Popcorn Concerns 2008 ver 2.0

[DeanRx 69]

So, I get an e-mail tonight from my CC. Seems she and our popcorn kernel were making final arrangements for this weekend's (2nd weekend) show-n-sell's and verifying with local store directors times / dates / locations / etc....

 

Well - one site we sold at LAST weekend (and have paperwork assuring us of exclusivity) has turned us away, BECASUE another pack from the adjoining TOWN has asked for and been given permission to sell at their storefront for the NEXT 3 WEEKENDS !!

 

We had another pack show up at TWO of our pre-arranged locations last Saturday, ONE was not only from another town in the metro San Diego area, but outside their DISTRICT !?!?

 

All of these locations are within 5 miles of our pack's neighborhood and a minimum of 15 miles from the other pack's involved. Its a large urban / sub-urban area (north county San Diego)... not like they're are not other places closer to their pack's "home" to sell.

 

Our CC has e-mailed our DE and Dist Trainer and asked that this issue be address for next year.

 

I am thinking of calling BOTH the DE and the council exec (seeing as one pack is crossing DISTRICT lines to sell) and asking that this other pack from the adjoining town be told to STAND DOWN their sale as they are encroaching outside their city boundries and into another unit's geographical location.

 

Any other "big city" scouters run into this issue? Is there an actual policy? Is it no-holds-barred selling within districts / councils?

 

I know of at LEAST 5 prime locations (the beach, ballpark, zoo, other major attractions) that we could set up at, but they are ALL outside our geographical locale (i.e. out of our zip code), so we as a pack committee purposely stay away, especially because we KNOW there are other units in those areas of town...

 

I'm so mad right now, I want to call the other Pack Cubmasters, CC's, and Popcorn Kernel's and quiz them on that whole "A scout is courteous..." thing I remember learning in the Scout Law.

 

Any ideas on how to address this?

[Gold Winger 9]

Although it may be rude to poach on another pack's "territory," this isn't GSUSA with rules regarding who may sell where.

 

I'm amazed that a pack would just "show up" at a location to sell popcorn.

 

However, I wouldn't want to see a flurry of rule making regarding how far away from home you can sell.

[DeanRx 69]

GoldWinger -

 

I understand what you are saying. Guess I should just "look the other way" next year when my scouts start selling before the apporved "kick off" date, eh?

 

They steal our sales = they steal our funding = we have less of a program.

 

I'm honestly toying with the idea of "calling out" the other pack's leaders during open discussion at the next round table. At least the RT would be entertaining for a change

 

FYI - in fact at one of the locations, yes the other pack just showed up the day of kick-off. I asked the store director about it and his reply was, "Well, if I let one of you sell, I can't really tell the other one not to...." Besides - this should be worked between units, not put the store managers in the middle.

 

I support FOS, our pack supports sales of scout fair tickets... what do we get from council / district for that? Nothing. Yeah - it goes to run camps with is great and is for the "greater good", so we are team players in that regard.

 

I just want my DE and council SE to stand up and defend our pack's right to have a fair shake at getting popcorn $$ in our own local city.

[Gold Winger 9]

""Well, if I let one of you sell, I can't really tell the other one not to...." Besides - this should be worked between units, not put the store managers in the middle."

 

I've been doing this for more than a few years as well as selling GS cookies. I've never heard of a store allowing more than one unit for a given time slot. I've been to good locations where the store gave us 10 - 2 and another unit 2 - 6.

 

Never heard of a kick off date for popcorn which a prohibition on early selling. In my council they send the forms to the Scouts well before any units have their information.

 

Good luck.

[evmori 11]

Sell something else!

[ScoutNut 147]

Between cookies and popcorn, I have been setting up booth sales for 17 years now. In all of that time I have never run into a store manager who did NOT keep a schedule of who was selling when. You call and ask if such & such a date is available. They say yep it's ok, or no we have another group selling that day. One local grocery will not let any group sell after a certain date because that's when the SA Bellringers start.

 

Don't rail at the units, your District, or your Council when it is the store managers who are messing everything up!

