I have been my oldest son’s Scout leader since he was a Tiger Cub. He is now in his first year of Boy Scouts working on his Tenderfoot. I have been a Scout leader for about 5 years, which is almost a year longer than I have held any single employment with any single employer in my almost 40 years of existence… how pathetic am I? Needless to say, the time of the annual “Popcorn Sales” is upon us. Oh, and how Boy Scouts of America (BSA) wants you to sell that popcorn! My oh my, it seems that perhaps the entire reason for Scouting’s existence is to sell that stinking Trail’s End popcorn!
I don’t get it… Girl Scouts sell those delicious little cookies for less than $5.00 a box. So, even if someone has already bought from a Girl Scout, they may be willing to buy a little more from another Scout; after all, who doesn’t love Thin Mints? In the past, when we have actually tried to sell this stinking popcorn, the biggest door-in-the-face we would get was, “Oh, I already bought from so-and-so,” or “my boss’s niece’s son is in Scouts and we always buy from him.” I think BSA needs to find a fundraiser where the garbage the Scouts sell isn’t so outrageously priced. I mean seriously, $15 for a box of microwave popcorn that (the last couple of years we have purchased and it) pops up like crap… seriously, there are always dozens of unpopped kernels and old maids in each and every bag; what a selling point.
After doing a little research, I have discovered why the higher-ups in BSA push for the popcorn sales. When a Scout goes out and sells (or, in many cases, the parents go out and sell) the – seriously – ridiculously priced popcorn and related crap, 30% of those sales go to the Scout’s troop, 30% goes to the Scout’s council, and 10% go to the Scout (in the form of worthless pieces of carnival-type trinket crap) . Seriously, the council gets 30%? For what… to maintain the summer camps that cost $200 or $300 per Scout to attend (and that doesn’t include all of the extra crap the Scouts have to buy at the camp to get their merit badges). Scouting is run by (I am under the impression) volunteers. I volunteer my time to Scouting… and I have never spent more of my own money “volunteering” for any other cause at any time in my life! I have to pay to go to the summer camp… and sleep in a stinking tent… and eat crappy food… and share a disgusting shower-type complex and filthy, falling apart toilet facilities with tons of other males (and there is something about many males that prevents them from being able to lift up a toilet seat when peeing… so if you have to go “#2”, which on a week-long campout, you will have to go “#2”, you are most likely going to be sitting in someone else’s pee… and when I actually catch one of these idiots peeing on the toilet seat, I will spend an undefined amount of time in a correctional facility for assault after rubbing said moron’s face on said toilet seat)… having a curfew at night of around 10:00 pm and getting up in the stinking morning at 5:30 or 6:00 am… all to help the camp manage the kids!!! And they have the stinking audacity to charge me!?! I should be charging them!
At least our troop doesn’t keep the whole 30% that is designated to the troop (at least they better not, because they don’t pay for squat). I believe the troop gives part of the troop’s profits back to the Scouts. The troop’s contribution, along with the 10% earned by the Scout, go into a fund that the Scout can use to pay for all of the camps and camping (our troop has come to the realization that the overpriced crappy trinkets that BSA tries to con the Scouts into redeeming their earnings for… which I’m sure is just one more way that BSA is trying to pilfer funds for unknown purposes; maybe BSA is building a secret underground facility for a refuge for all Scouts for during the 2012 phenomenon… are garbage) which are required for advancement in Scouting. At least, I’m assuming that our troop is giving a large percentage of their cut to the individual Scouts, because our troop seriously doesn’t pay for squat! All expenses for any activity that we do as Scouts are split evenly and paid by the Scouts and participating volunteer leaders… well, except for gas which is apparently solely the responsibility of the volunteer leaders. I’ve started charging every kid that needs a ride in my vehicle to any function a small fee (that never comes close to covering the cost of actual fuel used), which I feel is looked down on by the other leaders, but if they don’t like it, they can fire me. Seriously, I have no idea what our troop pays for, except, of course, helping those “down on their luck” pay for all the Scouting crap that the rest of us can barely afford (seriously, if my wife quit her job… and she ain’t making a physician’s salary… our family would qualify for all kinds of free crap: we’d get free school lunches for our kids, we’d get food stamps, we’d get free medical care at the “community service” clinic, we’d get scholarships to the YMCA [among many other places, I’m sure], and we’d get all of our Scouting costs paid for by the troop… and we wouldn’t have to sell a single canister of $50 chocolate popcorn that offers like 5 servings). Wow, I just really thought about what I wrote. Maybe my wife should quit her job… we’d be money ahead. Either my wife needs to quit her job… or she needs to leave my sorry rear-end and find a guy who makes above a free-school-lunch income 🙂
I am formulating a new life-philosophy. My new philosophy is: “If you can’t afford to pay for it completely out-of-(your)pocket, you shouldn’t assume that anyone else gives enough of a crap about it to help you out through fundraisers, so you probably shouldn’t do it.” I don’t mean to sound cynical or anything (yeah right, me not cynical 🙂 ) , but seriously, $25 for an 18oz bag of stinking trail mix?!? How are we supposed to sell this crap? And you want me to buy what: $15 for some sub-par enchiladas and crappy, Play Doh – tasting cookie dough to help send your kid to the private school that I can’t afford?!? Well, I guess if you buy mine, I’ll buy yours… but if you show up at my door trying to sell me some worthless crap, you had better be willing to buy some worthless crap in return!
