I do agree that there are problems inherent in the
lottery. It is difficult to come up with a fair way
to distribute the limited opportunities to go to
Philmont. I do think the lottery is a step up from
the phone system of before.
It is an interesting challenge to come up with a
better way, although there is a suspicion that no
matter how good of a system we come up with among
ourselves, it will unfortunately not happen that way.
The lottery could be tweaked to be more fair. As
suggested below, give different weights to different
units, weighting units higher the longer it has been
since they have gone. The only change I would offer
up is that the weight get bumped up for each year that
a unit has applied and lost - giving more precedence
to units that keep applying and losing than units that
have never gone just because they have never applied.
Still, even with those changes, the lottery is not the
most fair system. It is possible for one unit to go 2
or 3 times in 5 years while others get completely shut
out.
An alternative that appeals to me would be a rolling
list. Units apply, during a specific time like now,
and based off a lottery, get added to the bottom of
the list, and units can't reapply the year they go.
On the top of the list are units who applied
previously, whose number has not come up yet. Each
year, they get a card or call asking them to confirm
they they want to still be on the list. The next
year's contingents to be assigned them come off the
top of the list.
Now, on the other end - I don't understand why there
should ever be a crew that goes with more than 1 or 2
open spots (and those only due to last minute
cancellations that couldn't be filled). The Council
High Adventure chair should be in touch with all of
the unit contingents to help them ensure that they are
full along with the council contingent. (I know it
doesn't necessarily work like this, but IMHO it ought
to work this way).
I haven't been a part of a Jamboree or Philmont
contingent that didn't have a waiting list, but if my
unit wins the lottery and we somehow wind up with an
open slot, I know there will be significant effort put
in to fill it.
Again, this is just what I am tossing out, my ideas.
I'd love to hear other people's ideas and experiences
too.
As to your question, Philmont is a great option for
High Adventure if you get it, but at least for my
troop, it is not truly a focus. We get our high
adventure in regardless of if we win the lottery or
not, and we don't go to extremes to try to find other
ways to get a contingent. I do encourage select
individuals to try for the council contingent however.
YiS,
Jack
BTW,
--- j.tavares@comcast.net wrote:
> Well, it doesn't really work that way, exactly. And
> there are inherent problems in the lottery to boot.
> Bottom line, either way, if you get scouts to
> Philmont, then you have accomplished your principle
> goal.
>
> In my council, for example, there is no way you can
> be sure to have a contingent crew (and you will only
> get one at the most) because they have a
> mini-lottery of their own. It counts as your 1 trip
> every two years, so if you have a troop that needs
> more than 1 crew, by going through the council here
> you would be really messing yourself up.
>
> I have been actively involved in trying to get crews
> to Philmont since 1999 and the troop had been very
> active before me since 1993 or 1994. This troop
> NEVER won crews until the 2004 treks. The sorry
> thing about odds is that they don't improve from one
> lottery to the next. You still have the same odds
> (1 in 5, really?) regardless of the number of times
> you have lost. The council contingent allows us to
> improve on those odds, although the 2006 trek is the
> first time we have won that (hundreds of troops, 25
> crews, biiig fishbowl).
>
> If there were 2 things Philmont could do to improve
> the opportunities for troops to send boys to
> Philmont at least once, they would be 1) provide a
> number of crews based on the number of eligible boys
> in their troop, not the number the Unit Leader
> requests and 2) weight the odds in favor of a troop
> that has not been in a while (with a sliding weight
> based on the last time they went (never would be a
> LARGE weight).
>
> The contingents have very high requirements
> including requiring a financial commitment for 12
> crew members. If you only send 7, it'll still cost
> you for 12 and the council will probably never let
> you go with the contingent again unless you allowed
> them to send individual scouts with your crew.
>
> So there are ways to make the whole thing functional
> and still give opportunity to troops and individual
> scouts. Question: is there a problem inside a unit
> that does not, at least, try to get a crew any way
> they can? Isn't High Adventure a key component of a
> unit's charter?
