Re: Units Living Together Help Needed
Alan Houser (troop24@EMF.NET)
Tue, 13 Dec 1994 01:04:51 -0800
Todd,
I would be curious about the reason for the District setting up a second
troop for the same chartered partner. Usually that would happen only if
there were too many kids to be adequately served by an existing troop,
but from the numbers you cite, that doesn't seem to be the case.
How does the chartered partner support two troops? Are there differences
in the program between the two troops beyond the one having more
resources from having been around longer that would allow them both to
draw different kids into Scouts? Or are they trying to draw the same
kids into their troops? That seems to be a recipe for failure, and
failure can raise sour grapes. If there are a lot of kids going into
Scouts, enough to fill both troops, no problem. But otherwise, you
will have exactly the situation you describe. It is better to have
some sort of natural division between the troops (serving different
schools or churches) to allow each to draw recruits from separate pools.
I do not mean to suggest that if a kid goes to school X, he cannot join
troop Y because he likes its program better. But it will help to
balance recruiting by each troop and give each troop the opportunity
to build its own unique program. Where one troop gets most of the
new Scouts, to the point where the second troop dies from implosion,
does not serve a charter partner well, nor are the boys served well
either.
In Berkeley, we are seeing several old-time troops go under or at
least struggling. One case is two troops with the same chartered
partner. When most boys wanted to be in Scouts, it worked well, but
now, one troop is holding on by its fingernails while the other is
continuing to do well. Which troop would you join? When the school
district threw Scouting out of the schools, the natural recruiting
boundaries disappeared, and now all the troops compete for all new
Scouts. It's not a level ground. The weaker troops have suffered
because the kids coming up are choosing the stronger troops with
their more attractive programs. Without getting the new kids and the
new parents, they go down even more.
The same situation applies to packs, only even more so, because the
pack program is less different between packs than troop programs.
I would sit down with your District Executive to try to sort out
the reason for having two troops and two packs in the same chartered
organization. I would have the charter representative sit in on
the meeting as well. Try to figure out why they feel it is important
to support two sets of competing units. If it has anything to do
with trying to serve more youth (which doesn't seem to be happening),
then try to find another chartered organization that can step in to
help. The key is to find a way to divide the market of potential new
Scouts so that the two packs and two troops are not fighting over the
same pool of recruits.
Alan R. Houser ** Scoutmaster, Berkeley Troop 24 ** troop24@emf.net
** WWW page ** http://www.emf.net/~troop24/t24.html **
Terry Howerton Sakima Group, Inc. SCOUTER Magazine Kansas City | 