If I could actually sell stuff that I thought was a complete screw-job without any sense of remorse, I’d probably be a successful Schwan’s Man or be selling endless amounts of Kirby vacuum cleaners. Is this what BSA really wants us to prepare our boys for: tedious, non-gratifying jobs in door-to-door sales? I don’t have the courage or confidence to sell crap door-to-door; how in the name of everything sacred and holy can I expect my 11-year old to do something that the thought of which makes me nauseous? I can’t… so it falls on my and my wife’s shoulders to help our son sell this garbage to people we know. Needless to say, a large portion of the people we know either have health conditions that prevent them from enjoying the benefits of ridiculously-overpriced popcorn products (diabetes and the like), moral stances against eating anything animal-related (and in their obscured minds, popcorn is not a vegetarian treat but an unholy monstrosity concocted of various animal fats and pelts… yes, these friends did far to much “experimenting” in their youths), have sons of their own in our troop, or know those friends of ours who have sons in our troop and have already purchased from those sons! Once again, if stinking BSA would find a fundraiser that wasn’t outrageously priced… you know, like Girl Scout cookies, where people are willing to buy more than one… it might not be quite so difficult for an average dude with an aversion to selling door-to-door to sell the stuff and save money on all of the crap BSA charges to be in Scouting!
Wow, now that I am almost done with my rant, I would like to say that, overall, I have thoroughly enjoyed my time with my son in the Boy Scout program. After all, I don’t want anyone to assume that I’m not appreciative of the spot reserved for us when meteors strike the earth and Yellowstone explodes in December of 2012 🙂
Sell creamed corn!
I totally agree – we sold pizza &cookie dough, frozen foods, raffle tickets, more pizza, more cookie dough, and now we get to start over – I am and I am sure our same purchasers are already tired of it – and we are only in the 1st & 3rd grades with a 2 year old waiting in the wings to sell her stuff too.
Yeah, DG, I can’t wait ’til my little guy has to start selling this crap. It will be double crap every year… and time to start forking out for the 2-ply toilet paper 🙂
Chad… creamed corn… mmmmm, yummie! But, would you be willing to buy an $8 can of creamed corn from Trail’s End? Crap, you just gave me a great idea: Great Value creamed corn from Walmart… for $5 per can… the selling point would be “Yes, my son and I are going door-to door selling the new collaborative effort between Walmart and Boy Scouts. You can purchase a can of quality creamed corn for only $5.00 and over 80% of the profits go to the local troop (i.e. my kid). If that doesn’t sound reasonable to you, I have a $15 box of microwave popcorn that kind of sucks… if you’re interested.” Thanks, Chad!
WOW. I will never look at boy scout popcorn the same!!!
Yup. These different organizations really pile it on the kids (us parents) for their fund raising. My son is involved in Pop Warner football now. This is the first group to not make the participants go door to door, or maybe it’s still coming.
TG, I don’t blame you for not looking at BS popcorn the same… but remember, it’s not the poor Scout’s fault. I wouldn’t want anyone not to support their local Scouts just because BSA tends to tork me off once in awhile.
Chris, you know it’s coming; it’s unavoidable 🙂
I am sure that this popcorn crap is not what was intended by the founder of Boy Scouts.
My son used to come home with a popcorn sheet where the SMs wife wrote down his expected amount to sell. I could never bring myself to put this overpriced stuff off on others, so I bought it. The next year would roll around, and I’d still have the Trails End popcorn in the cabinet.
The popcorn is not as bad the the Friends of Scouting where the minimum donation marked on the card is $500 and about a month after the popcorn shake down. FOS goes to salaries for Scout execs who are the highest paid non profit workers in the U.S. Base pay trumps mine after over a decade working my job.
