Roundtables

[WB Bear]

I have a question I would like to throw out to everyone. Are Roundtables still relevant, beneficial and/or worth spending another night with Scouting?

[beaverstevewb70]

As a committee member I would have to say that our district roundtables are beneficial . . . if nothing else. It is the place to exchange information about upcoming district events and information about the scouting program.

[Justadad1999]

As the parent of a "Bear" and I also hold the position(s) of Pack Trainer & Unit Commissioner, I can stress the continued need of our monthly Rountables. This gives us the parents & leaders a chance to come together to share in good times, training and also to see what & how the other Packs are succeeding and growing in order to incorporate quality in to our own idividual units.

I myself, have a great time at our roundtable and to be honest; it gives me the chance to be youthful again and enjoy Scouting because inside we are all still kids and want to sometimes enjoy scouting as our children do BUT without the children actually being there with us.

So it's kinda like a "adults night out" filled with fun, enjoyment and good additional education. In the end, roundtables can only help to solidify our relations with Scouting, our families and our community.

So "Rock On Roundtables!"

Larry Brooks
Unit Commissioner/Pack Trainer/Parent
Sam Houston Area Council
Texas Skies District
Houston Texas

[Nuts4Scouts]

I like attending to network with other leaders and district Scouters, and I do sometmes discover new ideas.

However, I have been going to Roundtables for 12 years now. I frequent online Scout Forums. I am constantly hunting up new stuff online. I am on the district training staff. There is not a whole lot that is news to me, but I bring everything back to the other leaders in my Pack.

I think they are invaluable resources for new leaders.

[FRUSTRATED SCOUTMASTER]

Dear Nuts4Scouting:

As Boy Scout Roundtable Commisioner, I try to make the meetings as informative and fun as possible.
We start our meetings with a dinner at a local restaurant and then have our meeting. I always try to have a theme for the month and have a Leader put on this part of the meeting. I usually have the the DE there also to present anything new that is happening within the District and Council. I then open it up to any concerns that a Leader might have. I do not make it a gripe session but rather a place where a Leader can get help and suggestions from other Leaders. My meetings usually take about 1 hour (not counting dinner.)
Yes, sometimes these meetings may seem old and boring to some of us, BUT with the ever changing and new Leaders it is a good way to get and keep them fired up and gives me new enthusiasm to keep on trying to provide a quality Program every month.
It also strenghtens the ties of friendship with other Leaders at these Roudtables.
Just my Thoughts.

Bob Klimas
Roundtable Commissioner
Concord District
Central N.C. Council

[Nuts4Scouts]

Wow, I'm impressed! Your district provides dinner with every Roundtable! Do they do that for the Cub Scout side also?

While food is always a good draw, somehow I just cannot see my district spending that every month. Of course we are in a school library and cafeteria, and I can't see the school allowing catered meals brought in every month either!

Looks like we will just have to stick with our coffee and cookies!

Our Roundtable Staff puts on a pretty good program, and they are always looking at ways to improve. We usually have our DE and the District Chairs in attendance. We start out with everyone together for council/district news and to welcome new members. Then we break out into Boy Scout and Cub Scout segments. Staff does a good job of getting done in the 1.5 hour time frame.

[ScoutmasterJerry]

Wow.. a dinner.. I too am impressed.. must be a small district.
Our District has 129 units in it... dinner.. once a year at the banquet.

Plus's-
Networking, information exchange etc etc..

Minus's-
Not very well attended.
Sometimes it is preaching to the choir, same folks, same stuff..
Another night of Scouting.

Like Nuts.. Those of us that read this board do a lot more in Scouting than just show up.
Message boards, blogs, wearing several Scouting hats can make Round Table pretty boring an irrelevant.

What keeps me going is that I can help someone that is less involved.

Our OA chapter meets during Roundtable at the same location, so that is a draw for me also.

