RE: [Philmont]: Philmont Council contingents [opposing views]

I really like the rolling waiting list idea. That goes one better and makes
it fairer for the troop that lost out the year before. And I completely
agree with you on the notion that every crew could be filled if the advisors
tried just a little. We have been once in our troop history, in 2004, and
both crews were full. We get the unprecedented opportunity to keep our
streak alive with a council contingent crew for 2006 and, yes, that crew is
full with a waiting list for both scouts and advisors. Scouts are listed
first, in front of the advisor waiting list, btw, just so it's known that
our priorities are in check. If we go below 9 boys, we will only fill those
slots with boys and, if we lose as many as 1 advisor, there are boys in line
that get the right of first refusal before we fill with an advisor (even
though my personal preference continues to be 3 advisors (I have an ace in
the hole with an 18 year old youth riding along just in case I have to
invoke him as advisor in an emergency)).

Joe T

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-philmont@troop47.com [mailto:owner-philmont@troop47.com] On
Behalf Of Jack Thornton
Sent: Thursday, November 17, 2005 10:47 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list philmont
Subject: Re: [Philmont]: Philmont Council contingents [opposing views]

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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