Tag: Committee Meetings

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News & Notes – May 2022

A few items to be aware of this month:

ScoutsBSA joining requirements tweaked

A minor change has been made to the requirements to join a ScoutsBSA troop effective on April 18. Those youth who are ten years old, but who have not yet earned the Cub Scouting Arrow of Light award, need not wait until they’ve completed fifth grade.  They can join a troop on or after March 1 of their fifth-grade year. This will allow them to get in the swing of things with the troop, go on a couple campouts, and be more ready to attend summer camp than if they waited until June. Continue reading “News & Notes – May 2022”

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Making virtual meetings more successful

“Zoom fatigue” is a term that has crept into our lingo, given that so much of our collaborative work-from-home activity is done through online real-time video sharing tools like Zoom, Webex and GoToMeeting.

In our district, we’ve been holding our monthly Commissioner and Roundtable meetings via Zoom since March, and it has largely been successful in increasing participation. Our first online Roundtable attracted almost twice as many participants as a typical in-person meeting, which made us wonder why we didn’t think of it a long time ago. (Actually, we’ve thought about it for a long time, but the means and methods just weren’t convenient yet.)

You may have already held troop meetings and committee meetings on one of these remote platforms. Like in-person meetings, they are not free of issues. Continue reading “Making virtual meetings more successful”

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The blessing and curse of email

Sometimes I wonder what we ever did before email became ubiquitous. I remember having phone lists and calling trees, phoning the pack leaders to let them know about an important item or change, and calling all my den parents to remind them about the upcoming den meeting or outing. We had printed newsletters, calendars and activity handouts, which got revised frequently resulting in lots of paper thrown away or recycled.

Email has become the most important way to distribute information. What better way than to type a few lines and hit Send and have your message instantly appear for others to read?

When used properly, email is a powerful tool. Continue reading “The blessing and curse of email”

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More Q&A: Committee chair absence, getting leaders trained

Time for answers to a couple of your questions:

Our Committee Chair has a conflict that prevents his participation in our troop committee meeting on its traditional night. In his absence our Scoutmaster is running the meetings. Is this a good practice, or should someone else be running our committee meeting?

My first suggestion would be Continue reading “More Q&A: Committee chair absence, getting leaders trained”

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Minding the minutes

As the old joke goes, meetings are the place where the minutes are kept and the hours are thrown away.

But meeting minutes – the written record of the business conducted – are probably the most important, yet the most ignored, aspect of our meetings. The secretary diligently takes notes – some even record the audio and transcribe it later – writes up the report, prints or e-mails copies, and distributes them to committee members, where they often go unread.

Minutes are an important chronicle of the business of any meeting. Continue reading “Minding the minutes”