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The Calendaring and Program Planning Process for Varsity Scouting (some links still under construction) In common with other scouting programs, the calendaring and program planning process for Varsity Scouting has three components: All three components are important, if a Varsity team is going to be boy-led and achieve its purposes in developing leadership skills among its members. 1. Creating the Varsity Team Annual Calendar Contents of a Varsity Team Calendar ! A Varsity Team calendar contains a mix between < 27 Program Features which provide a high adventures/sports emphasis for a Varsity Scout program. Program Features are listed in the Varsity Scout Guidebook, pp. 28-37 and detailed in Varsity Team Program Features, Vols. I, II, and III. < 5 Fields of Emphasis (see Varsity Scout Guidebook, pp. 27-37) which provide program balance, and also help make
delegation and assignment of boy leadership for activities easier. In addition to High Adventure/Sports, there is: ! A Varsity Team calendar should have four quarterly Program Features, such as:
! Ideally, each quarterly plan should
The Annual Calendaring Process ! Schedule and prepare a Planning Clinic A Planning Clinic helps to get the young men away from distractions. These seem to work well if held at a summer home, perhaps on a Friday evening and Saturday. An alternative is an office conference room away from home on a Saturday. This particular event is one activity that should be largely be prepared by the adults that support the Team, including food, arrangements, agenda, etc. Plan for some team-building activities and include some leadership training, if desired. Youths will need to play a major part in the conducting and especially the calendaring process, of course. Refer also to the Varsity Scout Guidebook, (current 2000 edition pp. 181+) for ideas. ! Essential resources for Varsity annual calendaring
! Decide the yearly calendar cycle While normally an annual Varsity Team calendar should include four quarters, each with a program theme, leaders of a brand new Varsity program might make a start by creating a plan for a single quarter to get experience with the process. Or, if the Team is in the midst of a program year, the first calendar might only include enough quarterly plans to finish the year. One of the first steps for new leaders is to decide when the yearly calendar cycle will start and end, and how many quarters to include in the initial calendaring attempt. Most programs will either follow the school year (September through August) or the calendar year (January through December). Advantages of the former are that the Team has an entire year to point toward a summer ultimate adventure. The latter may have the advantage of greater availability and better coordination with most outside calendars (except schools, of course). ! Preparation of Calendar sheets Calendar sheets, one for each month in the coming year, need to be prepared prior to the Planning Clinic. It is helpful to write in beforehand various fixed dates that will have to be included or avoided, including the week of each month for combined YM/YW activities, youth conference, and other dates already committed for ward, stake, BSA district and council, and community events that will affect Teachers age young men. You might also pencil in dates beforehand in each quarter for a Parents/Awards night, perhaps the last midweek activity night of the quarter or within the next two weeks after the end of a quarter. Some wards have the habit of varying the week for the monthly combined YM/YW activity from month to month or of switching the week at the last moment. These can be killers for the creation and implementation of an annual Varsity Scout calendar. Ideally, you can get an advance commitment from the rest of the YM/YW leaders and/or Bishopric to hold combined YM/YW activities on a set week of the month throughout the coming year and to stick with this calendar religiously, so as not to have these activities preempting items on an annual Varsity calendar which the young men have prepared and committed to. ! Interest surveys
Interest surveys are very useful for suggesting possible activities, for getting boy input about the relative priority they place upon particular activities, and especially for reaching decisions and getting closure about calendar specifics. The process for the use of interest surveys is to: There is an interest survey form in the Guidebook, Appendix A-14, or you could create your own. Since the annual Varsity calendar requires decisions on both Program Features to be used and specific activities to plug into specific dates, two different kinds of surveys might be helpful. The first should focus on the 27 Program Features (click here for an example, in PDF format), and the other should list a broad range of specific activities, perhaps to include Duty to God goals that could be held as Varsity activities (click here for an example, also in PDF format). ! Using Interest Surveys in the actual calendaring process.
