I need help with a dull failing scout troop

M2

Hi all,

as the title says i need help with a very dull and failing scout troop. I have recently rejoined scouts( I was a leader with the same group 12 years ago and it was a fab group) My issues are - there are 15 kids in this group, none have uniforms, 50 per cent have a necker. Getting registration or subs weekly is a nightmare...

6 cubs moved up this year and there are probably 2 scouts interested... so i have 8 kids interested. As for the rest, they have no motivation and everything is a joke. They are good kids deep down and they keep turning up week after week... The leader over them has no motivation to move forward....
Since moving back to scouts last year, i have helped them get their own den... so I thought this would motivate them a little, to decorate it the way they want to... But its not happening....

I think the problemis that they have been so dormant for years that they dont know what scouts is really about....

I want them to move forward.... I want the group to move to the ONE programme.
The leaders are dragging their heels too.. Group leader doing his best but family wise he kinda tied this year...

Anyone any ideas how i would try and motivate these young people..... I know they are good kids.....


M2

Finscout

Think you should try post this on the scout chat forum on my.scouts.ie. You're bound to get some great ideas from on there.

Aoifey!

Our troop aren't great right now, but they're a lot better than they were 2 years ago. We've been actively trying to get them more interested in working together to do activities and paying attention rather than just using it as an excuse to meet up and chat outside school. We tried many different things and some were successful.

What we've found to work is to spend 10 to 15 minutes every week making a plan of what they want to do the next week in their patrols. Each patrol has to come up with a scout related activity, a game, and whatever other things they would enjoy doing. Everyone gets a say and rather than just saying no to an idea we went through why it would or would not work.

To get them motivated we started timing them at activities, making it into a competition. It was amazing the difference we saw when we told 2 groups to just make a tepee compared to when we said we'd judge them on how fast and how well they made it and pick a winner. Suddenly everyone, well most of them, wanted to get going on stopped standing around chatting.

The last thing was to just talk to them. Sit them down and explain if they weren't interested in scouting and were just going to mess around and make everything harder on everyone that there was no point in being there. We told them scouts could be so much fun, but they have to put some work in too so the both the scouts and the leaders could have fun doing something they enjoyed.

Hope it works out well

M2

Just a quick check in....

Our gang are going really well....

M2