Same SC wife sends party cards out with:
A. Will be attending your lovely party.
B. Sorry. Can’t make the party but sending my check for X dollars.
Also note that Eagle Scouts almost all wash out when hired by BSA. They want good programs. BSA just wants good fundraisers.
Do the research. Dig a little. You will find some really interesting stuff like how much of your BS money goes to pay off Scouts molested by BS leaders. That’s a lot of popcorn for sure.
lison, thanks for the comment! I am not at all a fan of the hypocrisy of BSA! If I had more time (… or at least less laziness coursing through my veins), I would do a whole expose on how corrupt BSA is and how much it can suck. I touched on it a little bit more (with no research whatsoever, of course) in my post http://www.happystinkingjoy.com/2010/07/camp-laramie-peak/. I feel a need to stick with it because of the boys I have grown so close to through my past 6 years in scouting (and I want to teach my son not to quit)… but if not for the time put in, I’d bail and tell BSA to stick it 🙂
I concur and after a recent booster meeting where we racked our brain for about an hour on fundraiser ideas. I thought I would use my web skills to come up with a new idea. Fundraising sucks but its seems to be a necessary evil. So I’ve found a new way to raise funds that makes it easy for everyone. “Now here’s the pitch! LOL – No more knocking on strangers’ doors, washing cars on Saturdays, begging for help from friends, or buying overpriced products. Check it out http://ponyup4.com. the easiest, fastest, safest, surest way to raise money for schools, charities, churches, clubs, and organizations! How do we do it? By combining two of today’s latest and most popular phenomena: social networking and “groupon” technology.
great post, Robert
Alright, Robert… I’ll let you promote the site. Either you actually glanced over my post, or you have a decent spider that found a good match for your spam comment on my blog. Either way, you wrote “I concur” and “great post”… and it’s hard not to approve that!
Yes, I agree with the post wholeheartedly. But, alas, what are we to do? The Scouts promotes good values and my boys seem to enjoy the sense of belonging and comradarie. I do agree that the popcorn selling sucks and is abnoxious beyond belief because of how ridiculously priced it all is. We did well door-to-door last year and even sold out of our front yard and had cars and people stop to buy. The deal with the Girl Scouts (I think) is that they have a higher quota despite their lower priced product. So the Boys sell less product at a higher price. Perhaps in a way it is preparing them for real life…teaching them not to mess around with nickels and dimes and go for the big bucks ? I have an idea for the Scouts that is a winner. Don’t know where to go with it though. I’d bet that someone in the BSA uppity-ups has close ties to someone in Trail’s End and would never consider dropping this ridiculous popcorn.
CraftyMama… I did a little research. The Weaver Popcorn Co. (Pop Weaver) makes Trail’s End popcorn for Scouting. Trail’s End Brand Microwavable Kettle Corn, on the Trail’s End website, sells for $49.95 for two 18-pack boxes; this is about $1.39 per bag of microwave popcorn. Pop Weaver Microwavable Kettle Corn (on the Walmart website) sells for $2.00 for a box of 6 bags; this is about 33¢ per bag. Looking at the nutritional information for both, they appear to be about the same product in the same sized bags.The Trail’s End Kettle Corn costs the consumer over FOUR times the money for a nearly identical product to the one purchased at Walmart. Someone really has to love Scouting to take a screwjob to the pocketbook like that. The Trail’s End containers state that “Over 70% goes to local Scouting.” Well, I know our troop doesn’t get close to $70 of sales… so the council and BSA must be getting a pretty good cut. Also, let’s say that 75% goes to “local Scouting” (and I’m pretty sure it’s closer to 70% than 75%). That means that Weaver Popcorn Co. is making about 35¢ per bag sold (wholesale cost)… more than the RETAIL price of the same product at Walmart. I bet Weaver Popcorn Co. loves selling Trail’s End… it’s has a higher profit margin than selling through Walmart… and the local scouts and, in the end, the supporters of Scouting, take it up the wazoo… without a kiss… or a thank-you.
If bad popping corn that leaves a greasy feeling in your mouth isn’t bad enough, we’ve got to listen to the hype of selling popcorn since the first day of scouts. The boy whose parent doesn’t want to sell popcorn gets to watch the selling boys get showered with trinkets, gift cards, outings, pizza parties and the like. I’ve seen boys quit over popcorn. In this day and age and economy, who feels like pushing a $25 box of overpriced crap? I don’t want to buy it myself, let alone ask others to buy it. Parents Against Popcorn. There certainly are some rackets out in scouts from over priced popcorn to scout cabins that cost $100’s a night. But I’m in the racket until my kids become Eagles. Hopefully we can add some good to counteract the BS.
