New 2011 Performance Recognition Program

[NeilLup]

Hello Eagle 732,

 

You haven't identified which is your council, so it's tough to know exactly what they do.

 

If by skimming 30% off the top, you mean that the course is expected to pay for

 

-the use of camp including maintenance and depreciation

-the cost of the pros and administrative staff who support the course

 

Then that's an interesting way of looking at it.

 

I know that my council adds, where possible, a 10% contingency and does ask that camps be paid for. I know that it doesn't skim money off the top.

[Oak Tree]

Eagle732,

 

You don't need to send someone to NYLT to be a gold unit. My unit has sent someone one time, I think, but it looks to me like we would qualify for gold every year even without that.

 

I can't see how it's wrong to encourage NYLT. If we don't want to encourage it, we shouldn't put it on.

 

Brent - one of the problems with TroopMaster is that when you archive someone, you lose the history of the events that they have attended. I agree, with 14 Scouts it isn't bad (but even then, membership can vary from month to month as two Scouts leave at various times and two new Scouts join in different months.) It was a real pain trying to calculate monthly attendance percentage for every event for the past year, even with TroopMaster. Find all the archived Scouts and review their records on which trips they attended (assuming you saved that list). Create a history of how many Scouts were in the troop each month. Make sure all your leaders have entered attendance for all the events that they led. Etc.

 

Now - if it's just a question of who attended summer camp and how many Scouts we had at that point in time, that's not so bad. Even easier for the smaller troop.

[BrentAllen]

Oak,

For archived Scouts, all you have to do is "un-archive" them for a moment and print an Individual Participation Report for camping or any other activity on the list, then re-archive them. I just ran through the process, and it took about 2 minutes.

 

Do most Troop memberships fluctuate that much month to month? We generally add Scouts in March and any we lose will be at recharter.

 

Eagle732,

The NYLT Course is a Gold Award standard - Troops can still earn Silver award level points for that requirement without sending a Scout to NYLT. It is a difference of 100 points; Troops can still easily earn Gold without that 100 points. I hardly find that worth grousing about. I've run into Troops that were not aware of NYLT, and have never sent Scouts to the course. Do you think this program might just introduce those Troops to the course, and encourage them to send their SPL? Do you think that would help them build a better Troop in the long run? I do, so I think this is good thing to include.

[Eagle732]

Neil,

I've never dealt with the money end of a NYLT course, only volunteered. I do know that the real money maker for our council is Cub Scout Day Camp. For 8 years I have served on staff at the highest level on one of the largest day camps in the country with over 800 cubs in attendance. Council really screams if they don't get their 30%. They do not provide the facility or any other support except a very cumbersome money management system. Never confuse the business side of Scouting with the boy side.

 

Grousing: To complain or grumble (Webster)

No grousing here, just trying to make a point, which I'm done doing now.

[Oak Tree]

Brent,

 

Thanks for the tip on un-archiving. Just tried it and it works. It's not ideal from my perspective, but it's good to have. I'd like to be able to look at these Scouts in the archive and see what they attended, and I'd like to be able to see what our event attendance was for events in the past without having to un-archive all of the Scouts who were in the troop at that time. But the information is there, which is more than I knew before. Thanks!

 

As for attendance varying throughout the year, I checked. We've had nine Scouts join our troop this year at some time other than crossover, mostly arriving one at a time in all different months. We had 16 join at crossover (I'm not sure how many we dropped.) We've had three Scouts move away, one Scout age out, and we've had five Scouts tell us they have dropped out - although we won't officially drop them until recharter time. For purposes of calculating percentage attendance, we've been told not to count those who have dropped out. I believe that our number of Scouts eligible to attend a camping trip has changed every month this year. So the new system will certainly be easier for us.