How to help create stable, consistent Scout units?

[Lexington76]

Hello-

 

I am the Charter Rep and Crew Advisor at our church which has over 60-70 youth in our program. As a former Cubmaster which restarted the Pack 8 years ago, we have seen the pack grow to a consistent membership of over 35 boys, the troop re-charter, graduating two Eagle Scouts this week, and I have one of the more active crews in the district.

The units are healthy and active. We just finished a work day to spruce up around our nice scout lodge (which was completed donated by a church member) a day which had outstanding participation by parents of all the units.

We have over 25 registered leaders, and while we have been blessed with strong leadership, I still know that units are fragile when it comes to relying on top leadership to carry a program. We have not fully embraced the committee concept, instead letting the CM and the SM carry the load when it comes to strategic planning.

Its almost like a family company that has grown too big to operate like it always has but needs to prepare for future business. I try to recruit and encourage other parents to join leadership. How can best assist with the future of our Scouting program?

 

 

[Bob White]

As the CR selecting Committee chairs for the three units is your job. Then workinging with each of the to select and train unit committees. Keep in mind that each program requires a completely different kind of committee.

 

Since you seem to relate that the unit programs are going well then yo do not seem to have leadership problems, all you need to solidy the fury-ure is to get your support structures in place, leaving you to focus on the maintaining the charter organization relationship.

 

As some responsibilities get transfered from the unit leaders to the committees you will need to do some counseling to make sure the leaders nderstandt that this is a move being done to strngthen the overal program and share the workload and not being done out of a lack of confidence in the leaders.

 

Glad to hear you have such an active program.

BW

[Eagle92]

It does sound like your units are doing well. In my opinion stable leadership and training, both adult and youth, create stable units.

 

For Packs you need to have your leaders trained ASAP and encouraged to get the resources out their: How-To Book, Program helps, etc. The committee should focus on specifically on their jobs as MC, and not do double duty. Yep I'm a firm believer in one person, one job. Difficult, yep, but doable. Again my opinion, but the best packs that are stable have lots of trained leaders working together. It is so easy to have one person or family do all the work, and then when the cubs crossover to scouting and the fmily moves up with the new scout. It creates a black hole that units cannot always survive.

 

For Troops and Crews you need both adult and youth trained leaders. Yes it's great when you have an SM who has been around for 20+ years, that was my troop as a youth. But he and the committee believed in the patrol method and having trained leaders. He conducted training, and encouraged promising youth to attend advance training like Brownsea 22 and later JLT. And when he stepped down after 25 years, the new SM didn't have to much of a problem since the youth were running the program.

[Stosh]

Having the opportunity to work with youth groups for almost 40 years now, I can assure you that there are a number of factors that apply to stability in a unit. First one must accept the fact that all programs are cyclical in nature. They are as volitile as the stock market in the year 2008. With that being said, one can relax and don't panic, it's part of the program.

 

One of the reasons for the rise and fall of the units over time is because most of the program dynamics are often times resident in the personalities of individuals. One gets a good leader, things grow, he/she leaves, things decline. One gets an exceptional scout, things grow, he gets his Eagle, things decline. Accept this as normal.

 

If that be the case, one can minimize the impact by not relying on these people to maintain the program during their tenure. Develop the program, not the people. If an exceptional SPL trains his successor, there should be a minimum amount of impact on his transition in to the next guy. What happens most often is one has a good SPL, we ride the crest of the glory wave and when it's over, it's over. Take the time to put one's energy into defining the position of SPL, what works, what doesn't, and then train to the standard. Don't rely on personalities, rely on the program and training to the program. If the BSA dynamics aren't working for you and a boy has found a great way for your troop to grow, go with it. Document it and pass it on to the next leader.

 

Stosh

[BDPT00]

I see a couple of things I'm curious about. One is, what does it mean to "graduate" an Eagle Scout?

The other question, and more to what you're asking, is that it sound like you've got lots of adult leaders, and that's cool, but I think they may be misplaced. With 25 registered leaders, what are their roles (how registered)?