 

If the stores are not willing to keep a simple calendar (sheesh-they must enjoy popcorn wars at their door!), the only way to clear this up is to get a volunteer or 2, for each District, to work with the District Popcorn Chair, and be responsible for all booth sale signups. ALL requests for a booth sale have to go thru this person, first come, first serve. The stores have only one person calling setting up all the sales, and if the unit does not have a printed approval from the Booth Sale Chair for a particular time and place, they are out of luck.

 

We all know how easy it is to get volunteers! However, if enough units but heads (or popcorn tables) over this, maybe a few folks will step up.

 

 

[Lisabob 13]

This happened to us one year. Our pack had "booked" the largest grocery store in town for a sale, and upon arrival discovered another pack had done the same (well after ours, btw). When I talked with the manager about it, what I discovered was that he had no understanding of how scout units are organized. He just figured we were all run by the district or something, and that we'd happily divide up all sales equally among ourselves. So he saw no problem scheduling multiple units because hey, we're all scouts. Upon enlightenment, he announced that it was our problem, not his - he had a store to run, and if we couldn't work it out then we'd all have to leave. We worked it out. Based on this experience, you can blame store managers all you want but it is only likely to sour them on supporting scouting in the future, which is counter-productive. So tread carefully there.

 

Now we could have gone crying to district, which would likely have resulted in a bunch of new rules that lacked flexibility and couldn't be enforced anyway. Or we'd have been told (equally likely) that this is not the district's problem, and to solve it ourselves.

 

Instead what we did was get together with leaders of other local packs and work it out among ourselves. We all selected dates and locations and put them on all of our calendars for the following year. A situation that could have resulted in bad blood and enmity, instead resulted in better planning for future sales meaning better profits for all, better relations among units meaning more shared resources (time, ideas, equipment) in the future, and a lot less stress. Just goes to show, this can be done if people are willing to act like adults!

 

 

[Apache Bob 10]

Gold Winger - In our Council we cannot start selling popcorn until the United Way finish their money raising campaign.

But we have units from another Council come in early and sell. Also units from another state come in an sell.

No help from District or Council people with the problem. They did not like my idea of selling in the other Council or state early.

 

[Eamonn 61]

"I'm so mad right now, I want to call the other Pack Cubmasters, CC's, and Popcorn Kernel's and quiz them on that whole "A scout is courteous..." thing I remember learning in the Scout Law."

And if they remind you that they remember learning "A Scout is kind" your answer will be?

 

If, and I thank the Good Lord that I'm not! I were the DE or the SE, I sure as heck would not want to get involved with this.

It is up to the owner of the store who is allowed and who isn't allowed to sell stuff outside of their store.

Around here Walmart seems to be a prime location.

Units are required to fill our some forms and Walmart polices where they come from giving local units first choice.

The small town where I live requires a permit that costs $1.00 to sell stuff in town. Only one permit is issued for any one date.

This is not a Council or District problem.

I fail to see what the Council could do to prevent someone selling stuff where so long as the paperwork is in order?

Adding rules that can't be enforced is not going to help and might only make matters worse.

You might want to find locations that do only allow one unit to sell stuff on any given date. But this would be an agreement between you and the store and again the Council would have no say in it.

Eamonn.

 

[ScoutMomSD 10]

I would call the district and ask for the names and phone numbers of the Cub Master for those packs.

 

I would say "we were a bit confused about the locations you are picking. As we had reserved them months before, we would like to find out if you would be willing to choose a later weekend. We already have the staff ready to roll and with kids and families schedules we just cant change."

 

Also in the future I would as one person said tell the store managers about how competive these spots are. A good way is to prime their ego by saying "this is SUCH a great store, we know you will be getting more requests, so we want to make sure we secure this great spot". I would also make sure you give them a CALENDAR with the dates and PACK number on it, not a written document. There are probably folks in your pack good with computers who could do this.

 

I will flat out state that this behavior is totally unacceptable from other packs. I dont care if its in writing or not, if I arrived and someone else was there I would probaly ask them (politely) to leave and go to the store contact and help them set up another time to sell. How can we expect our kids to end up being decent humans if they see their parents acting this way. For the good of the boys, they need to be called out.

 

What would happen in business? If I set up a coffee stand in front of Starbucks tomorrow, what do you think they would do?

