Camporee attendance

[IM_Kathy]

here our fall camporee is always smaller than the spring camporee. Main reason is other activities that take a larger cut of the boys. Friday night is football night here so all the boys who are on the team are booked with that and some even have Saturday morning game films to watch. Along with football if it's a home game you have the boys in the marching band booked... and then the marching bands have compitions on some saturdays. and then there's the boys in soccer that are on a fall club team.

 

In the spring marching is over so the only real conflicts are baseball and soccer and often ours is scheduled before the full swing of games.

 

Our troop will have double the boys at the spring camporee compared to the fall... but our troop always goes.

[AvidSM]

Having run several sucessful and well attended camporees and klondikes myself, I agree with a lot of the comments so far. Sucess comes from: good leadership and advanced planning, emphasis of the patrol method, having a good theme, unique activities, fair competition, using different venues and getting other adult leaders and youth invovled in running things.

 

Overall, the most important key to sucess is getting feedback from the scouts who attended the event. I always make it a habit of talking to them towards the end to see what went right and where I can improve. They are usually very honest about telling you what they think. I also talk to the adults and get their suggestions and comments. I use all of this feedback to make improvements to the next camporee or klondike.

 

There will always be some troops who do not attend these events, no matter what. Focus your efforts on the people that do and you will get good attendance.