Scoutingmama

Bevah, LOL! I have already forgotten the kids, eh? Forgot the vision of boy lead already.... JK! but thanks for the gentle reminder!! Great advice!!! I so appreciate those of you that were willing to post such long well thought out posts. The best help we've gotten yet in starting this troop.

I hope you don't mind one more new committee chair question. Since we started our troop last Nov. it has been our goal to start a Den/Pack. When you have a Pack, does the exisiting committee oversee the Pack too? This is how I invision it: Committee meeting with Pack info shared- then seperate meetings for BS only and Den only business. Am I wrong? Also, if the plan is to start a Pack in August ( I believe we have a Den Master volunteer), what else whould the committee be doing right now to prepare?

Gunny I love your emphasis on getting the adults trained and not working more than an hour a week- keeps tehm from getting burned out! Annie, I looked up the information on Cenntenial Quality Unit Awards- first time I or SM had heard of it, looks useful for planning where we want to go with this. Very helpful! Allan, We are planning month to month right now. One thing we have done right is get three of our members trained on BOR procedures at the Universtiy of Scouting in January. I don't think we would have done so if the Advancement chair ( previous scouting experience) hadn't highly encouraged it. Worked out well because we had a scout transfer in who only neede to complete his Eagle project. That training came in very handy! Eisley I will look into that information. Training can never hurt, eh? Bevah, T78 and are are from the same troop literally and figuratively! He's my husband! He orginally put me on the board as a means of making his life easier in terms of paper work and to get the 5 he needed. I thougt it be a sorta temp position until he found someone else that could lead, however I am beginnnig to see the benefit of us working together for the troop. So, I am going to jump in with both feet and see where the wild ride leads! We have one boy in the troop and two more eager for the pack to start so they can be Weebs. Your advice is sound. I will take it to the next committe meeting and we will begin the process. We started the troop with out the infrastucture in place- now we need to go back and put the policies in place that will make sure the troop can withstand change. Right now we are eager and ready to see it succeed and we need to strike while the iron is hot to make sure when times get tough the boys will still have a great program. John with the busyness of starting the troop ( and getting the adults trained to believe that the boys really don't need one on one supervision every second0 but that is another thread!) we have not been to a roundtable. DH said he will go to the May RT and see what is happening there. Bob- so the committee makes the vision or the SM and teh committe provides the vehicle for getting there One more question for all- who does the long range planning?? The SM? the committe? or both? Thanks for your help! We are on our way to a good troop! Dawn

Sadly our UC is brand new too...

Hello! We started a new troop in November 2007. We now have 15 boys, a SM, 3 ASM, a committee and an active ( meeting monthly) PLC. So far we have been essentially flying by the seat of our pants as there is not much district support and only a few members with previous expericence in Scouting (SM- Eagle, ASM 6 year scouting leader, advancement chair 6 years leading). We were fortunate enough to start wth boys from many levels. So, my question as committee chair, I would like to begining planning with a vision. Is there such a thing as a five year plan for troop development? Were can I go to look at how our troop should be developing and what the committee can do to help it get there? We were also fortunate enough to participate in spring popcorn sales and our boys did very well. So we will have the ability to bging purchasing needed items (Unit flag included!) TIA, Dawn