Does your troop meet in the summer?

[Quailman]

Having read in another thread about a troop that does not meet over the summer, I got to wondering if that is common. I can understand it for cubscouts, where the den members all follow a program outline, but at the boy scout level the boys who joined together often follow quite different timelines. Especially with summer camp to prepare for, it seems that troops would welcome the freedom from homework, band practice, etc., to get higher attendance.

In my area in Texas I do not know of any troops that take a summer hiatus. Is this the norm in other areas?

BTW, I tried the search feature without success, so forgive me if this topic has been discussed before.

[Mrw]

We meet in the summer up until summer camp in late July and then take a couple weeks off. Our school year has been changed for next year to start in mid-August (yuck!) and end in late May. The benefit is that they finish the first semester before Christmas. The down-side is that August is vacation time for many of our families and they will be even more squashed for the family time. I think the troop even decided that a campout in August was too much to squeeze in this year.

[jr56]

Any troops that I have heard of recently all meet year-round.

[Nuts4Scouts]

One week at summer camp is the only time my son's former Troop meets during the summer.

[lifescoutforlife]

Troops in our area go year round.

[gwd-scouter]

Troops in our area go year-round, although many (including ours) scale back their meetings to an hour instead of hour and a half.

[ronin718]

My son's troop meets until mid-June, then picks up again in September. Since we joined last September, I'm not sure how they communicate and plan for camp and the HA trip during the summer. I'm guessing that due to the large number of senior boys who go off on the HA trips, they probably don't plan meetings due to lack of boy leadership.

[Mad Dog]

We do not meet in the summer except for one week of camp. We stop in earlt JUne until mid September. I think we should go all year. I suggested it to the SM and anotherASM who both thought I was crazy. This is a greattime to do outdoor activities and the scouts have more free time because they are out of school.

[9009scoutmaster]

Summer is a great time for unit activities. I do not see how a unit can stop meeting just because school is out. Our youth get out of school May 17th, they go back Aug 6th. Our unit activities for the Summer are Cub scout day camp camping trip( 1st Week of June). This is a camping trip where our unit campout during local district daycamp. During the day Troop adults work with daycamp staff 9:00 am to 4:30 pm Mon-Fri. Our scouts work as den Chiefs and other duties that are needed by the Day Camp Director and Program Director. After the cubs leave for the day the troop uses this time to work on there scout craft skills..
Then Boy Scout Summer Camp in July.
After summer camp we start planning for new Membership drive. We receive our district and council calandar in June/July for the new year starting in September so we prepair our troop calandar for the year during this time also.
Scouting is a year round program. The only time we during the year we do not meet is 2 weeks at Christmas when School is out.

Units TLC should have input into the troops activities during the Summer. The Goal of the SM should be to have a boy Lead unit.
All you need is to sell summertime program to the unit TLC an another registered Adult. There is no rule that the SM has to be at all unit activities only two deep leadership.

[ccjj]

We generally meet every other week once school is out. It keeps the boys used to a semi-regular schedule. They try to plan fun things like swimming, bicycling, and things like that. This year, an idea was brought up to play kick-ball or softball, boys against adults. We will see if it works.

ccjj

[ICanCanoeCanU]

Between the 3rd week of June and the beginning of September, our troop has only a couple of activities and that is it. Summercamp and some years we do a trek. Maybe an oddball campout too. Oh and often Eagle projects are done during the summer months and most scouts here like doing outdoor projects. But we do not have any regular meetings.

[scubascout]

we do and that is when we do a lot of activities. we live near the water

[joat]

Units TLC should have input into the troops activities during the Summer.

TLC "tender loving care" ?

[9009scoutmaster]

Sorry I must have got into hurry. Should have been
PLC, Patrol Leaders Council

[Lynda J]

Our troopo does not meet the Monday after we get back from summer camp but we meet the remainder of the summer. PLC plans the program and it is a light one. A lot of working with the new boys on skills and such.

[Fibonacci]

Our troop meets every week, as usual, but at a nearby park instead of the church building. Meetings are very active ~ catapult building competition, cooking, capture the flag, hiking the woods of the park, etc. School ends 3rd/4th week of June & resumes Tuesday after Labor Day.

[optimist]

Everty troop in my area meets all summer long. Several troops including mine take a week break after they get back from summer camp and one troop takes 3-4 weeks off but other than that we all keep going strong.

I can understand it for cubscouts, where the den members all follow a program outline

I disagree. Cub Scouting is designed to be a year round program. It's the leaders who choose to shorten the program by taking summers off. The problem is so widespread the BSA provides an extra award to encourage summertime Cub Scouting activities.

[Mrw]

When my boys were in Cubs, our pack provided 8-9 pack activities during the summer so that nearly all the boys could earn their summer award. The other pack in town had almost nothing in the summers.

For a long time, all the boys who stayed in the troop into high school and earned Eagle came from the pack with the year round program.

I think they both have a year round program at this point and the high school boys who are working towards Eagle are now evenly split between the packs that they came from.

[riverwalk]

True, Cub Scouts is a year-round program. I think the comment must have been about the "Program Helps" having a suggested time frame, but Packs that live long and prosper, have a Summertime plan (and Awards to encourage it, haha).

Yeah, I don't know any Troops that break in the Summer, but I know there are many examples of how Units choose to operate and still honor the Program objectives. A neat thing about forums, is learning other ways to do things.

[Quailman]

Come to think about it, our pack did have enough pack-wide summer activities to earn the summer activity award. The dens did not meet (that I am aware of - mine didn't), nor did they have pack meetings.