Mass exodus from a unit.... past reasons ??

[WestCoastScouter]

Occassionally something happens that causes a mass exodus of families and/or scouts from a unit... Where a quarter to half of a unit up and transfers to a different unit...

 

Just as a conversation piece... what past things have you seen happen that has caused this to take place... ??

[jhankins]

Lack of quality program, or too much program (weird, I know!) have been the most common things around here. Kids will bail if they're bored, and when you work the parents too hard with monthly big events for 100+ people, well -- kiss your volunteers goodbye.

 

We have several mega-packs. What happens in the smaller packs see that a larger pack would be less work, so they fold into the larger one. They get so big it's difficult to run events (a PWDerby for 120 racers... a B&G for 300+!) that the volunteers who do work burn out too fast and want to move to a smaller pack.

 

 

[DenZero]

That sort of thing happened in my son's pack. I was a small pack that had been recovering and was up to over 20 boys.

 

Unfortunately, they never got to the point that there was a functioning committee, so the Cubmaster ended up doing almost everything. When he started working longer hours, events didn't get planned properly, and things got disorganized. No one was there to back him up.

 

Over the summer, several families were frustrated with the lack of organization and decided it was easiest to move to the very large pack nearby where they wouldn't have to get involved.

 

By fall, the small pack was down to 7 boys.

 

[Crew21_Adv]

WestCoastScouter,

 

Greetings!

 

 

Past reasons...

 

Disagreements amongst adults. (Money, program, religion, politics, etc).

 

The Cubs will attend only if their parents bring/drive them. Almost the same for Boy Scouts and Venturers.

 

Youth may have a disagreement or fight, but they can usually resolve their anger in hours-days. Adults seem to carry a grudge for years.

 

The next Scout unit's program may be better organized or their program may be loosely thrown together. But if the parents are not fighting; and they are either talking about the next camping trip or talking about Monday Night Football and local politics, they will get along much easier.

 

So I expect it is disagreements amongst adults, which cause mass exodus leaving one scout unit and moving to another scout unit.

 

I believe it is the whole family buy in, that keeps a Scout in a troop. If the whole family is invested in a pack or troop, the parents will be more willing to resolve minor disagreements. If only the Scout is dropped off for an occasional meeting and the parents are not involved in the family-based pack or troop, then it is easy for a minor misunderstanding to cause a family (or flock of families) to move elsewhere.

 

 

Scouting Forever and Venture On!

Crew21 Adv

 

[moosetracker]

A Venture crew starting up and getting their members by stealing the troops older boys.. "You can make eagle here as well as there, no uniforms, girls, and no younger scouts to look after".. Strangely enough the troop was able to retaliate and finally wiped out the crew because the parents of the boys they won over were loyal to the troop refused to participate in the crew. The crew couldn't continue without adult leadership. They planned on the adult leadership coming with the boys. Sad for both parties. If the crew had done things right they could have had a friendship.

 

Currently the troop has a SM that the boys don't like, don't respect, cannot guide them, Does not know how to delegate and will not allow help from his ASM or any other adults... etc. Nice guy, He tries, but his personality is just wrong for the position. COR & CC wont remove him because they don't want to hurt his feelings or his son's. Therefore the other boys and adults are leaving for other troops.

[Eagle92]

We had a mass exodus this year with my pack. Fortunately the reason was easy to explain and the "split" was amicable, although we had to scramble to replace the leaders involved. One of the local churches with a long history in Scouting but defunct units asked one of its members if he would restart the pack. After about 1 month of thinking and working on details to restart the pack, he told the pack he was leaving to restart the pack at his church. Families had the choice of sticking with us or their DL turned CM, and so we lost some folks.

 

While a few folks had hard feelings, most understood that it's hard to tell your pastor no. Hardest part was replacing him adn his wife as they were phenomenal leaders.

[DYB-Mike]

Mini-hijack

 

Unfortunately, they never got to the point that there was a functioning committee, so the Cubmaster ended up doing almost everything. When he started working longer hours, events didn't get planned properly, and things got disorganized. No one was there to back him up.

 

Over the summer, several families were frustrated with the lack of organization and decided it was easiest to move to the very large pack nearby where they wouldn't have to get involved.

 

That is really sad. The Cubmaster works his butt off for the kids of parents who are too lazy to get off theirs and his reward is Youre not doing a good enough job. See you later! I really feel for that Cubmaster!

 

Now, back to topic.

