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Staffing Shortages and What Are We Paying For?


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Philmont and Summit are both experiencing staffing shortages and adult leaders are having to make up for it. I genuinely sympathize with them. It's a problem everywhere and I know it's got to be driving people who have to deal with it crazy.

Our troop did merit badge camp at Summit last week. Summit had 50 people sign contracts to work and not show up. One of our adults had to teach Brownsea Island for the week. Two others had to run fishing.

Here's my problem. They charged our adults over $400 each for the week. Summit expected to be paying staff to do jobs that our adults ended up volunteering to do. Why are we paying full price and then doing these jobs ? Shouldn't they pay our adults since they're not paying staff?

Our adults stepped up and made things work because it's for the kids. But you can't treat your customers like this and expect them to come back.

I told our troop last year that I'm retiring as scoutmaster this year. I'm burned out for many reasons This just adds to it. I just don't get the impression that Scouts BSA cares much about the volunteers.

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11 minutes ago, 69RoadRunner said:

Philmont and Summit are both experiencing staffing shortages and adult leaders are having to make up for it. I genuinely sympathize with them. It's a problem everywhere and I know it's got to be driving people who have to deal with it crazy.

Our troop did merit badge camp at Summit last week. Summit had 50 people sign contracts to work and not show up. One of our adults had to teach Brownsea Island for the week. Two others had to run fishing.

Here's my problem. They charged our adults over $400 each for the week. Summit expected to be paying staff to do jobs that our adults ended up volunteering to do. Why are we paying full price and then doing these jobs ? Shouldn't they pay our adults since they're not paying staff?

Our adults stepped up and made things work because it's for the kids. But you can't treat your customers like this and expect them to come back.

I told our troop last year that I'm retiring as scoutmaster this year. I'm burned out for many reasons This just adds to it. I just don't get the impression that Scouts BSA cares much about the volunteers.

I have worked on 15 Summer Camp staffs, attended National Camping School 5 times, and attended, as a unit leader, 12 Summer Camps... so I am at 27+ Summer Camp experiences.  I think I am qualified to make an assessment...

The camp we just returned from was the worst run I have ever encountered. 

Our unit leadership actually considered packing up Tuesday night and leaving. 

And the myriad of problems stemmed from one basic issue, or were exacerbated because of it:

Overbooking to try to recover lost funding from COVID years...

The council leadership put money ahead of program quality.  By far...

We had about 675 people (youth and adults) using camp facilities, campsites, and program areas built to service about 350-400.

Feedback from our Scouts was brutal, but honest.  (At the leaders' outbrief, we presented feedback from our PLC, tempered by us adults for camp leadership consumption, in the hopes of their accepting feedback.) Our PLC corporate memory will keep us from even considering this camp for the next six years, I guess...

IM me if you want the Camp name.  I'd like to save them the embarassment in a public forum, in the hope that they will learn from their error.  Please, only ask if you need to know because you are considering camps in the northeast.  

 

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Fortunately, I'm told our scouts had a great time. The adults were not expecting to employees for the week. 

Asking adults to take a week of leave, pay over $400 and then expecting them to do the work of the full time staff made their week less than enjoyable.

Again, I do sympathize with the camps. Everyone is struggling from camps to restaurants. But they should take the money they set aside for wages and give it to the adults performing those jobs. It's not right for them to not do that. Show some respect to the volunteers who saved your camp.

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Just now, Eagle94-A1 said:

Did 2 adults get in for free? Camp we  went to did that, and extra adults are 1/2 price of the Scouts.

Nobody was free. And they wanted to charge us extra to get a site in the trees. We rejected that.

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Just now, Eagle94-A1 said:

I may need to tell my troop Summit is off the list. That is one camp someone wanted to look into.

The kids had a great time. The cost just keeps skyrocketing. Their web site says over $500 for next year for the merit badge camp.

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Comments I heard from staff this past week:

"I know what the Scout Handbook says, but we don't do it that way here, so we don't teach it that way."  Reference to knife sharpening...

"If your compass has a bubble in it, it won't point the right way." https://www.advnture.com/features/compass-bubbles

"Scouts who are not swimmers can go in a canoe with a buddy if that Scout is a swimmer." 

"We play To The Colors first, then Retreat while lowering the flag because is is a slower tune.  And that is what we have always done..." 

"We gathered the whole staff to go out and try to scare the bear off of camp property." 