[KevGuy]

I just started last May at the end of the regular season and have been to every district roundtable. I am a Tiger Den Leader for Pack 8 Stoughton in Squanto District, Old Colony Council of Massachusetts. I have found ours to be a good place to network with other leaders and share things that we have done and listen to them as well.Other than this meeting there is really no other interaction with other packs, especially in my town for us anyway. Aside from the CC and Cubmaster (his wife) none of the other leaders in our pack go which is strange from what I've heard.

[Nuts4Scouts]

Not really all that strange, unfortunately.

I really don't know why it is so hard to get folks to go.

[1st Mate]

Here is my take. There are really two questions here. 1)Are Roundtables useful? 2) Are Roundtables still a viable training tool?

Whether a Roundtable is useful will depend solely on your local Roundtable Commissioner's skills and abilities.

There are some excellent roundtable commissioners out there but there are also many districts across the country. To get the most out of Roundtable you need a good Roundtable Commissioner pulling the strings.


Question 2 exposes the real problem. After taking three unscientific surveys at Philmont Training Center with Boy Scout Roundtable Commissioners from across the country, here is what we found out.

The farther the unit leader has to drive to get to the Roundtable meeting the less likely they are to attend regardless of the quality of the program.

Many councils have merged over the recent past causing councils and Districts to stretch their service areas. That coupled with School district merging (Scout Districts lines are often determined by school district line) have made districts in many parts of the country more spread out.

In the district I live in for example, it is over 100 miles from end to end.

The problem this causes is one of available time. For many of our Unit leaders to attend Roundtable it is at least an hour and a half or more on the road plus the meeting time. So a Scouter would need to leave almost immediately from work and not get home until nearly 10PM. That really is a hard ship.

So what we found was that the vast majority of scouters (over 80%) who attended the Roundtables we surveyed lived within 15 minutes of the Roundtable meeting location.

So while Roundtables can be great, the expanding service areas of our Districts make them inconvenient in their traditional structure. The solution to this I feel is to develop untraditional structures that fit the changing needs of our Districts.

Some Councils have used on-line Roundtables. Others have tried traveling Roundtables that put on multiple Roundtables in different locations of the District each month. Other districts have a main Roundtable meeting and then smaller satellite Roundtables in outlying areas of the District.

Each of these has plusses and minuses and I am not sure if any single variation will be the solution. However, I do believe that we either need to alter the delivery mode of Roundtables or they will die out under the current structure from lack of participation.

Just my two cents.

[cubbobwhite]

In my Council, the Boy Scout Roundtable meets on the Friday evening of a BS Council activity (Camporees, Klondike, Campmaster weekends). Months that don't have an activity will find them meeting at our local Gander Mountain.

[FRUSTRATED SCOUTMASTER]

To Everyone!

I made a mistake about dinner at our Roundtable.
Our meals are Dutch Treat, not paid for by the District.
Even so, I still get about 50 percent of the Toops sending a rep to Scout Roundtable.
Also, there is a separate roundtable on another night for the Cubs.
Sorry for the confusion.

Bob Klimas
Roundtable Commissioner:)

[WB Bear]

The dinner idea sounds good and a great way to attract the leaders! I am just wondering if you are able to do much “hands-on” training in the restaurant?

1st Mate, I too have heard the problem with distance issue. Our Council consists of both a metropolitan and rural areas. 2 of our outlying Districts do have a considerable distance to travel. The distance wasn’t as great as your District. Those Districts have offered 2 RT’s for easier access to the leaders in the area. But after about a year of very poor attendance the additional RT's were stopped.

We also dealt with the distance issue in my district, which is in the metropolitan area. There were numerous excuses for not attending due to the distance to travel. We moved our meeting location to be more central but it didn’t change the attendance. The ironic part about it was that the units that had a greater distance to travel attended and the units where the meetings were in their “backyard” and which were some of the loudest voices of complaints still didn’t come.

The other Districts in our Council have also dealt with the issue of the locations of their RT’s also and found there was no change in attendance when they moved them.

I agree that as in your District the trek to RT would be a big factor but on the whole I don’t feel there is much validity in that excuse.