Troop Calendar

[KurtB]

How far in advance does your Troop plan its calendar, and more importantly, when is it planned? Currently, the troop that my son just joined only plans about 6 months in advance, and tonight it just set the dates for the activities through November. In October (or November) at the monthly PLC meeting, they will December - May.

 

In my eyes, this is nuts. The PLC has decided to plan a campout to recruit Webelos in October, but the Troop will not even be able to provide the new scouts & parents with a calendar of upcoming events, because the calendar has not even been planed.

 

Please convince me that this is not normal, and let me know how your Troop does it.(This message has been edited by kurtb)

[gwd-scouter]

KurtB - I can't say if that practice is normal or not. I know some Troops in our area that seem to plan their outings only one month in advance. Others may post a calendar of monthly campouts and activities, but the dates aren't set until a couple of months or a month ahead. For instance, March may show "Backpacking Trip," but no dates. Just a general theme.

 

Our Troop has an annual planning weekend every September. That way, the District and Council calendars are already out so the guys can plan around Camporees, OA weekends, etc. We bring school calendars too so that they are aware of spring break and holiday weekends.

 

They plan for a full year, one campout/outing a month. The dates are set and generally fall every four weeks. The calendar is then posted on our Troop website. Every now and then we post the theme for the outing for the month with the date To Be Announced. A good example of this is snow skiing. The guys pick the month to go, but we've had to move the dates because of lack of snowfall at the resort they picked. A problem here in the South!

 

We do on occasion add to the calendar with events that sort of spring up, for instance if we find out about a service project opportunity. Or, perhaps a couple of our guys are still in need of a five mile compass hike we may plan a day hike just for them. The yearly calendar always includes campout opportunities for Webelos, both in the fall and the spring. Sometimes we have Webelos along, sometimes not. The guys still go camping either way.

 

Maybe your troop plans only six months in advance because of difficulty securing adult leaders?

[SMT224]

We do our planning for the next calendar year in September. Reservations and outing details are finalized in October and November so by December we have a calendar with all activities fully mapped out for the coming year.

 

We try to have our outings on the 2nd week-end of the month, but are flexible to coordinate with District activities. But once dates are set, that's it - rain or shine, snow or no snow, off we go!

 

 

[GKlose]

Pretty much the same story with our troop -- annual calendar is planned in August and September, which is kind of based on the prior year, with placeholders. Then revisions happen along the way, as needed.

 

An example: the troop had been participating in an annual fishing derby that opens a local pond, and the date doesn't get set until January or so. The district spring camporee falls a week or two later. This year, they ended up a week apart, and the troop decided to attend the spring camporee instead of the fishing derby (individuals can still participate, but there wouldn't be a troop overnight beforehand).

 

There had also been talk of doing a "high adventure trip sometime this summer"...as the year progressed, that became a 5-day canoe trip in August. Details are being worked out in the next month or so.

 

Guy

[EagleBeaver]

We follow the council (or national?) guidelines of having a full year planned and a 3-year high adventure plan.

New SPL is elected in March and September. He gathers all the patrol leaders to decide on activities a year out. So, new March SPL in 2009 makes schedule for April-Sept, 2010. That team also reconfirms the upcoming 6-month plans, tweaks the 6-months-out plan, and commits a patrol to organize each of the campouts in the next 12 months. That patrol manages the outing online in http://TroopKit.com

My job for planning is to gather the school, council, and district calendars beforehand so the scouts have them to figure dates against - and to bring the soda and lunch. :-) Now that they've been doing it awhile, it's pretty easy. If we did the scheduling just 6 months out, families around here would already have plans made.

 

[Eagledad]

>>In my eyes, this is nuts. The PLC has decided to plan a campout to recruit Webelos in October, but the Troop will not even be able to provide the new scouts & parents with a calendar of upcoming events, because the calendar has not even been planed.

[Gunny2862]

There are probably better ways to do it, but we open for comment/suggestions to all of the Scouts in November, having reminded Scouts to keep calendars from their outside activities (football, lacrosse, piano competitions,etc) throughout the year we gather those.

The PLC takes the input and brainstorms during the first 3 weeks in December. We have a PLC meeting/Annual Planning Conference between Christmas and New Years and provide a Proposed calendar to the Committee on the first Monday in January - they have a week to approve or return for further work. We haven't ever gotten out of January w/o an approved calendar.

 

As to Webelos and concern about what we do, showing them our historian reports, picture wall, and previous years calendars gives them as good if not a better picture of what we'll likely do in the future than just giving them this years calendar.

 

One complaint I get on this is that, with two SPL's a year only one of them gets to plan a Calendar, the other one only gets to carry out the other ones agenda - That MAY be why your Troop does it the way they do.?

[Eagledad]

>>One complaint I get on this is that, with two SPL's a year only one of them gets to plan a Calendar, the other one only gets to carry out the other ones agenda - That MAY be why your Troop does it the way they do.?

