at the popcorn turn it this morning

[Basementdweller]

Ya a large number of scout volunteers are idiots as evidence by the stupidity I witnessed this morning.

 

Our troop and pack ran out of popcorn during our sale and asked for more....of course there was none to be had it was in the units.

 

Every week a plea from district and council for units to turn in product they are not selling. So our sale ended earlier than I wanted or hoped.

 

Well sitting here and watching the hundreds of cases being turned in just makes my blood boil.....

 

The complete selfishness of the unit leaders......

 

I just find it unbelievable. We no I dont

 

one mom kia sedonna unloaded 15 unopened cases of carmel corn....ya know I am pretty sure we could have easily sold 3 of them and with a bit of work 5 more.

 

Seeing this I am almost of the opinion that there should be no returns.

 

Our unit does not participate in the second part of the sale because of damaged product that gets returned and redistributed....rodent and heat damage....

 

Make me embassared to be a member of the group

[5yearscouter]

I know I always feel bad when we order the wrong amount and I have to take some back.

I get there to return like 1 case of each kind of microwave and a case of the $20 caramel, and there are piles and piles and piles or returned popcorn.

The guy at council was shaking his head when I commented, he said that one pack in particular drove him nuts because he tranposed their numbers on one kind of popcorn, so instead of ordering 54 cases, he ordered 45 for them. And they brought back like 35 cases.

 

I forsee next year they'll try something different once again,

as they keep trying differet things to get people to sell more popcorn but also not to return so much that council is "eating" leftover popcorn for the next year.

 

This year we could order all we wanted and return all we wanted as long as we returned it by the 26th of October. But if most units kept their store sales popcorn to fill their take order flyer sales, they said more was returned than ever before. no duh!

 

[SeattlePioneer]

Running a popcorn sale is very much like running a small business. Indeed, I would be inclined to sell the Popcorn Kernel position as an opportunity for people to learn the skills needed to operate their own small business.

 

Not surprisingly, a lot of people have a lot to learn when they are thrown into that job with little or no training an experience.

 

A well managed Scout unit is going to conserve their experience with the popcorn sale and pass it on to new sale managers, and have adequate support for those new leaders so they can do the job efficiently and effectively.

 

I think Basement is wrong when he describes Scout leaders as "idiots." The units with problems are usually going to be people trying to do a good job with a lack of sufficient training, experience and support.

[ntrog8r]

The whole popcorn thing can be so frustrating... and rewarding. Just depends on how its managed. My wife and I were made the kernels for a Pack back when our son transitioned from Tigers to Cubs (yep, that dates us!). We had no idea what we were doing and no one was really willing/able to offer any help. Left floating in the ocean we tried something crazy.

 

We read the directions. Read everything we could find about popcorn sales; about the program, read all the flyers from Trails End, all the info sheets, comic books, etc. We ordered just over $2000 worth of product for Show and Sale to be distro'd at our meeting place. Of course, no one showed up to pick up their popcorn... So I loaded it all back into the Jeep and drove away ticked off. I now had another hour drive back to our house loaded with popcorn other people had committed to sell. But then our son was in uniform so I figured why not unload some of it. Stopped at a local business, asked to set up, and sold ALL OF IT!

 

Next week's meeting everyone's asking for their popcorn (that they were supposed to pick-up on Saturday morning. I'd already ordered more (Council was in shock) and had it ready. After unloading my feelings about being stuck waiting on Saturday (I was more of a hothead then), I gave out the popcorn. We had a pretty tight follow-up plan for those that signed for popcorn. By the end of the sales period, our Pack sold $23,000 in popcorn. That was more than all the other Districts combined. Great success, right?

 

Next year, somehow we're the kernels again. Council doesn't want to order $10,000 worth of product because we'll never sell it! Eventually we get almost as much as we want and sell all that we get. We break our record and 14 Cubs sell enough to qualify for the Trails End scholarship. Meanwhile other units are still turning in unsold popcorn.

 

We eventually become the District and Council kernels. Packs and Troops are loving the popcorn sale. Success was NOT based on us personally but on following the directions for how to approach customers, select sites, deconflicting with other units, and getting the Scouts to believe in the program. And then...

