Summer Camp

Many people are probably going to say "What you are already thinking about summer camp, in January, are you crazy". My response to this statement is that in order to ensure a successful summer camp experience for as many scouts as possible, planning for summer camp should ideally in August of the year before camp but at the very least summer camp planning and reminders should start coming out during the January of the year you are attending camp to ensure the following tasks are completed by each family:

1. Physicals- It is now a requirement to have a physical on a annual basis for all scouts, not matter what age
2. Medical Forms- Annual Updates for each scout
3. Troop Permission Slips- Some Troops do one annual Troop permission slip and some do a permission slip on each outing.
4. Money- Many Scouts have financial difficulties or trouble with coming up with money at the last minute especially during recession years. We are most definitely in a recession.
5. Dates- The dates of the camp need to be known in order for families to make decisions on other trips and vacations that they may be going on.

This list of tasks is no where complete but the idea is that families have a lot of work to do in order to prepare their son for summer camp. Giving adequate time to parents in regards to this large and very important event ensures that scouts get the most that they can out of the experience.

Remember the saying "Prior planning prevents poor performance".

Yours in Scouting Service
Mark W
Junior Assistant Scoutmaster
Troop 1616

Annual Planning Meeting

Annual Planning Meeting
Monday January 5, 2009

For our Troop who has a PLC of four members and then a Troop of only about 6 t 9 more active scouts, I believe along with the rest of the adult leadership that I would be easier to conduct a Annual Planning meeting with the whole Troop. This Annual Planning Meeting is basically a abbreviated version of the Annual Planning Conference that is outlined in the SPL Handbook or can be found in the Scoutmaster Handbook. During this meeting the Troop developed a list of places they want to go and skills that they want to work on. Many the the items they mentioned were annual events that the Troop will participate in anyway.

I do not want you to be confused because National Suggests that some sort of Annual Planning Meeting or Conference be held with only the members of the Patrol Leaders Council and is to take place outside the regular meeting.

Basically in my Troop the adults with the input of the Junior Assistant Scoutmaster gave the PLC the goal of determining when the Annual Planning Meeting should occur. We gave the PLC two options, which was to hold it on a weekend without the full Troop present or to hold it during a Troop meeting with all of the Troop members present. The PLC made the decision to hold the event during the Troop meeting citing the fact that our Patrol Leaders, ASPL, and SPL did not truly totally grasp what the Troop wants to do in the coming year.

This decision was the best decision for our small Troop, this decision probably would not work in medium to very large Troops due to the time it would take to get the opinion of each individual in the Troop.

Yours in Scouting Service
Mark W
Junior Assistant Scoutmaster
Troop 1616