Troop Meeting Fun and Games

[alex gregory]

Our typical troop meetings are frankly boring, and it hurts retention of scouts. Our SM does not seem to get it, but the Committee has reached the point where we need to see changes.

We already have the "once-every-other-month-or-so" fun and games night of dodgeball, bowling, bouldering, etc. What we are missing is something at regular meetings that adds a little fun. I am particularly interested in fun team-building activities. What do your troops do that works?

[smtroop168]

Do you have a Troop Annual Plan?

Do you use the BSA Program Guides? Lots of fun activities in there.

[Quailman]

At our BORs the boys uanimously said the part they liked least about the program was the meetings. Under the new SM we've changed the format. Old SM used to do 2 group MBs at each mtg - one ER and one elective. That left boys who had both, or the ER and no interest in the other, just standing around. Now we do stuff, and no more MBs at mtgs.

In our last mtg they practiced bowlines, with older boys teaching younger ones, and then each patrol nominated one boy to come up front for the race. After an intro to Environmental Science (not a class, but a read-through of the requirements by the four boys who have it already), they went outside and built catapults to launch water balloons at each other. They did pretty well, but didn't come close to getting anyone wet.

So that's how our meetings have been lately - a scout skill, and an interpatrol activity, sometimes with other business in between - and the boys like them a lot more.

I think the interpatrol activity they liked the best was when they had a race to build a tripod from which they could suspend a water balloon (with SPL and ASPL as knot judges), and make a fire under it to be the first to pop from the heat. They divided the labor (lashers and fire builders) and all finished within a minute or two of each other.

[biglou]

Do you use the Troop Program Features? There are 3 volumes to it and it has 36 months of programming for you to use as a reference. If you don't have them I would recommend getting a copy of them and the Troop Program Resources. All four books have helped my Troop out immensely! When I came back to Troop 40, they only had a small group of kids coming to meetings because they were yelled at to tie knots,behave, etc. Now we have on average about 15-16 Scouts because we have a plan for each month and they have a say in it.

That would lead into my next question. Does your Troop have an annual planning conference? Planning has been a big help for my Troop ! My Troop's calendar is filled till September 2009. We start the planning process in July by taking a survey of what the boys want to do. We compile that at the Patrol Leader's Council and create the calendar for the next year. This makes the SPL and PLC's job alot easier because they know what the theme is for the month and can plan the meeting around the theme. They also usethe standard Troop Meeting planner form and has it filled out with who is doing what and when.

Training is also another key thing. Are your Scouts and Leaders trained? Put on the Troop Leader's Training program at your Troop. It takes about 3 hours to complete. After having done this program, my scouts know their jobs and realize it is more than holding a title or patch.

Hope this helps.

[kwildman]

we only work on MBs the last meeting of each month. Our scouts always try to come up w/ a 10 minute game to play before closing. The SPL should be the one running the meetings so maybe the committee should talk with the SPL and see how he wants to change up the meetings and then support him if the SM resists.

[koholintscout]

A couple of things:
1) Planning out for the next year is a terrible idea, especially if you split boys' terms of office to six months. Not only are you focing them to enact a plan they might not like, but they don't get the experiene they need in planning. If you have yearlong terms, then you're forcing kids to make choices that might not be good for the troop 10, 11 and 12 months later (not mention 3 or 4 months later...). When I was an SPL we got rid of the yearly planning meetings, changed terms of office to six months and had PLC meetings the last Tuesday of every month (instead of a troop meeting like all other Tuesdays) to plan out the next week (obviously we had some long-term ideas of what we wanted to do in our six months and we frequently looked far down the road so we weren't srambling at the last second).

2) "Themes" or national/district-made plans for meetings are also pretty terrible. Not only do they rob the responsibility of planning from the troop and the boys but most of the time they aren't relevant whatsoever to the troop or the boys in it, nor do they spur any advancement. I eradicated themes for my troop and we did whatever we thought was best for the troop. We worked on merit badge requirements together as older guys and the younger ones worked with the Troop Guide and some older scouts in taking care of requirements for the lower ranks. Not being beholden to some arcane foreign plan also allows for relevant time at a troop meeting to do things for a monthly campout (which is pretty much a must in order to retain interest for a lot of boys).

3) We would have a game organized by one of the older scouts start around 6:45 and the meeting proper would start around 7:05-7:10. This wears guys out and it gives the SPL any extra time he needs incase something came up or there was a change in plans (of course, the SPL gets there at 6:30 but still...).

Just my thoughts...