Gone into recess

[ozemu]

Hi all,

 

the group (Cub Pack plus Scout Troop all under the one parent committee and with the same name) that I was SM of for six years has gone into recess as of tonight. Sad.

 

We have one year in which our gear is in storage and able to be retrieved should the Group get enough adults to re-open. After that the gear is distributed in the area.

 

We had the youth members - just not the adults. What a shame.

 

I have brought the Troop flag, bannners, annual logs home for safe keeping so the rats don't get them.

 

Anyone have a good news story about Troops coming back from the grave? Need a bit of encouragement right now.

[John-in-KC]

Oz,

 

What are rules on adult partcipation down in Australia?

 

I have seen units come back, but it's usually a dearth of boys, not a lack of adults. It's a showing that parents aren't willing to be responsible anymore.

 

I wonder when such an event will happen here in America?

[Eagle92]

I know that my old troop "died" after Hurricane Katrina for a few months. With scouts and leaders being all over the country, it was a challenge for them to remain in contact. But eventually the troop reformed with 7 Scouts last I heard. Also in the district I'm currently in, we are in the process of restarting a CS Pack.

[DYB-Mike]

Ozemu,

 

Sorry to hear of the recess, I hope its brief.

 

Your situation is my biggest fear. Our Pack is going to loose some of its most involved leaders at Cross Over this year (May). One leader who is still active would have liked to have left last year when her son crossed over, but stayed as a temporary measure until folks stepped up. As she is becoming more involved at the troop level her pack involvement is waning.

 

We have many good folks coming into to Pack but it seems nobody wants to take that step and put on the uniform and take responsibility for a den or committee position. We have approached several directly but, with one exception, no luck. Dont get me wrong, many of our adults help out, but its a tell me what to do and Ill do it role. We need more folks in positions of responsibility to be able to organize and tell those helpful people what to do.

 

We have about 38 active boys, 9 of which will be crossing over in May. I dont think the Pack will fold but without the level of leadership and adult involvement that we have had in the past I fear the quality of our program will suffer and, with it, our ability to attract and retain new cubs.

 

We have had another pack in our town almost fold for lack of adult leadership so I would guess the problem youve experienced is not uncommon.

 

YIS,

Mike

 

[Gunny2862]

Our Troop is a re-constituted Troop it fell apart in the mid-late 70's and came back mid 80's.

we're growing and as of Friday are running a high of 25 Scouts with 4-6 more in the pipeline before summer camp.

 

Don't give up yet, figure out why you couldn't get the adult resources you needed. Try to get the boys to stay involved with each other and not just drift away.

You'll be back, just try to figure out what went wrong and use your break to bond with the adult team you'll restart with.

[Eamonn]

Hi Oz,

Once upon a time....

(Yes another rambling tale!)

As a little fellow I joined the 24th Fulham (Sands End) as a Wolf Cub (Before they became Cub Scouts) I went through the program, earned my Leaping Wolf and joined the Troop. (I think you have Scout Groups in your part of the world?)

About this time a lot of changes were happening in the UK and Scouting was or seemed to be nothing like it once was.

To be honest, looking back the program that the Troop offered wasn't that good, but as a kid I didn't seem to notice.

Numbers dwindled, leaders came and went. For a while we had a guy from Australia! A male nurse working at Saint Stephens Hospital in London. But he went back home!

Sad to say the entire Group folded.

By this time I'd moved from one end of town to the other.

Scouting wasn't that important to me.

I attended meetings when I thought about it and came and went as I pleased. I was also starting to run around with a very rough bunch.

My parents were very happy when I joined the 17th Fulham (Pioneers). The 17th was by far the best Troop in the area.

Soon after joining I was totally involved and had time for very little else. The Troop had about 40 Scouts and the Scout Leader, a single guy was devoted to Scouting.

After I aged out I joined the Venture Unit.

The Venture unit was very active, but looking back I now see that we became a very elitist band who didn't take very kindly to new members. While we did follow the program and did a lot of stuff (I earned my Queen's Scout). The most important item on our agenda was seeking out new pubs that sold real ale!! (Drinking age was 18.)

Soon the Venturing Unit went.

I was at college and started helping out with the Pack which was attached to the Church I attended.

 

The Pack was led by a husband and wife team. I was happy to trot off every Thursday to the Pack Meetings (This was the UK and the Pack met every week) Some weeks I did a lot while other weeks I just kinda stood around not doing very much.

Back at the 17th things were not good.

The guy who had been my Scout Leader had got married and moved on. The guy who replaced him ended up in jail for sexually abusing a Scout in the back of the Scout van!

The story had made national headlines.

All the Scouts had gone.

I never really liked the guy who was GSL (Group Scout Leader)

I was a little surprised when he and the Committee Chairman arrived around my house asking me to come back and to try and restart the Troop.

Man Oh Man!! Did they lay a guilt trip on me!!

I agreed.

They gave me a set of keys to the Scout Hall.

I toddled off every week for about a month to a very empty hall.

Out of the blue one night two kids came in, one white and one black. They asked what was going on? I explained that this was supposed to be a Scout Troop! They asked if they could kick a soccer ball around for a while. I gave the OK.

That was on a Wednesday. Friday they arrived back with two more, again just happy to kick a soccer ball around.

With in about a month I had ten kids playing indoor soccer.

I made no mention of uniforms or anything that might seem like an organized Scouting unit.

I was about 22 years old and was at that time still seen as being fairly "Cool".

The Troop Committee reluctantly agreed that we would hire the local public swimming pool on Thursday nights.

I now had a "Troop" that met 3 nights a week.

Soon the District five a side competition came along.

I mentioned this to the kids, but said that they all needed to be Scouts to enter. This would entail me meeting with their parents, them having uniforms and us starting to do things as Scouts.