BDPT00

[Lexington76]

Thanks for all the comments- some good ideas I can use! As far as the word "graduate"-no particular intended meaning- we had only the 2nd Eagle COH in our building -the two scouts earned the rank properly...

 

As far as leaders?

EO & COR

Pack- CM, ACM, 8-9 DL & ADL, CC & 3 MC

Troop- SM, 2 ASM, 4 MC

Crew- A, CC/AA & 4 MC

With overlap in leadership around 25 or so- I apologize in advance for getting the abbreviations wrong.

 

[Crew21_Adv]

Lexington76,

 

Greetings!

 

 

Your post doesn't really seem to have difficult questions. Just some common sense discussion topics. Heck, I would love to brag about having 60-70 youth.

 

Here are my thoughts.

Delegate yourself out of your position. Your CM and SM should be doing the same.

 

Take this with a grain of salt, while asking your new leaders to accept important and specific positions. As "A Legend in my own Mind" (I'm joking) I, myself, certainly cannot control my Pack, Troop or Crew after I leave. I would like to see them thrive after I leave. Maybe they would do less, but maybe they will thrive beyond what I ever offered. Best I can say, is to consider yourself eventually being out of the picture. And hopefully, whomever the replacements are will be "Gung Ho" towards Scouting in you Chartering Organization and also honor your legacy.

 

Next, it sounds like you have good units at your church, you just want to sustain those units.

 

I would say training. Adult and youth. All the Basics thru Wood Badge, NYLT and KODIAK.

 

Then program. Always offer a program and calendar which educates and satisifies advancement.

 

Guide your adult and youth leadership to constantly follow both of these goals. Training and Program. They may follow different paths to the same destination; but will share the same bottomline goals. Maintaining Training and Program a successful, stable and consistent Scout unit should appear natural.

 

Scouting Forever and Venture On!

Crew21(This message has been edited by Crew21_Adv)

[DenZero]

Ill reinforce what most of the others have said, but from a different perspective, in the form of a cautionary tale.

 

When my son joined Cub Scouts, I knew nothing about how a pack was supposed to be run. The cubmaster should have, since he had taken basic leader training. The pack was small but was growing again, and no one asked me to take on a position in the pack. So all I did was set up a pack web site and help with an occasional den meeting. On the surface, it looked like the pack was improving, but what it lacked was a pack committee. What I found out later was that the cubmasters wife was registered as committee chair, but served as treasurer. The cubmaster did the responsibilities of the CC. The other 2 people registered as committee members were actually serving as den leaders. The chartered organization was uninvolved.

 

This worked more or less OK until the cubmaster wanted out. Another dad took over, and handled the ceremonial parts well, based on his having been a Cub Scout and Boy Scout as a youth. However, he started working very long hours, and fell behind doing the things that the committee should have been doing. Since there was no committee to notice, nothing was done about it. Pack meetings didnt get planned or announced until the last minute, spring roundup didnt happen, etc. During the summer, frustrated with the disorganization, 2/3 of the families in the pack left, many going to a nearby larger pack.

 

The following fall, I offered to help out, and became committee chair. My hope was that we would be able to recruit a few new families who would help get things rolling again. Unfortunately, it was too late, the families that moved to the nearby large pack along with our small packs diminished resources, gave such recruiting strength to the large pack that it was impossible to compete. The large pack grew enormously, but the small pack was withering.

 

We continued attempting to rebuild for two years, but this year will likely be the last year of our packs operation after 65 years. We were not able to recruit any new families this year, despite significant efforts. You can't compete with 100 families engaging in word-of-mouth recruiting.

 

The moral of this story is, that having a functional pack committee with regular committee meetings is critical to a packs long term success. Dumping all the responsibilities on one guy is the path to failure. You should never get complacent, continually work on recruiting and strengthening the unit.

 

I have been thinking that it would be a very good district function to do an annual audit of unit organization at recharter time. It could be a questionnaire similar to the old quality unit award application. Units with problems in several areas could be assigned unit commissioners to help them reorganize properly before it is too late. When our pack looked on the surface like it was doing well; there could have been intervention that would have turned the pack around while there were still enough people to do it.