Annual planning for the scouting season is an important part of running a successful cub scout or ScoutsBSA program. In this step-by-step process you will see how to set your program for success.
Transcript:
Annual planning for the troop or pack doesn’t just happen; it relies of pre-planning and coordination.
On the Troop level scouts should be participating in an annual planning meeting where they decide on where to go, what to do and who does what, when.
While most of these look straightforward, and you want the scouts to actively lead, you want to put some parameters around this so you don’t have kayos and anarchy.
This is also true when doing annual planning at the pack level, unless of course you are a force of one, where you are setting the stage and preparing the meal yourself. I’ve done that, I’ve been that guy. Don’t be that guy – find some help. But I digress.
Printing out a google calendar of the upcoming scouting year is a great place to start.
With this put in things that happen each week like meetings, and then overlay the school calendar and block out event dates that interfere with running a program, including graduations, major holidays, school holidays and events and testing days. Don’t forget to put in major council events like Webelos Woods, OA days, etc.
What you are left with is places to put events.
Trust me, doing this will save everyone a lot of heartache. The last thing you want is a leader or parent coming to you after an event is planned and paid for to find out that you clipped the school holiday and your turnout will be minimal.
From here, for the scouts I will generate a list of events and locations we have done in the past 5 years, this gives them some context to choose from. While it’s ok to go off the reservation and choose some place new, you want to limit new stuff, especially if you are the one reserving and planning it, as it takes a lot more time and research then having a stable of places to go, places to camp and things to do,
With this you can provide scouts resources and a structure to choose from. For example, if every year you have a monthly service and program patrol at meetings, and you rotate through your patrols, don’t waste the energy have the scouts organize this. Put the patrols and the months in your plan and have them concentrate on the “what” is going to happen instead of the “who” which is a forgone conclusion anyway.
Set your planning up for success by providing resources like the program guides with listings many of the possible monthly themes to choose from.
By doing all this your scouts can align themes to events and camping trips and activities that support the monthly themes for a well rounded program year.
Take what you like and leave the rest, and as we say in Woodbadge, feedback is a gift, leave yours below in the comments, with the hope we can all learn together.
I’m Scoutmaster Dave, and this was Preparing for annual planning.