Amen, Deb… Amen! And the Girl Scouts get to sell those $3 boxes of cookies that everyone LOVES! Doesn’t make any sense to me…
I’m a Girl Scout leader and I am really mad. It costs .85 to make, package and ship a box of Girl Scout cookies. We advertise sell and deliver the stupid things and our troop gets…15% of the profits! We sold $6000 worth of cookies last year and walked away with a little over $700 and some “cookie dough” that can be spent at the store and going to camp. I want 70% of the profits to go directly back to my troop! I should have had a $3200 check cut back to me, so that I could run a good program for these girls without breaking my own bank. I do not see at all how send almost all of the profits back to council and national helps my girls at all. What a rip!
Wow, Rebecca! I didn’t realize that Girl Scouts had issues too. You want to know why the council and national organizations get so much of the profit… because that’s where the paying jobs are. We are the ones volunteering our time and, yes, often money to actually work with and create memorable experiences for the kids. After all, we gotta make sure the CEO of Scouting makes his millions of dollars (and the CEO of Girl Scouting makes almost $500,000) every year. Don’t believe me? http://www.wfaa.com/news/local/Critics-Blast-Boy-Scouts-for-CEOs-Million-Dollar-Compensation-94955859.html
Thank you for your rant. It is refreshing to know I am not alone. My son wants to be in the scouts. I was a scout and I believed in what they used to do. Now I am not so sure. it seems that scouting is less interested in the scouts and more interested in selling popcorn, raising money to pay for more camp sites and finding more cubs to put through the mill. I loved the cub scouts and was a den leader, boy scouts is no longer any fun. my son continues on and I have dropped out. Really did like this article.
BSA’ed out, glad you liked my rant… sorry to hear you dropped out. Parents who see the inequities of scouting make the best leaders. We can be the ones who can pull the boys aside and say things like, “Please realize this is kinda crap, but like real life, sometimes you gotta go along with the crap to get through it”. High school, college, a job… they all contains aspects that we don’t like doing (and that really do us no good whatsoever) but we have to persist in the face of the crap. The crap may actually make us stronger (or so someone once told me). All of the “rah rah” leaders are good for BSA, but the realists can have fun, teach the boys something, and point out the crap when necessary. Gotta keep the boys grounded while we encourage them to pursue their dreams, and a troop is only as good as it’s leaders 🙂
Wow what a shallow outlook on an organization that you clearly love. If u hate it so much pull your son out. That popcorn is a good chunk of your council’s budget and if you don’t sell then you won’t have a scout office or camp. I know some people don’t see the reasoning from it but having professional scouters is a huge necessity. If only you could get a glimpse from the inside of the organization. Seriously though I’m sure your district would be better off without you making uneducated blog comments, go join another group,
Wes, come on, dude. Selling the popcorn sucks. We do other fund raisers where we actually sell things that are reasonably priced and people are excited to buy. With the popcorn, you get a lot of doors closed in your face after a quick, “Not interested.” $20 for a box of microwave popcorn tends to get that kind of response.
Every year, the wife and I write out a descent-sized check to BSA for Friends of Scouting. I know that Friends of Scouting isn’t enough to keep the BSA wheels turning. I support the organization. I know that fund raisers are a necessary evil. I just think there have to be some better alternatives to the overpriced popcorn.
Your recommendation that I pull my son out proves to me the type of character you really have. Scouting is all about the boys, building character and whatnot. You think my character is flawed, so your course of action is to tell me to pull my son out. I’m assuming that you think my flawed character may be passed on to my son, who could then benefit by being in an organization that builds strong character… but you tell me to pull my son out because you don’t like my sense of humor. Man, I hope you don’t have too many boys under your counsel…
I don’t know why I’m wasting so much time responding to your comment. It’s obvious you didn’t think the post was funny. It’s obvious you were offended (a “professional scouter”, I’m guessing). I would join another group, but there is only one other group I’d like to be a part of. In fact, I’d like to head that organization. I’d like to be the head of the Humorless Douchebags, but that position already seems to be filled…
Suggest to your tropp they do a different fundraiser. Or better yet, you should plan and run a different fundraiser for your troop. Our troop sells nuts at the same time as the Trails End popcorn sales. We offer popcorn too because the council wants us to sell some and believe it or not there are pople that LOVE Trails End popcorn, over-priced as it is. Our sales sheet lists 20 different nut/trail mix options and at the very bottom is micro-wave popcorn. (We buy the nuts in 100 pound bags and break this down into 1 pound bags that sell for $6 – $8 depending on the nut.)
