Popcorn 2011

Scout popcorn provides double the funds that all of our other fundraisers do combine. Sales have grown for the 3rd year in a row thanks to our popcorn coordinator who is enthusiastic and gets the kids and parents excited.

Our Scouts bought extra popcorn both last year and this year to sell. Last year they went door to door with the 5 best selling flavors in hand which worked better than setting up a table in the mall which we tried this year.

I have to agree the for Beavers and Cubs gift cards are not very good. They like trinkets which is why our group buys a few small items to put in draws. Each item sold is one entity.

I really try to encourage parents to have the youth do the selling by pointing out that it is a great opportunity for them to gain public speaking skills and a cute Beaver or Cub will sell more. There are plenty of streets with no Scouts living on them so you don't need to feel confined to your own neighbors. Taking the form to work helps to top up the sales. Ventures and Rovers don't have the cute factor for going door to door but they are old enough to start talking to managers of local stores about buying Christmas gifts for employees. Another skill to develop.

If you are looking for another incentive for parents to sell offer them a percent of the profit up to their whole registration fee. (Our popcorn kickoff takes place at our registration night)

I do not know of any groups in Saskatchewan that do Apple Day and only a few do ScoutTrees as a fundraiser so I can't compare to them.

The Tins were gone last year as well. Our group sales were down from last year, but with CJ on the horizon I expect our sales to go up again next year. The troop is easily the largest fundraiser within our group and most of the kids' sales go into their camp account. My son didn't sell as much as last year but didn't have the same amount of time at his fingertips to sell. He still sold high high 3 digits and we have two kids that have sold enough for scholarships.

Patrick, Trails End is a US company that has had a long(er) relationship with BSA. Selling popcorn in Canada started when scouters in Calgary and Lethbridge did a side deal with them to start selling in Canada. As the program grew within Chinook Council it gradually became recognized as a national fundraiser.

Yes, I realize the tins were gone last year but I do believe they made it easier to sell to employers/companies, etc to use as Christmas gifts. How do you make the bag look good as a gift? I have heard plenty of feedback from parents and youth about their customers disappointed that there was no tin. I also think the success (or failure) of sales depends on the area you like in. You are much more likely to succeed if you are in a affluent area than in a low income one. Our group rarely sells more than $2000 gross, usually less. With 20% (approx) going to council and national, that leave about $800 for the group. It is very hard to get most parents excited about selling a product you can get in Wal-Mart for less than half the price. Our biggest fundraiser is our spring mushroom manure sale.

manure sale? the mushroom places give it away here. I think popcorn is our largest anual fundraiser. I just did a fund raiser for guides (bottle drive) and man do bottle drives suck. luckily my daughter went to a house where the guy gave her a more bottles than I could fit in the truck. literaly had to leave 8 bags behind after filling a 6.5' box and the back seat with bags. came back and got the rest, managed to fill the truck twice in 3 hours which is good money, no one else did anywhere near as well. the group will be ok, for ending up with 10 girls and 7 parents smelling of stale beer. So glad that our Pack doesnt do bottle drives anymore.

Hm - now this is 20 years ago.... but bottle drives was the group I was in back then's best fundraiser (and pretty much only fundraiser as it did better than the others. Originally they did 1 bottle drive for the whole year... when the scouts wanted to go to CJ they added 2 more... People saved the bottles for us. Oh, we did also do Scout Trees, now that I think of it.

Things that made it a success?

The dates for the drive were the same every year...
The Saturday after Grey Cup
The first Saturday in January
hm - don't remember the spring one... maybe the Saturday after the Stanley Cup??

Those dates were right after people had acquired a lot of bottles.....
The meeting before, the kids went out and left fliers at the doors to ask people to leave the items out, labelled for us. They could leave a sign (part of the flier) saying no bottles available, and we wouldn't bother them at the door (saved us lots of time.) - we would ring bells if there were no bottles and the sign wasn't out.

It was a hard work fundraiser (and yes, there was the old beer smell) - but it was a service for the people, and a great fundraiser for us.

