After Meeting Review

After Meeting Review Troop 1616
May 6, 2008

The meeting on May 6, 2008 went fine. The one person who was suppose to run the dutch oven activity did not show up and did not contact me about why they did not show up to the meeting that night. I decided to investigate this issue on Wednesday and found out that it was due to family matters. I was perfectly fine with the the reason why the scout was not able to attend but was slightly disappointed that the scout did not call to inform me about his decision not to attend. The reason why this is important is because what if I was depending on that activity to take up the majority of the meeting, what would I do especially if I had no preparation time for the activity, I can't just cancel the meeting but would be placed in a very hard position. I am not saying that I do not accept that scouts will miss meetings even when they are assigned a specific job but the point I am getting across is that communication between me and scout would have gone a long ways in preventing this situation from developing. The meeting went fine and I split the time between the other two activities. Those two activities were the meal plan for the district camporee which is coming up on the 16 and 17 of may and the other activity was that of a first aid demonstration. I decided not to do a relay which was the original plan due to the fact that only 4 scouts showed up. I know that this seems too small to hold a meeting but the average Troop meeting usually has approximately 10 scouts anyway. In the first aid demonstration I focused on the treatment of fractures. I walked the scouts through upper arm, lower arm, upper leg, lower leg, wrist, and ankle fractures. I did not do neck and spine suspected fractures because those are advanced first aid skills, which do not need to be taught at the boy scout level especially when most of the scouts attending the meeting were not even Tenderfoot Rank yet. The scout who was chosen to lead the meal planning and that person is Zach did a average job in leading the activity. The one thing I think that Zach needs to work on is engaging the really young scouts in planning and logistics and activities. Everybody dislikes these activities but they are necessary in order to ensure the smooth flow of information to the Troop.

Yours in Scouting Service
Mark W
Junior Assistant Scoutmaster
Troop 1616