 

Council changed the way they approached the program. Eliminated all prizes (backpacks, mountain bikes, stoves, etc) for Scouts, held checks for an extra 3 months, eliminated the random drawing for a Scout to go to Disneyland, etc. All site scheduling had to go through Council - that's right Council, not a local kernel per city or even the District, but the Council office. Council preselected "partner businesses" that had to filled first before units could schedule sales at other businesses. One of the "partners" had a great rule; Scouts could sell but not within 25 feet of the door - but other groups could - and on the same day...

 

So we made more money, a lot more money, but stopped rewarding the Scouts and demanded more centralized control. Popcorn quickly became anathema to the units.

 

 

[SeattlePioneer]

Great story, ntrog8r!

[Basementdweller]

Oh they are idiots all right.......It has nothing to do with training. When a unit takes $6k worth of product and sells $100 that is a don't care attitude.

 

the council popcorn guy emailed, the district folks emailed, individual packs and troops emailed begging for unsold product to be returned.

 

When the second call for unsold product went out....I returned part of my take and sell order. I asked for more of the product that we were having success selling. of course there was none in the warehouse, No one on the facebook group or email list for kernels would share their excess product.........

 

 

Ya know I don't care for the nonsense at district or council.....But I don't intentional screw over other units or the council.

 

shakin my head....

[Polaris]

I feel your pain.

 

Some folks are rude and inconsiderate. Others are clueless with no idea of what goes on beyond their world. I think this is the case for most people.

 

I send out multiple emails. I make multiple announcements at meetings. It is on the calendar.

 

Popcorn take order forms were due on Oct 26. We announced Oct 16 deadline for a little wiggle room. Mom asks on Nov 8 where does she take the form. Meanwhile, we are picking up our popcorn on Saturday.

 

I don't know what else to do. Some people are more organized than others. The unorganized and clueless folks shouldn't be Kernels.

 

I helped the Disrict with recruitment this fall. I couldn't believe the number of scouters that did not reply to my emails and did not return my phone calls. Especially phone calls. That's beyond clueless. It's rude.

 

[jc2008]

We have to buy anything we don't sell. No returns for our council.

 

I would have taken more of a chance if I knew I could return part of our order, and made more money for our Pack, but I was a bit chicken, being our first year and all and stuck to an intial 4k order. We did over 10k total this year.

 

Being popcorn kernal was like a job. I think if i spent the past 3 months working a job for as many hours as i spent on popcorn and motivating people to go sell etcetc i could have made 10k myself.. or at least our 30% cut of it lol.

 

 

[5yearscouter]

After calling and emailing and nagging everybody I put in our popcorn order on time for extra stuff for the take order sales. The deadline was Nov 3, so I started nagging for them on October 24th, leader mtg 26th, pack meeting the 31st.

 

Last Wednesday I get an email from 2 moms that they sold popcorn and wanted to know when to turn in the orders and money. I know I can get more popcorn but it takes driving across town, so I asked them for the info on what they sold RIGHT THEN! and I'd even go to their house to get the forms and the money. I still don't have their orders.

 

[Twocubdad]

I don't know why this is so dang hard. Our council holds Show'n'Sell first. Yeah, you still have to take a SWAG at how much to order. But the deadline for turning in Take Order sheets is several weeks after the end of Show'n'Sell. Units have the opportunity to re-inventory any unsold product which would be subtracted from the Take Order total. Smart units do this internally, but the council also allows returns from Show'n'Sell and redistributes the product for the Take Orders in the same manner.

 

The other thing our pack (the troop doesn't sell popcorn) always did was to create a standard "kit" of popcorn for Scouts to sell. Typically you could pick up your popcorn Friday afternoon and returned any unsold product immediately after your shift. You could always check out more product or keep it longer, if you liked, but that was typically for the kids who were into it and wanted to sell. If you were just punching the clock in front of the A&P, you did your shift, turned-in any unsold product and you were done. That allowed our Kernel to turn that product around to the kids who wanted it.