Capping a Troop

[OneHour]

This is a spin-off of the thread from BrentAllen. Mike F. indicated that his troop caps the number of scouts. Does your troop do it? How? We are at 86 boys and next year ... there are 6 Webelos dens from 2 packs with about 40 boys, poising to join boy scout. There are only two troops in the near area ... one is 60 boys and our is 86. We can't handle much more. As a scoutmaster, I want boy-run and not boys run all over!

 

1Hour

[OldGreyEagle]

How do you cap a troop? The CO says, hey we don't want more than X in the troop and you handle it.

 

OK, easily said, how is it done? In the Troop of my Youth, there was a time when the adults thought it was time to "cap" the Troop. AS we were Troop 65, 65 was the number placed on scouts. And there was a waiting list. Each family of a scout had to have one adult active as a ASM or a committee member or on a troop committee.

 

If a scout didnt show up for 6 meetings, the scoutmaster called him and asked what was up. The scout either dropped or showed up at the next meeting. If the abscences continued, the boy was dropped and another invited to take his place. (I may add this was long before the "ACTIVE" debate started. If you werent active, you werent a member because there were plenty of boys who wanted in

 

Now, why did they want in? As a scout I went with the troop to the Grand Canyon (on a train) and Glacier National Park. After I was in College they also bicycled from Chicago to Jacksonville Florida, did an Ozark White Water trip and went back to the Grand Canyon. It was a happening troop in a far our groovy way.

 

If you have 86 scouts and growing, have you thought of splitting the Troop to two 43 scout troops? Would that be better? I am sure your DE would love to help find a CO to start a troop with 43 members

 

did I mention the Troop was located in the Western suburbs of Chicago?(This message has been edited by OldGreyEagle)

[Oak Tree]

I know of a couple troops that are capped. It seems that primarily they do it by restricting the incoming dens - they will only take dens from their feeder pack. In general they do not prevent people from joining at older ages - they still take friends of Scouts, etc.

 

If you do not have a feeder pack, then I think it's less clear how you would decide which Webelos dens you would take.

 

With six Webelos dens coming up, it sounds like there is enough interest for a third troop, for sure.

[Nike]

You can cap the troop by limiting membership to brothers of current members, members of the CO, or WEB 2's crossing over from your feeder pack. Divide your boys into active and inactive and only count the active for the troop total.

 

However, in this particular case, I'd say it's time to form a new troop. You have 186 BS aged boys. That's a lot for two troops to handle.

[skeptic]

Usually, it would seem simply forming a new troop, or even two in this case, might be the best solution. You also might look at breaking out your seniors and forming a Venture crew if you do not already have one. In a few instances, due to history and keeping the direct connection to a unit number, I have heard of troops simply splitting and meeting on two different nights, or two different locations on the same night; but they continue as one unit on paper and for district and council activity. That of course means having a large pool of leaders from which to draw.

 

I wish I had even a little of that problem. We lost both of our long time feeder packs in the past five years, and the other packs basically continue to go elsewhere. We have almost disappeared due to few new members, since we have not on going pack affiliation anymore. We have tried to get a pack going, but so far it has floundered and also is not growing. The few webloes that it had just came into the troop, and the younger boys, of which there were only six, suddenly were gone due to 3 families picking up and moving out of the area, and one simply stopping his participation when the others went. So, we have a number, but pretty much no pack at this point. Hopefully we can rejuvenate it somehow; but I have to focus on the troop. Funny, we have a willing and cooperative sponsor, a great meeting place in which we have met since 1928, yet we have trouble getting members. Being on the "wrong end" of town is a factor I'm afraid. But we persevere.

 

Good luck with your "problem".

[OneHour]

I brought up the feeder pack concept and it was shot down by our committee and the other troop's committee. We had three troops. One folded. It is easier said than done. The current two troops are struggling. Our troop is growing bigger while the other troop is growing smaller. Our drop out rate is about 20% for 1st year scouts due to sports, moves, and lack of interest. We age out 10% of our scouts.

 

Splitting troops in 43/43 would be great. It is not easy. The only two viable charter orgs already the two troops. Trust me, if there is an easy way, we would have taken it.

