Annual Program Planning

A couple of weeks ago, I made a blog post about our “Troop Operations Training,” which took place on a Saturday, starting with breakfast for the “Staff” and ending with lunch for all participants.   This post will continue that same Saturday.   We used one of the small breakout rooms from the morning to do our Annual Planning Conference.  This post will walk through that process.

My standard disclaimer applies – Just because I did something a certain way, doesn’t necessarily mean YOU should do the same.  Pick and choose what works.  (The troop where these events happened when I was scoutmaster 20-some years ago doesn’t use this exact method any more either, but I like it.)

After lunch, we put everything away and then set up the room for the afternoon session.   Quite a few of our scouts from the morning session were free to go.  Scouts needed for the program planning were the SPL, ASPL, Troop Guide, Scribe, Quartermaster, and the four Patrol Leaders (Assistant Patrol Leaders were welcome but not required).  My assistants remained, as did our committee chair, and the treasurer came as well.   Many years, our Chartered Organization Rep and Unit Commissioner also put in an appearance.

For our program planning, we started out with my quick presentation of what I expected.   I typically had a short bullet list like this:

• Sponsor one short term camp or day activity each month, including the month of summer camp.
• Attend summer camp, and provide a second opportunity for scouts unable to attend our traditional week.  (The troop had two large contingents of boys from religious schools.  Our traditional summer camp week was also Junior High Church Camp week for one of them.  So we typically sent a patrol and one or two adults as the core of a “provisional” troop for the council.  Some years we had as many as 8-10 scouts from other troops join us that week.)
• Attend the Lincoln Pilgrimage (a local event every April at Abraham Lincoln’s Tomb), plus the Council Klondike Derby, Spring Camp-o-ree and Fall Camp-o-ree.
• Plan four courts of honor, roughly in July (post summer camp), October, January and April.
• Plan no events during the OA Annual Meeting weekend, and spring and fall conclave weekends.
• Plan an overnight cabin-camp for junior leader training in January or February. 
• Choose eight monthly program themes for September through May.  (Originally, this was to be 10, and we did program all summer, but an SPL led a “revolt” that ended in them asking me to let them have less instruction and more game time in the summer.  I agreed as a “trial” and it worked so well, we kept it). 

After my presentation of the goals, the boys spent a half-hour or so plugging in council and district events, school events (we didn’t want to run a camp-out the weekend of a big track meet, for example), holidays and so on.   We also had to account for a couple of events that our Chartering Organization had that kept us out of our primary meeting room.

Then we moved into the “dreaming” section – this was where they came up with things like “Let’s drive 250 miles to southern Missouri for a weekend canoe trip.  (That became a regular occurrence)  Or “Let’s take the train to Washington DC and spend a week.  (That never happened)

Once they had the camp-outs and summer camp plugged in, we went back and figured what sessions to do in which meetings, and when to have the Courts of Honor and troop reorganizations.   

As a large and fast-growing troop, we tended to add a patrol or two in the spring as new scouts joined from Cub Scouts and shrink by a patrol or two in the fall as some of the new boys quit, and some of our older ones left also.   And, as you can see, we were putting a LOT of strain on junior leaders, so that they tended to want to change jobs every six months or so.   Our basic goal was to have one SPL do the program plan and run the troop up until just before the Cub Scout crossovers happened, and the other SPL for the year accept the new scouts and run troop at summer camp.

As a final note, on our Courts of Honor – by design, each of them had a different character.   The October/November Court of honor was done in place of a regular Monday night meeting.  This tended to be a handful of rank advancements, plus merit badges for older scouts – especially badges that had come home from summer camp as partials.  We usually had cookies and punch afterward.    The January Court of Honor was mostly geared towards recognizing new junior leaders and any reorganized patrols.   It was also fairly short, although it did tend to have a number of 1^st Class ranks being awarded for scouts who’d been really focused since joining 10 months before.   The January event was often on a Sunday afternoon, with pizza or a pot-luck.  The April Court of Honor recognized new and soon-to-be new scouts, plus a rush to get all the awards possible out to the scouts before the Lincoln Pilgrimage (which features a public parade with everyone in his best uniform) – The April court of honor was also a Monday night with cookies and punch after.  Our July Court of Honor handled all of the summer camp advancement, plus new junior leaders and reorganized patrols.  We often used one of the campsites or a lodge at our local council camp and had a pot-luck for this one on a Saturday afternoon.

The monthly programs varied over the years, but the PLC generally had favorites that they tried to run annually, and also some every two years.   Looking back at troop history, I see that in the 1994-1995 school year, when they were getting geared up for Philmont, they did the following:

Month	1st Year Program	Others	Outing
September 1994	2nd Class Emphasis	Orienteering	Troop camp at a nearby state park
October 1994	Camping requirements for 2nd Class, 1st Class and Camping MB	Wilderness Survival	Council Fall Camp-o-ree/Orienteering Meet Court of Honor
November 1994	1st Class Emphasis	Citizenship in the Community	Troop camp at our local scout camp. Meeting with the Mayor + a City Council Meeting.
December 1994	Make-up sessions	Citizenship in the Community	St. Louis Science Center Day Trip
January 1995	First Aid MB	Emergency Preparedness MB	Council Klondike Derby Troop Reorganization
February 1995	Cooking MB	Indian Lore MB	Council First Aid Meet Court of Honor
March 1995	Make-up sessions	Backpacking MB	Troop camp at a private campground (10 mile hike with Backpacks). Scouting for Food.
April 1995	Tenderfoot Emphasis	Backpacking MB/Hiking MB	Lincoln Pilgrimage (20 mile hike on Saturday with packs for Hiking MB, parade on Sunday)
May 1995	Tenderfoot Emphasis	Pioneering MB	District Spring Camp-o-ree
June 1995	Tenderfoot Emphasis	Summer Routine	Weekend camp at a state historical site. Primary Summer Camp.
July 1995	Make-up Sessions	Summer Routine	Secondary Summer Camp. Philmont Expedition. Troop camp at State Park.  (This happened while most junior leaders were at Philmont and was run by younger scouts.)
August 1995	Make-up Sessions	Summer Routine	Canoe Trip.

On top of all of the above, we had three weekend backpacking trips for our Philmont Crew (which was centered on one “older scout” patrol, plus the junior leadership and a few others).  We also had a large number of active members of the Order of the Arrow in the troop, and so three or four times in that year we had 12-20 members of the troop camping with our OA Lodge, plus a Winter Dinner in January. 

Add to that most years (although not the summer of 1995), a few of our scouts attending what would now be called NYLT for a week in July.

I’m especially proud of the fact that, per my instructions in July 1994, the troop ran an outing in July 1995 when the SPL, ASPL, Quartermaster, Scribe, Troop Guide and 3 of the Patrol Leaders were at Philmont, along with four of our adult leaders.

Once the basic schedule was complete, we finished our day with pizza and cleaning up after ourselves.   

The schedule on paper was typed and presented to the Troop Committee in August.   The PLC had the opportunity to “tweak” the schedule at its monthly meetings, but that’s another post.