Guidelines for Troop PlanningConference

From: Scoutmaster

To: Troop 316

In planning for the coming year, September, 2001- October 2002, I believe that we need to take steps to protect us from overextending ourselves as a troop. A brief look at our troop events for 2000-2001 will show that we have reason for concern. With this in mind, I would like to suggest some guidelines for our planning.

Our regular monthly events should be as follows:

I suggest that we plan for three troop meetings (i.e. CCP Scouting Morningsand Evening Troop Meetings) occuring in three consecutive weeks at the beginning of each month. We should continue to schedule Scouting Morning Makeups in the evening on the Tuesdays immediately preceding each CCP Scouting Morning on the CCP Calendar.

Then we should schedule enough Evening Troop Meetings on Tuesday evenings to bring the total number of troop meetings to three.

Patrol Leaders' Council Meetings should be scheduled on Tuesday evening in the week immediately following the third troop meeting of the month.

In addition to the above regular events, each month we should schedule either an outing or a fundraiser, usually for a weekend. I think that it is advisable to have at least one month during the school year that is devoted to fundraising, rather than an outing. Perhaps, for instance, we could conduct a flower sale on Mother's Day weekend in May.

In choosing activities for our troop meetings and the monthly outings, we need to focus on providing adequate opportunities for advancment for all of our Scouts.

Having regular troop meetings provides opportunity to fulfill a large portion of the advancement requirements for Tenderfoot, Second Class, and First Class ranks:

Other requirements for these ranks can be completed by Scouts at home:

We provide opportunities at Northwoods Summer Resident Camp for Scouts to fulfill some of the remaining requirements for these ranks:

But there remain some requirements which still need to be fulfilled on troop outings. In planning, we need to make sure that our choice of outings provides opportunities to fulfill these requirements:

I believe that our plans should provide 6 hours of service project opportunities for Scouts to meet the service project requirements for Star and Life:

Since the Webelos Crossover occurs at the end of February, and the Boy Scouts of America recommend that each new Scout reach First Class rank in one year, I suggest the following timetable for scheduling opportunities for completing rank requirements:

Our plans for providing opportunities for rank advancement should take into account the fact that the Flaming Arrows will be part of our troop, beginning in March, 2002. In particular, there should be adequate opportunities for the new Scouts from the Flaming Arrows to complete all their Tenderfoot requirements by June, 2002 and all their Second Class requirements by October, 2002.

In order to run a quality Scouting program, we will continue to have a need to conduct fundraising events throughout the year.

In the summer (June, July and August), we will no longer have CCP Scouting Mornings. During these months, we can schedule both a fundraiser and an outing.

Our plans should take our adult leadership into consideration. In addition to providing two-deep leadership for our troop events, the regular events for our adult leadership are as follows:

The schedule for the CCP Leaders' Meetings and the Ojibwas District Leaders'Roundtables are already listed on the CCPCalendar. The CCP Leaders' Meetings occur in September, October, and March. I believe that there should be Troop Committee Meetings every month.

Our plans should take into account the following quarterly events:

Courts of Honor should be scheduled quarterly. As in the past, two of theseCourts of Honor ought to be scheduled for the CCP Family Night in November, 2001 and the CCP Banquet in May, 2002.

I suggest that the remaining two Courts of Honor be scheduled for Evening Troop Meetings in March, 2002 and August, 2002.

Our quarterly Boards of Review should be scheduled during Evening Troop Meetings on the months during which we have our quarterly Courts of Honor. As the year progresses, we may decide to replace any particular Evening Troop Meeting, other than those on which we have scheduled a Board of Review, by another activity (e.g. Town Council Meeting, YMCA swim, D.A.R.E. presentation, a seminar on Constitutional rights and obligations). These activities could be scheduled on any day during the week of the given Evening Troop Meeting.

Our plans should take into account the following annual events:

In preparation for the Webelos Crossover, you should plan on inviting the Webelos to at least one Evening Troop Meeting and one monthly outing before the Crossover. I would like to suggest that you invite the Webelos to an Evening Troop Meeting on, perhaps, December 11, 2001, to be followed up by, perhaps, a campout at Camp Kiwanis on the weekend of December 14-16, 2001. All of these events should be focused on serving the Webelos.

I believe that we should conduct the Northwoods Summer Resident Camp Parents' Orientation immediately after the Court of Honor in March, 2002.

In planning for Northwoods Summer Resident Camp, you should also be considering alternative opportunities for our more experienced Scouts.

In order to continue providing quality junior leadership for our troop, it is important that we conduct an annual Junior Leader Training Conference.

In planning for the entire year, we should not think strictlyin terms of months. We should not think that each month is isolatedfrom the other months. We need to consider the overall schedulingof events. For instance, suppose that we decide to conduct a flowersale on Mother's Day weekend. Although this event would occurin the middle of May, we would probably have to do a lot of workon it in April, as this event would require a lot of planning.Hence, we would need to take this event into account when planningfor April.

Last Revised 07/23/02