I lost about four of the twelve Scouts I might have had.

We won the five a side competition.

Within a year we also won the District Swimming Gala and the District Scout Olympics.

We placed last in the District Camp Craft competition!!

I was still very young and still not married, so we went away doing something almost every weekend.

Kids started earning badges and the Troop became a "Real" Troop.

We were by far the most diverse Troop in the District with about 60% of the membership being non-white.

We got up to 90 Scouts and the Troop out grew the Scout hall, so we tried to split it, this didn't work out very well.

We had a great run.

When I left to move over to the USA. The Troop was still very strong with about 85 Scouts.

Sadly the area was changing.

Property prices were going through the roof. Many families sold up and moved out. They were replaced by Yuppies!

Houses that once were family homes were changed into up-scale flats. (A house my Dad bought for less than a thousand pounds was made into two flats and each flat sold for over half a million pounds!) Fulham once a working class area became a desirable place to live.

The sad news is that today the Troop has gone, the District has gone and the County has been merged.

I wish I could say that we all lived happily ever after.

The Scout hall was build in memory of a member of the 17th who died in a Japanese Prisoner of war camp, with funds raised by the other members who came back from WWII.

The property was worth several million pounds.

It is now gone, in its place is a new office building. The money went to the Scout Association.

I was a trustee of the building.

I'm not going to cry in my beer!

I look back at what I see as the good we might have done.

I still after all these years am in contact with several of "My" old Scouts.

We still talk about the things that they got up to as Scouts.

Some of them still think that I didn't know what they were getting into or were up to.

But maybe it's just better that way.

I'm really grateful for having had the opportunity to serve these kids, I had the most wonderful of times.

To this day I still think of them and while maybe we are a little afraid to use the word? I still love them as much now as I did then.

They did a heck of a lot to help shape me into the man and person that I am today.

Eamonn.

[Kudu]

"Anyone have a good news story about Troops coming back from the grave? Need a bit of encouragement right now."

 

I brought a few back from the grave. Up here finding Scouts is easy if you know someone in a local school that can hook you up with an auditorium during school hours and then bring all of the sixth grade boys in from their physical education classes.

 

See:

 

http://inquiry.net/adult/recruiting.htm

 

I don't know how things work down-under, but this is also the way to find all of the boys who dropped out of Cub Scouts because it is so boring.

 

Usually 2/3 of them want to join Boy Scouts if you describe Scouting the way Baden-Powell did.

 

Unfortunately most of their parents will not allow them to join. You could probably overcome parental resistance if you sold them on stuff that boys really hate, like indoor Eagle Scout, business manager theory, and learning how to make "ethical choices." But then you are stuck with those parents

 

So out of 60 sixth-graders, 45 will sign up and 15 actually register. This does not include the boys who are already Boy Scouts, of course.

 

Kudu

 

[ozemu]

In our case getting Scouts has never really been a problem. It's always been about adults. The few who take to it with enthusiasm end up exhausted because they do not get assistants who will take any responsibility. I am sure this is quite common.

 

Down here we have Groups that involve up to five age ranges covering age 6 to 26. The Group in recess had the young people to have four of the five sections. We never had more than two because we couldn't get the adults at the time.

 

I'll write some letters to the editor of the local paper and see if the new arrivals that seem to turn up in the area each year have included any potentiall leaders. It's been suggested that we start with the youngest age groups and expand upwards as kids age out of the existing section. I can see the logic.

 

I also know (having done it myself for six years) that it takes a long time to get a Troop program that is youth led and exciting. Basically the oldest Scouts need to have been right through the program before it really gets going. That is a lot of work and so much harder than taking over a functioning Troop. It took me three years to train the Troop that has folded.

 

People don't seem to value what they have until it's gone though.

 

By the way thanks should be extended to many on the forum for the ideas that helped me train the Troop in years past and also for ideas on adult recruitment. We tried a few of those ideas but were turned down almost all the time. Those who did sign up lasted 5 minutes. Are Scouts really that scary?

[Kudu]

ozemu writes:

 

"In our case getting Scouts has never really been a problem. It's always been about adults. The few who take to it with enthusiasm end up exhausted because they do not get assistants who will take any responsibility. I am sure this is quite common."

 

Yes. Some parents are usually willing to hang out during weekly indoor meetings, but sometimes even finding two-deep leadership on campouts while resurrecting a "Troop in Trouble" can be a significant problem.

 

The best source I found was in the retired military veteran uncles or grandfathers of fatherless boys with discipline problems at school. I would ask the mother if she had such a family member (or other significant role model) who would be willing to step in one weekend a month to make a difference in her son's life.

 

Ex-military usually have the necessary outdoor skills and can easily grasp the idea of a "chain of command" with the SPL ("Troop Leader") in charge IF indeed you have appointed or guided the Troop to select their most competent "top dog" boy leader. On the other hand, they can have little patience if the SPL is a bumbling popularity contest winner and everything is out of control.

 

Kudu

 

[HiLo]

Ozemu - that's not good news. You're in Qld somewhere if I remember rightly, but I can't remember exactly where. Is it a small town. Are the neighbours any help?

 

In my District we've gone through periods where leaders helped out at neighboring groups for a while, but only on a promise that some new parents would put their hands up to take over as soon as they could.

 

After a near death experience with my Group because of some unfriendly people who previously ran the place, things are now looking up. Tripled our membership from 10 a year and a half ago to around 30 now. New leader volounteers (who never knew the poisonous pair) coming out of the woodwork.

 

I still don't have a committee, but a Family Camp in May is planned to overcome that. No-one leaves until they volunteer for a job!

 

Good luck with the battle.