Where I live now - there isn't a deposit to be gotten for returning bottles and cans... so no fundraiser of that type.

well we were out the saturday after grey cup. the flyers with signs might be a great idea. going 3 blocks of door to door without a single yes is a huge waste of time.

our deposit here in AB is 10 cents a can/bottle 1L or less and 25 cents over. Thats huge but its also quite an incentive for people to return their own and for other groups to do drives.

delivering phone books is something we used to do. its hard work, only once a year, but there is money in it

We did about the same as last year. For our group this seems to be less ‘work’ than scouttrees. We hand out the order forms and the kids bring them back. We do scout trees on meeting nights.

We make more money from Scouttrees than we do scout popcorn. However, I like this one better because the split/breakdown is clearer than scouttrees. We had an issue with scouttrees last year. Council wanted 50% (including brotherhood fund amt) of the amount collected, even though the council website / scouttree training manual indicated 30% ( incl brotherhood fund amt) was to go to council. The only answer I was given was “ This is how we have done it for 25 years”, which IMHO isn’t good enough to contradict the website or the materials published by the national office. I suspect that we’ll have this issue again this year.

BGilchrist,

I can confirm it has been a 50/50 split between Group and Manitoba Council for many years. I was surprised to hear otherwise and found this which I assume you were refering to:

http://www2.scouts.ca/dnn/man/Fundraisi ... fault.aspx

Scoutrees is first and foremost an environmental program, but has always helped raise funds for Scouting. Through sponsors and donors Scoutrees income helps fund local Scouting activities, but also provides much need income for the Canadian Scout Brotherhood Fund. Revenue from Scoutrees is shared: 70% goes to the local groups, 15% to the council and 15% to the Brotherhood Fund.

National has nothing about the split:
http://www.scouts.ca/ca/scoutrees-program

The Group form asking for how much fundraised that we hand in every year asks for 50% doesnt it? I assume when the website was copied from somewhere else, this info wasn't updated to Manitoba's 50/50 arrangement.

Will

The information on the Manitoba Council website seems to be pulled from the Scouttrees council manual that until the website was redesigned, was available on the website ( I have a pdf, if you'd like).

I don't mind sending 50%, but nobody from council has been able to provide an answer as to why this is done and what happens to the other 20%. Until that happens, I'll defer to the written information published on the website and in the council package.

I'm surprised though, that the breakdown is still on the Manitoba Council webpage since I brought this to their attention in May.

The Group Recap form you were sent by Council states 50/50. The Council Annual Financial Report documents what they do with that money. This isn't a 'Walmart - the lowest advertised price' kind of situation. I am just a Cub leader but is this really worth the fight? The whole process is on an honour system in the first place...the form asks you how much you fundraised and requests you submit 50%. You never have to show a single pledge form.

The website not being updated does not surprise me at all. Communication has been a serious issue in the province for many years.

My Group recap form from 2006 (when I was more involved) states:

The funds raised are shared 50% Group, 21% Council, 14% Materials/Supplies, & 15% National for the Scout Brotherhood Fund.

I suspect this hasn't changed much.

The Group Recap form you were sent by Council states 50/50. The Council Annual Financial Report documents what they do with that money. This isn't a 'Walmart - the lowest advertised price' kind of situation. I am just a Cub leader but is this really worth the fight? The whole process is on an honour system in the first place...the form asks you how much you fundraised and requests you submit 50%. You never have to show a single pledge form.

The website not being updated does not surprise me at all. Communication has been a serious issue in the province for many years.

My group recap from from 2010 also stated that the funds were to be remitted by dd/mm/2008, so my faith in the accuracy of these forms is pretty low.

While I personally may have issues with council taking 21%, it's the fact that Council hasn't bothered to indicate why they made the decision differently that's the issue. As a group, if a parent/donor shows us the same written information and asks " Why does the group only get 50% when the material says 70% (or groups in a different council get 70%)", we damn well have a better answer than " We've always done it this way"

There should be no reason why Council can't pull or provide the information on request. Provide a suitable why ( i.e. Council passed a motion in XX year, to take more funds because.....) so that as leaders we can provide informed communication if/when asked.