[Eagle92]

Back in the day, we planned for a year, starting in Sept. with the first 6 months set in stone, the last 6 months, other than summer camp, adaptable. usually those last six month was set in stone as the PLC didn't want to take another saturday to plan things. having to deal with 2 public school district calendars for both middle school and high school, and and additional 6 private HS calandars, and I forgot how many private elementary school calendars (private elem. schools went to 8th in New Orleans)it was an all day affair to get a troop calendar together.

 

As for not giving the Webs the info after their campout, the only major campout's I'ld be concerend with is Summercamp. keeping the lines of communication with the WDL and especialy having a Den cheif will keep the info going.

[eagle90]

We plan our calendar in August for the entire year, September thru August. The PLC gives their input and the actual dates are set by the Troop Committee. The dates are fairly well set in stone, with a few exceptions. We do make additions or corrections during the year as needed.

[Beavah]

Yah, KurtB, all kinds of approaches to this out there, eh?

 

If I could characterize "best practices" I'd say the folks on this thread pretty much have it down. Most troops realize several things:

 

1) Yeh never want to be plannin' just a month out. So it's best to work up a calendar in September/October that will start in January, or work up a calendar in May/June that will start in September.

 

2) Planning for some things like summer camp has to start a year out, so doin' a year calendar is worthwhile.

 

3) But... lots of schools don't have their calendars set that far out, and it makes for a long planning meeting/weekend, and if da youth really run events yeh find that their interest and availability changes durin' the year. So yeh work some compromise where 6 months of plan are set and leaders assigned, and the next 6 months are outlined.

 

4) Finally, yeh have to do somethin' to line things up with your youth leader elections and such. Otherwise yeh get into problems with the "they planned it, but we don't want it" issues. Which actually show up as da youth leaders just not supportin' the calendar because they don't think it's "theirs." Troops that only do PL selection "as needed" and ones that do it yearly tend to run longer calendars than those that do 6-month elections.

 

So I'd say your troop is doin' pretty good over all, runnin' close to best practices. Buildin' in a bit of lead time (#1) would be nice, as you suggest, but it has to be balanced against #4 and perhaps #3. Especially if da PLC is composed of a fair number of younger lads, it's often best to put a bigger emphasis on #4, since younger kids forward-thinking is less well developed, and yeh need to build to it. Those new young leaders have to see, feel, and taste the effects of their choices in short order to really grow and develop.

 

So I'd say this ain't a hill to die on. I bet your adult leaders can come up with a "tentative" calendar for interested webelos families based on past practice that would be OK.

 

B

 

[KurtB]

I like all of the ideas. As I figured, there would be a lot of different ways to do the planning. Our troop is small, and we solicit input from any scout that has an idea for something that they would like to do.

 

The concern with the Webelos recruitment, is one more of the impression that it gives the parents. When sitting around a camp fire in late October with the parents, and a Webelos Mom asks what is planned for the next few months, it is hard to answer "I don't know, because it has not yet been planned." For those that understand the way our Troop operates, this answer may not be a big deal. To a Webelos parent that comes from an environment where the calendar spelled out 12+ months in advance (as most Packs in our area do), they take away the impression that the Troop is not very organized. Keep in mind that for a Pack calendar, October is only about 2-3 months into the "scouting year".

 

This troop has run a recruitment campout the past couple of years. I attended last year's campout as a parent of a Webelos, and as the Cubmaster of the pack. I had not joined the Troop, and my son was still figuring out where he wanted to join. After the event, when I was talking to other webelos parents from other packs, the number one complaint that I heard was the appearance of "disorganization". Some of it I was able to explain away as "boys learning to lead", but other things, I simply could not. Of the 15 boys that were at the campout, 2 joined the troop.

 

The troop does run a 6 month election cycle, that closely relates to the PLC planning meetings. The troop is made up primarily of what I would consider younger scouts, as many of the older scouts split off and formed a Venturing Crew about a year ago.

 

What I think I would like to see is a plan similar to what Eagle92 spelled out. At least the tentative dates are set for months 7-12. Then the PLC can finalize the dates & locations as the calendar progresses. Currently, two times a year the PLC is just starting to plan for an activity 2-3 weeks before it is supposed to happen (When I say planning, I am talking about selecting a weekend & a campground - not deciding on activities). What is that teaching them? Eagledad, I think they get a lot of practice at "short term" planning, because they are only looking 6 months ahead, there is no long term planning. High Adventure is never going to happen, unless it can be planned & reserved, in 6 months. There are District/Council level events that the troop should be thinking about, but because they are more than 6 months away, they are not even on the radar. When the 6 month cycle for those events finally come up, the PLC will have less than 2 months to decide what they are going to do.

 

Just thinking via keyboard...which sometimes leads to rambling, and poor spelling...

[emb021]

As noted, the 'norm' is for troops to do their planning around August/September. This is why most councils/districts do their program kickoff around then, and distribute council calenders. Then troops can conduct their in-troop YL training and do program planning.

 

This yearly planning is usually 'high level', stuff like when/where they will camping, other major events, etc. Detailed planning as to what will actually occur at meetings will be done monthly at PLCs.