Transfering a troop

[gcnphkr]

Another troop's CC and SM approached me at round table. The troop they serve is very small, just 5-6 scouts, just enough to recharter. They have almost no adult leaders so activities are very difficult to manage. There are 3 younger scouts under First Class and the rest are older Life scouts ready to finish their Eagle and age out. Their "feeder" pack shut down a year ago and they've not developed relationships with other packs. They have discussed with the scouts the possibility of transferring to another troop. Some of the scouts want to, others do not, some want to go to a large troop some want to go to another small troop. The one thing they do know is that they want to stay together.

 

They are going to come visit our next meeting and we will likely invite them to camp with us in January. I also told them of the other troops near by that they should talk with. My guess is that if they do end up joining our troop it will be some time later in the spring, but I want to get ahead of this if I can.

 

My question is, has anyone had any experience with something like this? How did it go and do you have any recommendations? If they joined I would think they would want to be their own patrol, at least until they get to know the other scouts. The troop cultures have got to be very different. Going from 6 to 60 is a big change.

 

"We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile."

[Eagle92]

Well my troop got kicked out of one CO while we were helping another CO's troop get started. Eventually we moved to their CO, keeping our number and tenure (we had the lower number and longer tenure), and then merged together.

 

No real problems with transition, but they were camping and meeting with us for about 6 months or so, and they had an affinity for our troop. Plus we did have one or two older brothers in our troop, sothat helped as well.

 

Since the other troop was essentially a NSP, there were some challenges, but once we merged and the indivual scouts integrated into our existing patrols, it worked out very well for everyone.

 

Some thoughts:

 

1) be polite, nice and welcoming.

 

2)get them involved in both meetings and on a campout.

 

3) With the younger scouts, have some of your better older scouts help them out a little.

 

4) With the older ones ready to Eagle, get them involved with the venture patrol.

 

As you can see you need to get them to intermingle, meet folks and have fun.

 

An aside for a minute. The CO my troop got kicked out of ended up merging with the new CO for financial reasons. It may have been a great thing that it happened.

[IM_Kathy]

my son's first troop didn't all transfer, but my son and a few others left that troop and transfered to another troop.

 

we chatted with a few, and attended a meeting and campout with one and was sold... they've been there since... we've even had more from our town join this troop.

 

the biggest issue we had was with getting the boys account money since their policy was that it stayed with the troop when a boy quit... finally got them to transfer the money once they made their 1st summer count payment.

 

the second issue was with getting the paperwork all transfered... but that was due to part of the reason why we left - no organization, the people in charge of certain things were never at any of the meetings.

 

but with the situation you are discussing I doubt that will be the case.