>
> --
> Joe Tavares
>
> NOTICE: This email is only intended
> for the recipient and not legally
> binding. Unauthorized use,
> publication, reproduction or
> disclosure of the content of this
> email is not permitted without my
> expressed permission.
>
>
> > Jim,
> >
> > Let me see if I understand your points exactly.
> >
> > 1. Concil contingents are around because they get
> > many scouts to Philmont.
> >
> > 2. The number of participants a council gets can
> vary
> > year to year, but getting significantly more slots
> > year over year is difficult.
> >
> > 3. By moving a troop contingent into a council
> > contingent and vacating your spot in the waiting
> list
> > you make it more likely that somebody else gets a
> shot
> > at going.
> >
> > 4. A council contingent can provide resources and
> > help with logistics for units who may have the
> > interest in going, but not the leadership with the
> > skills to handle the logistics.
> >
> > That seems reasonable, yet I still can't quite
> come to
> > your point of view, and I'll try to address the
> parts
> > that bother me point by point.
> >
> > 1. Unit contingents also get many scouts to
> Philmont.
> > 2. The 'Use it or lose it' setup has never sat
> well
> > with me. It encourages waste instead of thrift.
> For
> > example, when talking about the federal government
> and
> > their budget - you have departments every year
> buying
> > things they don't need at the end of the year so
> that
> > their budget doesn't get cut for the next year.
> >
> > In this case, it may be taking second and third
> timers
> > to fill slots. Yet, if the spaces [contingents]
> were
> > freed up for unit contingents, you would likely
> see
> > more first-timers going instead. This isn't
> something
> > councils can do anything about, and it is natural
> to
> > play for the most advantage possible according to
> the
> > rules.
> >
> > 3. Moving your unit crew to the council contingent
> > does effectively move-up the crews behind yours in
> the
> > waiting list. But isn't it like cutting ahead of
> > those ahead of you on the waiting list?
> >
> > Now, these numbers are out of thin air, as the
> only
> > time I've done Philmont we weren't on the waiting
> > list. Imagine that you are number 250 on the
> waiting
> > list. Due to cancellations, the first 175 crews
> on
> > the list will get to go. By you joining the
> council
> > contingent, you get to go when you would not have.
> It
> > also means that one fewer crew on the waiting list
> > gets to go. So, effectively, number 250 gets to
> go
> > when 176 does not - skipping ahead of 75 crews.
> >
> > With there being over 300 councils, if only half
> the
> > councils do that with 1 crew, that is a good
> number of
> > units that get pre-empted.
> >
> > 4. This is the second best argument for council
> > contingents (the first being that they allow boys
> from
> > multiple units go who couldn't otherwise). Yet,
> even
> > this falls short in my mind. Unit leaders who
> don't
> > have the skills to coordinate a cross-country trip
> AND
> > REALIZE IT (not much can be done if they don't)
> should
> > be able to turn to their support
> > (Council/District/UC/etc.) to find a way to get it
> > done. If that support and those resources don't
> > exist, there is a bigger problem.
> >
> > 5. What do I think should be done instead? I
> don't
> > want to see council contingents done away with -
> when
> > they do combine boys from multiple units that
> would
> > not otherwise have even the chance of going,
> council
> > contingents are a golden resource.
> >
> > I would like to see there not to be a penalty for
> not
> > using spaces for unit crews (I hope that sentence
> > makes sense). A one year drop should not cause
> > problems for the future. This however, is an
> issue
> > that has to be handled at the Philmont side and
> not
> > the individual councils.
> >
> > Instead, it would be nice if there was a way to
> help
> > ensure that as many crews as possible are at 12 -
> > through a process at the council level of pairing
> boys
> > with other units that don't have full crews.
> >
> > Respectfully,
> >
> > Jack
> > --- Troop 6 Scoutmaster
> > <troop6scoutmaster@comcast.net> wrote:
> >
> > > Jack, I'll disagree. Council contingents are
> about
> > > getting scouts to
> > > Philmont (or NT or DH or ...) period.
>
=== message truncated ===
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Received on Fri Nov 18 02:30:13 2005
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