 

I think of the movie The Pacifier where Vin Diesel trains the girl scout types to use Karate on the boy scouts. It was pretty funny.

 

 

[orrn4ever 10]

Hi- I am first time user to the forum, however I have been reading the forum for some time as my husband is a leader in our pack so I am an "over the shoulder reader" I guess you would say. I have just this year taken on the role of District Popcorn Chairman in our rural area. I feel the pain in this post as we also have limited show n sell resources. I am district rep for 2 counties which consists of approximately 40 units. This season there are about 1/2 of that decided to do show n sell. We are rural as I stated, we have 1-Walmart, 1-Lowes, and 2-Kroger Grocery. That is it. We have had arguments and moms in fights outside the locations, so I am told, in past years. I refused to put up with such behavior this year from Adult Women that are called "MOM". So the best solution for us this season was, I personally take appointments from units as to the date they would like to do a show n sell. If that location is available then I book them there and the store managers ONLY speak with me. They are instructed NOT to speak with unit leaders and have been more than happy not to have to speak with them. I have considered the Lottery pull for next season at our Kickoff Rally. Making a board with locations and dates. Giving each unit the number of pulls they are allowed and what they pull out of the lottery is what they get. If I continue with the good response and BEHAVIOR that I have had thus far then I may just do the appointments again. It remains to be seen since in Virginia we have just started our selling. I think that the bickering over the show n sell is growing into an unbelievable problem however, I do not look for council to step in anytime soon if ever. I feel that they expect this to be settled by the leaders and units. I am not sure that will be possible.

[Bob White 20]

orrn4ever

 

Why not have an equal number of representatives (one adult leader and one scout) from each unit help at the show and sell sales, and then divide the unit portions equally among all the units that participate.

 

If you have 40 units and 3 locations you could do 2 show and sells at each location in the course of the campaign. Each unit could be represented at one of them. You pool all sales and share the unit proceeds equally with all units.

 

 

 

[packsaddle 753]

Before I forget, Welcome to the forums, orrn4ever!

I was the popcorn chair for several years. I grew to hate the stuff. But we had had similar experiences. And I heard similar indignance about timing and locations...it was such a pile of whining and handwringing.

 

Big deal! This is called 'competition' in the marketplace. When I became chair, I made sure we were OUT there as soon as we could be and ANYWHERE we wanted to be. I merely shrugged off comments by the DE (he was about as insightful as a bag of nails). I took no prisoners. As far as working with people who had 'poached' on us, my personal policy in all matters is NEVER to make threats, and NEVER to give warnings. We did quite well. Welcome to free enterprise and the marketplace.

 

I still hate popcorn.

[orrn4ever 10]

I appreciate the welcome and the advise. I guess that I should of explained that I also am in a council that does not play well together. Everyone is in it for "MY UNIT" not as a district. For instance, this is my first year, I ask for some volunteers to assist me in the district with getting information to the units, going to meeting, popcorn arrival, etc. Well you are listening to the ONLY popcorn representative. I have 1 other parent that helps me with emails and helped me with items at my kickoff. Other than that it is just me. Let me say I am very APPRECIATIVE of her help and could not be more pleased with what she does do to help. But some said they would help then when the going got tough and I did not do something their way then I was dropped like a HOT potato. My district is we want it all and do not want to work for. So they expect to be able to go to every store, sell popcorn, and make bunches whenever they want. No matter about other units. So I have taken on the roll of just making them schedule time at stores with me. This is my only solution that I could think of. I have to be Popcorn Mom not Kernel.

[ScoutNut 147]

Wow, sorry you are having such a hard time getting helpers. Does each District hold its own popcorn kickoff? With no help from Council? That is no fun.

 

We do one Council wide popcorn kickoff. The DE's work with the District Popcorn Chairs and the popcorn company representative to put it on together. Council does all of the publicizing of the kickoff, the popcorn pick-up, and the due dates thru it's e-newsletter, and roundtables. Between Popcorn Chairs, DE's, Boy Scouts looking for service hours, and volunteers, we always have plenty of folks working at our popcorn pick-up and return.

 

My council is not perfect by a long shot, but hearing the problems others have to put up with sure makes me grateful for what we do have!