We too started with rebuilding an existing troop, in 2 years we have gone from 10 scouts to 55, with 40 showing up for troop meetings. After much consideration and experimentation we hit on the following which seems to be working. First, so that we could get a decent size turn out at events per patrol we went to the 10-12 member size. (So many of the scouts are active in other things, when we were at the 7-8 level only 2 would show up in some of the patrols). This has worked great!!
Second to build the patrols we picked 4 experienced boys and put them in front of the room, and let them ea