"I don't really know how to define a mammal."  Mammal Study MB Instructor at beginning of class.

"I don't see a problem with a Troop performing 'Amish Paradise' for the campfire."

Profanity, profanity, profanity...

etc. etc. etc.

1 minute ago, 69RoadRunner said:

The kids had a great time. The cost just keeps skyrocketing. Their web site says over $500 for next year for the merit badge camp.

Gotta pay the fees into the Victim's Compensation Fund!

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1 minute ago, InquisitiveScouter said:

Comments I heard from staff this past week:

"I know what the Scout Handbook says, but we don't do it that way here, so we don't teach it that way."  Reference to knife sharpening...

"If your compass has a bubble in it, it won't point the right way." https://www.advnture.com/features/compass-bubbles

"Scouts who are not swimmers can go in a canoe with a buddy if that Scout is a swimmer." 

"We play To The Colors first, then Retreat while lowering the flag because is is a slower tune.  And that is what we have always done..." 

"We gathered the whole staff to go out and try to scare the bear off of camp property." 

"I don't really know how to define a mammal."  Mammal Study MB Instructor at beginning of class.

"I don't see a problem with a Troop performing 'Amish Paradise' for the campfire."

Profanity, profanity, profanity...

etc. etc. etc.

Gotta pay the fees into the Victim's Compensation Fund!

When we were sentenced to Camp Covid at Philmont this summer after an adult tested positive, I was awakened by everyone singing Happy Birthday to a mountain lion.

Allegedly, 1 person saw a mountain lion. When we saw several sets of eyes in the woods adjacent to the camp, a 19 year old ranger thought we were surrounded by mountain lions.

Uh, the only animal dumb enough to just stand there and stare while 50 people sing loudly and shine headlamps is not a mountain lion. It's deer.

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11 hours ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

WOW. I have not attended a camp that charged full price for adults, although I know about 1 of them.

No one gets in cheaper at the big high adventure camps.  The Summit is one of the special camps.  Personally, I think it's a good idea.  Too many camps are filled with too many adults.  Also, if a troop wants to recognize the extra work of it's leaders, there is no reason it can't charge each scout $50 more and discount the leader cost.

10 hours ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

I may need to tell my troop Summit is off the list. That is one camp someone wanted to look into.

The Summit would be on my bucket list.  Consider it.  Scouts will have great experiences.  

 

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I'm not sure about Summit, but BSA pay for staffers is far less than other summer camps in my area. Talking with some, camps are paying around $800 per week for staff.   My daughter has gone to several camps and there appears to be no shortage. 

BSA needs to learn about capitalism.... If you want staff, you need to pay.  These kids have options for summer jobs.  Now, that also means you probably make less profit from summer camps and likely need to charge more.  My BSA summer camp also had shortages of staff, the major impact was the riffle and shotgun ranges where they didn't really have much of an open shoot. 

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40 minutes ago, Eagle1993 said:

I'm not sure about Summit, but BSA pay for staffers is far less than other summer camps in my area. Talking with some, camps are paying around $800 per week for staff.   My daughter has gone to several camps and there appears to be no shortage. 

BSA needs to learn about capitalism.... If you want staff, you need to pay.  These kids have options for summer jobs.  Now, that also means you probably make less profit from summer camps and likely need to charge more.  My BSA summer camp also had shortages of staff, the major impact was the riffle and shotgun ranges where they didn't really have much of an open shoot. 

We were told they had 50 people sign contracts and then not show up. I do sympathize with that problem.

At both Philmont and Summit, it just seems like the paid adult staff see adult volunteer participants as just being an extension of their paid staff rather than customers.

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15 minutes ago, 69RoadRunner said:

We were told they had 50 people sign contracts and then not show up. I do sympathize with that problem.

At both Philmont and Summit, it just seems like the paid adult staff see adult volunteer participants as just being an extension of their paid staff rather than customers.

Adult volunteers are extensions of paid staff. I don’t know why anyone would think otherwise. Every time I’m at camp for a full week, I check in with the camp director and ask where I can pitch in. (It’s usually aquatics. Not many scouters keep up their guard certification.)

This is nothing new. When I wanted to earn First Aid MB, my SM walked us over to a neighboring campsite and introduced me the their SM who would be my counselor.

The challenge these days for scouters is that simply keeping up with training is sucking a lot of bandwidth. (I really admire the COPE volunteers who keep the climbing courses rolling.)

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