 

It is a great problem to have, but not a great problem to solve.

[Eagledad]

I had a really good write-up on this that I did about 10 years ago; Ill see if I can find it. But in short, it is very dangerous to cap troops because that reputation can hurt in the long run. It is better to reduce growth by adding requirements for the privilege of being part of the troop. The way our troop tried to control it was through higher yearly fees. Even then we still grew larger than planned, but we had a lot of money to spend. The goal however is not to develop a reputation of being a special troop or a snobbish troop. I have seen several Troops in our district live and die by that sword.

 

Another risk of capping I saw that bit a couple troops in our district was limiting new scouts to almost not allowing any. These troops found that when the groups got to the leadership age, they didnt have enough scouts to run the troop and struggled in keeping a fun program going. The SM of one such troop saw the writing on the wall and retired quickly. His troop went from 70 to 20 scouts in two years from the sudden loss of older scouts to younger scouts who didnt know what to do.

 

I am also not a believer of splitting troops. I did extensive research in this area trying to learn the best way to approach it and found that it fails nine out of ten times and the troop with the original SM still grew large.

 

When our troop had 95 scouts on the roster, we typically had about 60 active. The reason for us was that our troop was friendly toward scouts in sports and band, so depending on the season, we averaged 60 active scouts except in January and Summer camp when we were back to 90.

 

I guess I understand trying to keep the roster clean of deadbeats, only because my wife was the treasure and didnt enjoy maintaining their account, but PLC will give the best indication of when the program is too big. They simply wont be able to keep up.

 

In reality, the troop will size itself to the SM. My observation is that it really doesnt matter how small or big the troop wants to be, the program will size itself to the SMs style of leadership. Good Scoutmasters tend to be very desirable. So one solution is kick out that Scoutmaster and find one that isnt so good at the job.

 

Barry

 

[OneHour]

Barry ... thanks!

[Bando]

As a youth, my troop had about 100 scouts when I joined. By my 3rd year, it had exploded to about 120. Yes. 120. And there were indications there would have been close to 150 with the incoming new scouts (as I recall). It was getting very, very difficult, so we started putting restrictions and criteria for incoming scouts. It got a bit contentious, some feelings were getting hurt, and it ended up hurting us. A spinoff troop was started to alleviate the whole thing, and they ended up having close to 100 at times, too. Both troops now number a little under a hundred, and both have 60+ adult leaders. There's another local troop that has around 15-20 scouts, has always had 15-20 scouts, and kind of flies under the radar in comparison to the other two. Go figure.

 

The problem with a large troop, I've found, is that leadership opportunities are difficult. There's only one SPL, there's only so many Quartermasters you can have, there's only so many ways you can spread around Scribe and Bugler and Den Chiefs and all of that, and that's really a dimension of scouting that I found to be useful and important as an adult. Being an SPL or an ASPL who actually did something, or being a long-time PL would have been quite nice. I would love to see how a 30-40 scout troop functions, because I've never seen it...

 

Long story short, putting caps can be a good idea to keep numbers down, but it makes your program seem inaccessible and exclusive, and may end up making those caps irrelevant later. The idea of a "waiting list" to get into a troop is pretty odd, IMO. Start another troop before you resort to that.

[allangr1024]

Are feeder packs for troops an official thing? In my council feeder packs are discouraged. But that does not stop troops from having VERY strong if unofficial ties to packs. So, for instance, if a den leader follows his son to a troop with the WEBELOS crossover, and becomes an ASM, he can go back to the pack and talk his friends, the new pack leaders, into encouraging the webelos to come to his troop.

 

I asked our district volunteer in charge of Webelos crossovers how to find crossing over webelos and found out that I am supposed to recruit den chiefs, hold activity badge fairs, invite Webelos on troop camping trips, do Webelos Woods, staff resident camp, and generally establish relations with 3 to 4 packs for a year prior to a crossover. I think I missed it for this year. They just don't do any training for new SM's on this stuff.

 

So, how do you recruit if you do not have a feeder pack, have a small troop of 8 to 10 scouts, and have little contact with packs. (I never did have a kid in Webelos. I did not understand how it works at first.) What help can you expect from council professionals? What training is there for recruiting?

