Scoutmaster Musings

Being pro-active, I set aside a weekend for our new troop leaders to get trained the end of September. The next day, I learned the Popcorn Sale starts that Saturday - no way the scouts will want to miss the first morning of selling. Plus, the high school has homecoming that Friday. So, I moved the training to the next weekend. It appears to be open so we'll see if any other conflicts arise.

I took a look at the school calendar today and to avoid conflicts during the week, we'd need to have scout events on Sunday - every other day has some school meeting or activity. Of course, church is on Sunday and Wednesday with some youth group events on weekends.

Then, there are sports, band, and theater schedules to contend with, not to mention normal holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. Makes it challenging to figure out when to schedule a campout 14 months from now, but that is what the scouts leading the troop do every 6 months.

As we get closer to the date and learn of other events that will take scouts away, we consider changing the date. Sometimes it's easy to shift the schedule, other times we just go with it and see who shows up.

I've concluded that being flexible for other family commitments so parents can balance family, school, church, and scouts helps the program in the long run. Sometimes we have low participation on outings, but we do what we can. I'm always trying to figure out better ways to schedule, but it's one of the more challenging parts of supporting a troop, I think.

This coming weekend we have the Waterworks campout - fishing, flyfishing, canoeing, and swimming. Kind of the last blast of the summer. This is the first time our troop has done this so I'm excited to see how it goes. The weather is supposed to be great, the patrol planning it has done a super job, and we have merit badge counselors on the trip.

Unfortunately, we have about 30% of the scouts going due to end-of-summer family weekend trips and various other reasons. We figured this would be a good weekend since families are supposed to take that last fling on Labor Day, but I guess that's not the case any more.

Well, I'll let you know how many fish get caught when I get home on Sunday.

Scout On