are adding to the requirements with this, and that is verboten!

 

Ed Mori

1 Peter 4:10

[highcountry]

Verbotten or not, scouts who are not trustworthy, not active and prove to be regulalry undependable are missing some significant parts of teh scout oath and law and therefore are sometimes asked to try and improve and come back for anotehr scout conference. I am not talking about the scouts who come to meetings and particiapte, come to activities (campouts) and saw theri end of the log, but miss on the communciations end occasionally, I am talking about those who are rare at meetings, alsmost never on campouts, bad with communications etc. There is no way they are getting a scoutmaster review sign off being near ghosts on cruise control when I have many others who pull their weight and do what is expected in the program. Am am not signing off on slackers, period.

[CA_Scouter]

I work for a company that has 26 offices in the US, Canada and Europe, email communication is vital.

 

However, I've found that emails are rarely read thoroughly so the KISS rule applies. One thing that helps is that you need to keep the message short enough so that the reader doesn't have to use the scrollbar to read the entire message. I know this sounds silly, but it works.

 

Email communication in the troop is SUPPLEMENTAL. We communicate to the scouts at the troop meeting and they are supposed to ( oops, I'm making you scroll ) communicate to their parents. If no one reads the email or doesn't show up at a troop meeting then its their loss. ( READ: its the responsbility of the scout to keep the family informed ).

 

Email works well in our troop because we have less than 20 scouts. I would imagine that the experience is different with large troops.

 

 

[evmori]

highcountry,

 

I think you are missing the point. I agree with you about those type of Scouts you are talking about. You have the option of not having a Scoutmaster Conference with a Scout but if you do, the requirement must be signed. The BOR is where this should be handled.

 

Ed Mori

1 Peter 4:10

[asm 411]

FWIW we have found the following works as a guide line for communicating with the Scouts.

 

1) If it is urgent the calling tree is the most dependable but we send an email anyway.

 

2) For none urgent information like campout announcements, community service, we do the following:

 

a) We have an online calendar that has every event on it we know as soon as we know about it. Most are added after our yearly planning meeting.

 

b) We hand out fliers at the troop meetings

 

c) Announcements are made at the Troop meetings by the SPL

 

d) We email the fliers out to Scout and parents.

 

e) The patrols do their meal planning 10 days before the campout. Any Scout that is not at the meeting gets a phone call and is asked if they will be coming by their patrol leader.

 

f) We post the flier on the web site.

 

Even with that we will have Scouts who say "I didn't know about that." Granted those comments are way down from what they used to be when we only used one or two of the methods above. We typically only send one email per event( unless something changes) so that each message we send is thought of as important.

 

Lincoln

ASM 411