RE: [Philmont]: An Advisor's Quandary

Ok, I posted the promised materials today on the Troop 6 Philmont page,
below, for those that are interested .... for '06, I would expect that most
crews have already done what they are going to do.

Step 1, January / February: The "the old ranger", Bill Cass, our Council
High Adventure Chair does a verbal presentation of the ranch using only the
souvenir map as a prop. He describes the various terrains, programs, the
difference between a staffed camp, a trail camp and a dry camp. He
describes the difference between Typical, Rugged, Strenuous & Super
Strenuous. He expresses his opinion on what are the best and worst of the
ranch, what should not be missed and what can be missed. He answers
questions and hands out a Ballot on which each of the participants, but not
the advisors, are to indicate their preference for 10 program features. In
addition they are asked for a terrain preference and a difficult preference.
This form is on the website as a word doc for you to modify. I know that it
does not have all the programs on it. The completed ballots are turned over
to the Advisor. Crew members are encouraged to use the web to research the
ranch, its programs and options. He leaves the advisor with "Cass'
Commentary", a one page list of 1 line commentaries of the prior years
treks, rating the best and the worst (my fav for 2005: "19 - This is the
trek you get if you send your itinerary postcard late" ). He also leaves
selected pages fro the '05 Treks Guide 15-21 (itineraries at a glance &
itineraries in brief), 94-99 (Itineraries vs Programs & Itineraries vs
Staffed Camps). Frankly the paper is helpful, but Dan Yoder's website is
better (IMHO)

Step 2, The lead advisor processes the ballots to determine common criteria.
There is a spreadsheet on the website that tabulates the ballots.

Step 3. The lead advisor visits www.danyoder.com and uses the criteria in
step 2 to find matching itineraries.

Late February / Early March - Step 4. The advisor prints the details for
the itineraries that seem to fit the particpant's criteria and presents his
methods and results to the crew.

Step 5. Each crew member votes for 5 itineraries, in order based on what
they have learned.

Step 6 The lead advisor tabulates the ballots using yet another spreadsheet
that weights the trek choice by order of preference yielding a score. Treks
are ordered by score creating the list to be sent to the Ranch in mid-march.

Step 7. The current year trek guide is recieved, and the selected treks are
compared for material changes. A crew meeting is called if necessary,
otherwise the results of step 6 are mailed (using regular old first class
mail) to the ranch.

This works for us, it helps narrow down the choices and convert program &
feature desires into a short list of possible treks that the participants
can look at more closely, compare and prioritize. Most importantly its
efficent .. the structured piece takes two meetings, one of about 1 hour and
one of about 1/2 hour. Those that are so inclined can spend time between
the meetings researching further before settling..

YIS

Jim Thompson
ASM T6
Asst Crew Leader 1974 711B3
Advisor 2004 715D1
Advisor 2006 709H
www.troop6bsa.org?cmd=philmont
  << snip >>

  Sent: Tuesday, February 28, 2006 8:37 AM

  << snip >>

   As an aside, I use a structured approach that guarantees that it is the
boys, not the advisors, not the parents that make the selections. I'll
provide a follow-up posting with the process I use, it may not be for
everyone, but it gets the job done.

  << snip >>

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Received on Wed Mar 1 20:44:53 2006