There are several ways these interest survey results could be used. One approach is to begin the planning session by getting agreement on which Program Features are to be used and to be scheduled for which quarterly periods. Then working one quarter at a time, determine (get direction from the Varsity Scout Program Features books or brainstorm) the following: After adding these activities to the calendar sheets, there should be 4-6 midweek activity nights remaining for the three month period. Find a night for Service and for the other Fields of Emphasis not already included. Plug in the most popular activities from the second (specific activity) survey and/or include activities suggested in the Guidebook (pp. 30-37) or Program Features section for the particular High Adventure/Sports program. A second approach might be to use the specific activities survey exclusively and infer the Program Features from the most popular activities from the survey; then follow the same procedure as above to flesh out the calendar. A further approach might rely solely on brainstorming as an alternative to written surveys. This appears to be the major strategy described in the Guidebook material on program planning. But in our experience, using interest survey results as the basis for planning enhances the ability of the young men to create a broad and interesting program, and helps keep planning focused and moving. We recommend emphasizing the use of surveys, where possible. ! Calendaring Duty to God goals LDS Teams may want to include working on Duty to God goals as part of their calendars. Church leaders recommend blending Duty to God with scouting activities. About a third of the Teacher's Duty to God goals appear to lend themselves to being scheduled as Varsity activities. To see a listing of these goals and for more suggestions on how to integrate these goals into a Team calendar, click here. ! Planning Clinic Before the calendaring session begins, tape the monthly calendar sheets around the room and display the interest survey results, both with the preparation mentioned above. As the planning session proceeds, have someone, preferably one of the young men, note the various decisions on the appropriate calendar sheets, and someone else mark off interest survey items as they are assigned to dates on the calendar. Here are steps that might be followed: 1. Make sure everyone understands which sets of three months will be grouped together in the quarterly program cycle. Then begin by getting agreement on which Program Features will be done and in which quarters. 2. Focusing on the first quarter, decide on and date the high adventure/sports activity to complete the quarterly program; then determine the preparatory events that will need to take place and schedule these dates on the calendar. 3. Then finish the work on the first quarter by calendaring dates for: a. A Parents/Awards night (may be near the start of the quarter to present awards for the prior quarter. b. At least one activity that fits within the framework of each of the other Fields of Emphasis*. The decision should identify both the nature of the activity and field of emphasis. You might want to do this in two steps–first write the fields of emphasis on the open nights in rotating order; then, focus on the list of desired activities, to select the highest ranked activities that match the open fields of emphasis and write these activities on the calendar for the appropriate dates. Continue until all dates are filled. *Advancement may be an exception–see discussion (or the quarterly Advancement activity could be Parents/Awards Night) c. A camp or other outdoor activity for the months not covered by the high adventure above 4. Repeat this planning process for each of the remaining three month periods in the calendar. ! Publish the calendar Back home, type up the calendar and make it available to young men, coaches, parents, and ward leaders. Ideally, present the calendar at a Parents/Awards night. The Team Captain or another one of the boy officers should lead in making the presentation. Over the year, revise the calendar as needed, and redistribute it to all parties.
Of equal importance to preparing an annual calender is to provide the tools that allow the young men to manage the actual implementation of their calendar. This may well be the most crucial adult activity to ensure that the Varsity Team is really youth-led. There are three critical elements: 1 Annual calendar completed. 2 Team fully organized 3 Meeting schedule established and meeting attendance and content define ! Annual calendar The foundation for managing the calendar implementation cycle is having prepared a good annual calendar as described above, which lists specific activities each belonging to one of the Five Fields of Emphasis To make a Varsity Scout program or calendar implementation process work, adult leaders need to see that the team is fully organized, with essential boy officers in place. The most crucial positions are the Team Captain and the five Program Managers. In large teams, other officers may include one or more Co-Captains, Squad Leaders, Team Secretary-Treasurer, and Assistant Program Managers or program committee members. In teams with less than seven young men, the captain might also be a Program Manager and/or program assignments might be doubled-up to individual boys. The Varsity Scout Guidebook, pp.19-23 has a discussion of organizational options for Teams of different sizes, with an emphasis on large teams. Since Varsity Scouting is the activity program that belongs to the Teachers Quorum in the LDS church, the simplest and most efficient Varsity organization is one that mirrors the existing quorum organization. Varsity Scouting assignments should match both quorum presidency and quorum advisor callings. (See suggestions on how to translate Teachers Quorum callings and responsibilities into a Varsity Scout organization.) An effective Varsity Scout program also needs a functioning Team Committee with adults assigned as Program Advisers to each Program Manager. (See job descriptions for key Team leader positions and a strategy for training persons in these responsibilities.)
