Taming the Mega-Troop

[Mike F]

We've talked about when/why/and how one might go about limiting membership (capping) a troop.

 

How about the other end of it?

How do you enable the boys to effectively lead a unit with 100 or more members?

How do you handle 20+ new scouts per year?

How well do you do at keeping them in the program?

General pros/cons?

[Eagledad]

Boy I read this and felt I could write a book on the question. Its not as simple as the question seems because programs evolve as they mature in their particular environment. But, after thinking about it, I think there two things that we did to make it work: PLC meetings and communication.

 

To start off, for those who arent familiar me, I was the SM of a very boy run program. While I was SM, my personal philosophical approach to boy run was to develop the troop so that the adults never had to be around except for transportation.

 

Our troop is different than most in that we had a Planning PLC meeting every week before the troop meeting instead of every month that most troops are accustom. There are several reasons I asked the PLC to try this and I can explain that if anyone wants. But to keep the answer short for the moment, we had a lot of PLC meetings to keep track and direct the program. I counted once that our SPLs averaged leading over 100 PLC meetings in their six month time in position. Rarely were any of the meetings longer than 20 minutes and probably closer to 10 to 15 minutes. I am convinced that any of our SPLs could run a meeting for a Fortune 500 company. They were really good after six months.

 

The other thing we worked hard on was communication. Communication is an area where all troops struggle and we were no different. But we pushed it pretty hard because it was so important to our program performance. Our SPL typically made two calls to his officers each week. One in the middle of the week as kind of a reminder of what was going on next week and one on Sunday to find out what they were going to report on Mondays meeting. I trained leaders that they should know everything that will happen in a meeting before the meeting so that there are no surprises to make the meeting go long. His last call on Sunday is to the SM to get the adults report. It is also a convenient way for the SM to learn of any situations developing.

 

I dont think a large troop could be boy run without good constant communication.

 

As for the new scout program, I cant remember a year we didnt get at least 20 new scouts. So while I hate aged based patrols, we did use a New Scout Patrol type system for about the scouts first six months. I firmly believe the rate a scout grows is directly related to the number of older scouts he mixed with in his activities. New Scout Patrols reduces that number a lot no matter how you do it. But, I also learned that a mature Patrol can only take two new scouts before it adversely affects the patrol dynamics, so that is the reason why we used the NSP system. We typically moved the new scouts into existing patrols after summer camp.

 

That is a very simplified answer to what I think is a complicated question. I hope it made some kind of sense.

 

Good question Mike

 

Barry

 

[Eamonn]

I was SM of a Troop that I felt got too big.

We went from 0 to 30 in about two years then from 30 to 60 tow years later and by year 7 we had over 90 Scouts.

Communication was never a really big problem as the Troop met three times a week.

Friday Night was Troop Night and more often than not at least part of the Troop would take off to go to camp after the meeting. (We got really good at putting up tents in the dark)

Wednesday Night was games night, we opened up the Scout Hall and the Scouts played indoor soccer, table tennis, board games, just hang out. Some did some work on badges and Scouting skills, some planned menus for the weekend and some just hung out in the kitchen with the adults for a while.

Thursday Night was swimming night, we rented the local pool.

The only night Scouts were expected to show up was Friday night, Troop Night.

PLC's were not so much about sitting down as doing activities that the Troop would be doing over the next month.

Easter Camp which was a week long was only for youth leaders, if possible at where we would be camping that Summer. Even then we had about 15 Scouts in attendance.

Of course this was in the UK. Where at that time there wasn't as many after school activities. It was an inner-city Troop where parents were happy that Scouts was a full time activity.

The "Downfall"?? of the Troop was me!

I started to burn out.

It seemed to me that after a while everything that we were doing was stuff that we had done before, but it was still almost like a full time job.

After the tenth year I got married and while HWMBO was very supportive and willing to tolerate my being out almost every night of the week. It just became too much for me.

We decided to split the Troop. Which just didn't work.

I was very lucky in that I had four and sometimes five ASM's who were almost as crazy as I was.

I'm not sure if there is an ideal number for a Troop.

I found that it was just as hard keeping a small number active and interested as it was a large number.

But once we got above 60 Scouts, I had a hard time really getting to know the younger and newer Scouts.

Eamonn.

 

[Mike F]

I sure would like to have seen the troops you guys served in action!

 

Eamonn -- The level of commitment and time involved is amazing! I can't imagine boys with that much time these days, but it sounds fun!

 

Barry -- Sounds like you had a strong vision and the energy to challenge/coach the scouts and leaders to meet it. Impossible to bottle, but I'll be looking to buy that book when you put it down on paper!

 

Any other thoughts out there?