How many District and Council Events do you have?

[Amangi Mizin]

Hello All,

My committee and I are thinking about reducing the number of events we have on a council level (very small council so no district events). I am interested in how many events other councils/districts have each year. Here are my numbers

 

Boy Scout 6

Cub Scouts 5

Venturing 1

Misc 1

 

[Tokala]

I'm in a very geographically small Council (about 10 miles x 40 miles) with 3 Districts. Council-wide we hold very few events. We have a Program Preview every May when we release the calendars for the year. We have 4 Cub Family camps annually and a Tiger Growl. We only hold a Boy Scout Camporee/Encampment once every 3 years.

 

Districts hold an annual Camporee and Webelos Crossover.

[Austinole]

Boy Scouts

Summer Camp X 2

Camporee

Winter Camp

Shooting Sports day once a month

NYLT

 

Cub Scouts

Tiger Prowl

Family Camp

Pinewood Derby

Mom and Me Camp

4 day camps (one for each district and one for the council)

Resident Camp

Webelos Camp

 

Venturing Super Weekend

Venturing Super Week

 

 

 

[infoscouter]

Amangi - your council numbers are the same as what my whole district puts on in a year. We literally have dozens.

 

It would help to know how many youth you are serving in each program (and what you're including as "events") to know whether/what to suggest to cut.

 

Maybe the answer is to manage the events differently, so as to reduce the work load of the committee.

[ScouterAdam]

Amangi:

Are you a Troop or a Pack?

What's your position?

 

This affects my answer.

[Oak Tree]

I think my answer really depends on what you call "events". Is summer camp an event? NYLT? OA events?

 

For Boy Scouts, we have a district camporee and a council camporee.

[jpstodwftexas]

My Council for Cub Scouts

Fall Cub-n-Pal

Spring Cub-n-pal

Residence Camp 4 Days/ 2 Secessions 1st Secession Wolf-Bear 2nd Secession is Web 1 Web 2

[Amangi Mizin]

I'm VP of Program for council. I consider events anything outside of summer camp that's a 1 - 3 day event. We serve roughly 1400 scouts in the council but events range in size from 60 to around 200 participants. These do not include OA events either. Thanks for everyone's continued responses. These help.

 

My committee chairs and I are discussing a program transition; having less council events and using those volunteers to reinforce the roundtable program and provide an "extension" service where my program committees will visit units to help with their finances, training, membership, program, etc.

 

[SeattlePioneer]

Hello Amangi Mizin,

 

 

>

 

 

It sounds like you have developed a well staffed program.

 

I wonder if it's wise to try to repurpose those volunteers in quite a different direction? I'd be concerned that your volunteers would just evaporate as they tried to meet very different needs taking quite different skills.

 

You are also proposing to enter into functions that should be the province of your Council Commissioner, Roundtable Commissioners and Unit Commissioners.

 

You must have done a terrific job of attracting volunteers for your programs! What were the methods that have led to that success?

 

 

 

[ScoutNut]

Checking thru our council calendar for this year it looks like -

 

Cub Scouts - 5

 

Boy Scouts - 7

 

Venturing - 3

 

Misc - 5

 

OA - 5

 

The above does not include youth training or summer camps.

(This message has been edited by ScoutNut)

[Amangi Mizin]

@ SeattlePioneer

 

Not to go off topic but the reason we are looking at this change is the JTE. My Program committees (We have them broken down differently than the regular 4 committees) put on great events but they are tired of reaping no benefit in terms of the JTE (minus my camping, advancement and training committees)

 

Right now our roundtables are non-existent. Most commissioners are in name only and the ones that are active aren't equipped to handle all the needs of the units.

 

It has been my and my chair's hope that if they send some of their committee members into the units themselves, the scouts will benefit more. This group also wants to put on monthly program meetings focusing on training, activities, advancement, etc... just like roundtables do.

 

Thanks for the compliment on attracting volunteers. In the 3 years Ive been VP weve gone from 3 active committees consisting of 19 people to 9 committees with 44 members.

 

This change if it does occur wont happen until 2014 so we are still in the discussion mode but I still think to ask one committee like my Boy Scout Program committee to run 6 events a year when troops are still losing member or lacking in program, an incorrect use of volunteers.

 

[click23]

3 Boy Scout Camporees

1 Merit Badge College, starting to offer Webelos activity pins

1 District awards banquet

Semi Monthly (~6) Cub scout events

1 Cub Scout summer twilight camp

2 Cub Scout Family Camps

 

We have roughly 30 units

[SeattlePioneer]

>

 

 

That's very fine work.

 

Any particular methods that have proven to be effective in recruiting additional volunteers?(This message has been edited by seattlepioneer)

[Get Outdoors]

Off the top of my head;

 

Boy Scouts

Our District does 2 camperees that are usally pretty good, One in the spring, MB weekend and one in early winter. That boy genreally like to attend because they get to hand out with people they know outside our unit and a usally pretty inexpensive.

 

In addition to summer camp; Our council does a spring break camp and winter camp (MB Factories) Our boy usally don't sign up because 1) they are genarally very disorganized and 2) cost. Council will disagree but most of us "in trench folks" beleive they use it as a proffit center. Spring break is $180 for a 3 1/2 day event that they provide food and $50 for winter camp they provide nothing. If the unit wants to stay indoors, the cost is an additional $25.00 PP.

 

Cub Scouts

Our District holds one or two a year along with a summer day camp. Council in addition to their summer camp, I think they do two.

 

 

[Amangi Mizin]

Volunteer Recruiting Methods...

1. Work as hard as the people you ask to volunteer and make sure they see it. Its not showing off it helps people get a feel for the level of effort you expect and that they are not alone in working hard for the cause.

2. Give praise were praise is due.

3. Make sure they understand their part in the grand picture and that they've bought into it.

4. Start new people out small (staffing a single event) and challenge them to progress. I've had many that went from staffing an event to running it in 2 years. I've had people run an event to running a committee.

5. Push what positions you need filled but take any volunteer that wants to work. With that said be there if they change their minds or want to move up in the volunteer ranks in another path.

6. Something I think is important is being there for transitions. I lost my cub scout program chair and I sat in on 4 meetings making sure it moved forward as well as convinced a person they could handle the meetings since they did so well running our Parent and Pal weekends. It took 4 meetings of hand holding but he is up and running now.

7. Guilt can be a powerful tool 

 

Hope those help.