As much as many of us dislike meetings, certain regularly-held meetings are essential to allow youth decision-making, to make sure that needed support for the Team's program exists, and to prepare youth leaders to perform their assignments. Without a schedule of the regular meetings needed to manage implementation of the annual calendar, Team leadership typically defaults back to adult advisers. Young men can usually carry out their leadership assignments with a high amount of effectiveness if coached and prepped in advance (Is this why the Varsity leader is called a "coach?"). a. Team Leader meetings These meetings are described in each Varsity Scout Program Features book. Team leaders confirm the items in the annual calendar or make needed changes, initiate activity worksheets for each activity (Guidebook, p. A-4), give specific assignments to each Program Manager, follow-up to see that plans for coming activities are ready, and give necessary assistance. Specific versions of these meetings are: 1. Quarterly Program Detailing The Program Features manuals describe this meeting: Much of the detail about the next quarter's program should already be contained in the annual calendar. However, focusing on the entire quarter allows the plans to be firmed up, and where detail is missing, this can be determined. 2. Monthly Program Detailing The Program Features manuals describe this meeting: 3. Weekly Checkup The Program Features manuals describe this process: A regularly scheduled meeting might handle much of the check-up and other needed follow-up may done "off-line." If the Team leadership mirrors the Teacher Presidency (preferred arrangement in the Church's Scouting Handbook, p. 3), then Varsity Team activity planning and preparation activities (managing calendar implementation) may be able to be done in connection with a weekly Teacher's Presidency meeting, saving the need to schedule added Varsity Leader meetings. These meetings might work like this: b. Team meeting Team meetings should follow the framework provided in the Guidebook, pp. 120-121 and A-3 (most meetings–exceptions are combined YW-YW activity nights or activities that take the Team away from the Church building), and include a section on team business (suggest 5-10 minutes). Team business may include the Program Managers quickly bringing "the entire team...up-to-date on plans for coming activities" and getting approval or support from the entire team for their plans for coming activities, and [the Team Captain making] "assignments...to squads and individuals" (Guidebook, p. 120). Periodically, the Advancement manager might also have each Varsity Scout report on how he is progressing on his individualized advancement plan. Team meetings are a part of the weekly check-up process. c. Team Committee meeting The adult support for the team should meet monthly. At this meeting, the Team Coach should inform the committee, and particularly Program Advisers, of coming Team activities and the responsibilities belonging to the Program Managers to whom they relate. Then as the date of the activity approaches, the Program Adviser assists the Program Manager to prepare plans for the activity and to make needed arrangements. ! Revised calendar Republish the annual calendar and redistribute it to Varsity Scouts and parents as changes are determined in the detailing meetings.
The final process in executing a Varsity Team calendar is the planning and leading of a specific activity or event by a individual young man (or committee of young men). The steps are:
! A Program Manager gets dates from the Team Captain or the Team Leader meeting when he is expected to manage an activity in his assigned field of emphasis. The specific activity may be described or labeled on the top of a Varsity Scout Team Activity Planning Worksheet. Or the specific activity might be open to the choice of the Program Manager. ! With his Program Adviser's help, a Program Manager plans, organizes, and leads activities in his assigned field of emphasis. If numbers of young men allow, other Varsity Scouts may be included as members of a committee chaired by the Program Manager to plan and develop this activity. ! In preparation for an activity, the Program Manager completes the Varsity Scout Team Activity Planning Worksheet regarding the plan for the assigned activity and presents the plan to the team or team leaders for approval. The plan generally should include consideration of: ! The Program Manager reports to the team captain, and also the team in team meetings, regarding plans and concerns in the preparation of activities, and get their approval for the plan. ! The Program Manager publicizes and helps get team members excited about the event, to try to get as much attendance and participation as possible. ! The Program Manager conducts the activity. ! The Program Manager turns in the Activity Planning Worksheet to the team Secretary to save ! The Program Manager helps the team evaluate the activity. |
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