 

YIS

Mike

 

[emb021]

Well, the troop I was a member of as a youth had a mass exodus.

 

Basically what happened was the Scoutmaster wanted to leave and form a troop at the church he was at. Then he invited ALL the older boys of our troop to come join his new troop. Almost all did, except one or two who decided to be loyal to the troop. That left just the newer, younger scouts. I think most of the ASMs went with the scoutmaster. So the troop committee had to scramble to get new leadership. We were able to get some troop alumni to come back and be the leaders, but we limped along for a couple of years before we started improving.

 

Part of the reason this scoutmaster wanted to form a new troop was he really got into high adventure stuff, which he wanted to do with his new troop with older youth (he eventually formed a high adventure explorer post as well). I guess he felt he could do that easier with a new troop then with the current troop.

 

 

[qwazse]

I've experienced the opposite of Moosetracker in the past four years. The boy scouts who've joined my crew stayed in their respective troops.

 

The boys who left the troop before their 18th birthday were the ones who never joined the crew. At least half of them went to another troop, but it didn't gut ours. We still had those venturers!

 

NOT having a crew around for our older boys would result in most of them finding no time for the troop. It would be a trickling away instead of a mass exodus, but the same result.

 

We did have adults making it an "either/or" situation like what MT described. In the first year, they made a pretty big stink. Time and numbers made 'em come around. It didn't hurt that some girls tossed in a few service hours on some boys' eagle projects.

 

I'm incline to chalk MT's experience to the adults wanting a show to run rather than wanting youth to lead the show.

[Lisabob]

At the end of the wolf year, my son's den (about 1/3 of the pack) switched to another pack. Reasons: adults sniping about each other in nasty ways, and really borrrriiiiinnnngggg pack meetings that were nothing more than hour-long adult announcements.

 

Since the den leader, who did a good job, was the one being sniped about, when she joined another pack the whole den went with her.

 

At the end of the bear year, the new pack we had joined had a leadership meltdown that included adult fisticuffs at the pinewood derby.

 

Mass exodus that time was because of terrible adult role modeling and leadership. Some adults were asked to leave; others who were part of the fighting left of their own accord; others didn't want to put up with the drama in what (they thought) was supposed to be a fun children's program, so they left too.

 

None of this is ever fun.

 

 

[WestCoastScouter]

My experience was similar to LisaBob...

 

The CM, ACM, and CC (the wife of the CM), had program disagreements with two Den Leaders. It got to the point that the CM, ACM, & CC created the term "Executive Committee", above the Pack Committee and kicked the two DL's out of the pack. (Never discussed it with the COR who was a "sign here" COR type)

 

The two DL's did leave, but took their two dens with them, which was about 30% of the Pack. After that another handful of boys left after the original packs' program then suffered even more... It turns out the Den Leaders who were booted were doing most of the work for programs... the remaining leadership were committee leaders only, and had no boy leadership skills in the field.

[moosetracker]

qwaze - you then had a good Venture Crew that worked with the troop. The venture crew came in and just tried to steal the boys out.. This set the troop up in arms, and ready to fight.

I know many Venture crews who work successfully with the neighboring troops, or hold their meetings during troop time, and are basically an arm of the troop.

 

But rather then starting the Venture crew working with the troop, they started it working against the troop, and basically started a war. When they found themselves loosing the war, they then wanted to work with the troop, but the troop were now not in the mood to listen.

 

As I said.. It WAS truely sad. I have nothing against a Venture crew, but they have to work with their neighboring troops, or try to stand on their own. I know one guy who has a Venturing crew for Ballroom dancing.. It works for him, but you know he isn't trying to steal his crew members from the troops. He is one that wishes to stand alone.

[BadenP]

moosetracker

 

I just bet you were the one that started and ended that war without ever talking to the crew advisor even once. Venturing crews are not in the business of stealing boys but to give them additional or alternative scouting experiences, your lack of understanding with the venturing program is painfully obvious. Your typical MO of attack first and ask questions later makes you more of a liability than an asset to your unit and your district.

[Lisabob]

BadenP, There's no call for attacking other posters like that. Moosetrack was reporting their experience from their viewpoint. Unless you live in the same town and know the situation personally, you have absolutely no basis for your assertion, and telling a volunteer whom you've presumably never met that they are a liability to their unit and district is unacceptable as well as un-scoutlike. Lay off.

 

 

[BadenP]

Lisabob

 

M.Y.O.B.