[jhankins]

We have a CO around here with a P/T/C, and they're starting a second troop once they get more than 60 boys. 10 patrols is alot for one unit!

[Beavah]

Yah, generally speakin' troops have a natural size, determined by the interests and capabilities of their adult leaders and SM. When they get too large, they start losin' more boys to droppin' out of Scouting.

 

To my mind, that's a bad thing, eh? We lose kids from scoutin'. At da point when wise leaders are recognizin' they're getting there, they probably are already there.

 

As Eagledad says, though, splittin' a troop has serious pitfalls. Usually da troop got to its size because of a dynamic leader and set of good support adults. When yeh split da troop, whoever is in the half without the old dynamic leader feels a bit cheated. They don't do too well.

 

Best if the big unit tones down its recruiting, and the unit with the district starts a new troop by takin' a big group of up and coming webelos. The big troop can loan some older boys or have a lad or two transfer, and provide some resources in the new troop's first year to help 'em get goin'. That seems to work better. All depends on IDing a good SM and some key folks.

 

This is da kind of issue a good district and DE should be involved in (but sadly, usually aren't).

 

Beavah

 

[skeptic]

There are two different types of "feeder" packs. One is a unit sponsored by the same group, often with a similar number with an extra digit. The other is a pack that simply traditionally feeds into a particular troop for various reasons, often family and friend related.

 

Under the new registration formats at National, a related unit, sponsored by the same group, can actually "promote" cubs from the pack directly. They cannot "promote" cubs from non affiliated units. So, paperwork wise, that can be and advantage.

 

But, having a regular feed certainly makes a huge difference. Even a few each year helps with balance going forward. If you end up with the big gap in the middle, it can kill the unit due to lack of leader aged scouts in the middle and partially disconnected almost aged out scouts, as noted by someone else.

[DenZero]

It's probably inevitable that large units get larger and small units get smaller. A large unit has more people to engage in word of mouth recruiting, and at least appears like a better unit to prospective Scouts. Having a big feeder pack is a key to growth for troops. Where I live there are 2 packs and 2 troops, a pair at each chartered org., and each about a mile apart. In the 1990s, the units were all about the same size, about 40 boys each. Starting about 10 years ago, the North pack started having weak leadership. The South pack was able to step up its recruiting to take advantage of the situation, and is now about 90+ boys and the North pack is all but dead. The South troop doesn't need to do any recruiting; they get 20 Webelos from the feeder pack every year, so they have about 70 or so boys and continue to grow. Boys want to go there because that's where their friends are. The North troop doesn't get any Webelos, and has to recruit hard for older boys. They are down to about a half dozen boys, and might not be around for much longer. If any of the long time leaders leave, there aren't enough parents to recruit replacements from. They have recruited an occasional older Scout from a large troop with the offer of the opportunity to be SPL.

 

If trends like this continue, eventually, there will be just a few very large units. This is probably a more efficient use of resources, as one Scoutmaster and committee can do the jobs of three or more.

 

 

[Mrw1]

Our troop currently has 54 on the roster, of which maybe 8 are no longer active and unlikely to return. Another 6 have aged out and so will drop off the roster at recharter time.

 

We will shortly be crossing over somewhere in the are of 15 new boys for the third year in a row.

 

Between natural attrition and incoming boys, the total number of scouts seems to be pretty much stabilized in the low 50's.

 

We have two packs in our town of 60-80 or so boys each that feed into our troop. Their overall numbers have been pretty stable for the past several years too. There are several other troops to choose from in the surrounding suburbs, but it rarely occurs to any of the crossing over boys to investigate other troops. That being said, we have had the occasional boy transfer in or out as suited his needs and circumstances.

 

When my now 21 year old son was a second year scout, we dropped to 8 active boys. Growing quickly for a few years prompted many dicussions about how to handle the numbers, but we managed to work through it all without too much angst. A big part of the solution was adding a second ASPL and appointing more troop guides and instructors to help the younger boys while giving the older ones a purpose.

 

As far as splitiing the troop, a scout is loyal, and putting them in the position of deciding which place to go or being arbitrarily assigned would seem to be a poor position to put boys in.