But my point is, you have a long tirade, take your anger and redirect it into something more constructive. Your troop will love you to step forward and take the bull by the horns and organize something. In my experience, there are tons of people that suggest things but few people to actually follow through and execute their suggestions.
BTW, I found your tirade doing a google search for Boy Scout fundraisers.
Thanks for the comment, Chris, and the suggestions. Actually, I head up the “other” fundraiser that our troop performs, the Little Caesars Pizza kit thingie. A few years ago, I got so frustrated with the whole Trails End thing that I knew we had to do an additional fundraiser to make ends meet, so I found Little Caesars and have headed up that fundraiser on and off for like six or seven years.
See, the thing is, people who know me (and some others) get the fact that I am mostly trying to be funny when I bitch. I have this uniquely cynical sense of humor that a ton of people don’t get. Yes, there is some anger there, but I wouldn’t have donated so much of my valuable, limited time on this planet to scouting if I didn’t LOVE it.
I really do appreciate your comment, because I feel that scouters need to know that there are available options out there that (although they can’t replace Trails End) can add to a troops bottom line.
Thanks for reading my “tirade”… I sincerely appreciate it 🙂
This is my first year with the scouts and have learned a ton. One thing I have learned is that not every council uses the same distributor such as trails end. Our council does not use trails end because they don’t like the quality of the product. With that said, it is still pricey. However, it’s the only fundraiser we do and we sell about 40k each year. Of that we keep 10k about which fund everything for the year and keeps us from having dues. It’s interesting how it all works and I have been impressed as my son 6yrs old has already sold over 1k in a week and he has not even left our neighborhood. BSA is a great organization but I agree it’s hard to sell door to door.
Tiger dad… thanks for reading my rant! I really don’t mean to discourage anyone from participating in scouting. I wouldn’t buy Trails End if my boys weren’t in scouting, and I have a hard time asking anyone else to pay the outrageous prices. I am sincerely happy that you can sell so much in your neighborhood! We live next to a trailer park… so our odds aren’t as good :} That being stated… I love scouting and all that it stands for! Stick with it! Not only will you see your son advance to the rank of Eagle, but you will forge quality friendships with your other scouts and their parents as those boys approach the same rank 🙂
Would you believe in 1 1/2 hours I’ll be out in front of the grocery store hawking popcorn with my son who promised to run away and hide when I drag him there?
And did I mention it’s going to be 100 degres today? I know many people love to stand outside in that temp just to buy some chocholate popcorn.
This year the cubscouts were denied the incentives for selling popcorn (you know, the little “gifts” they get when they reach certain sales goals). So they get to stand out in the heat and sell popcorn out of the goodness of their heart – and for nothing more.
Love some of the suggestions on popcorn alternatives. Maybe that might be more of a reality with the drought this year. (I heard the popcorn industry will be hit hard this year.)
Keep it coming. Love to hear I’m not alone.
Sandy, thanks for reading! I know it can suck, and I hope your experience outside of Walmart was better than you anticipated. My cub scout doesn’t have a problem going door-to-door selling (or trying to sell). He’s very outgoing (which neither my wife nor I are), and we try to encourage him. Personally, I’d rather have a little finger cut off than go door to door begging people to buy over-priced, mediocre-quality products. My boy scout refuses to sell. He, like me and his mom, is more introverted. He says if we make him sell door to door, he’ll quit scouting. Nothing that scouting is trying to teach has anything to do with a future in vacuum cleaner sales, so I don’t understand the door-to-door thing at all.
There is always the whole “sell to your coworkers” spiel, but the wife and I work at the same company. We have a staff of like 9… and one of our coworkers also has a son in scouting. One coworker is dead set against supporting the “corporate greed” involved in fundraisers and thinks organizations like scouting should have the kids raise their own vegetables and sell those (… this coworker apparently thinks that parents and adult volunteers don’t have enough other crap going on… that the time required to invest into a growing project of the size and magnitude necessary to provide the funds to operate the organization for a year is somehow feasible). Another coworker is some strange mutation of a vegan who will not eat any non-organic or non-GMO foods… oh, and he also thinks wheat, soy and corn may be the spawn of Satan.
I like the Walmart idea better (which we have done a couple of years in the past), but you have to preorder the popcorn that you are going to sell, and guessing how much you can actually sell is a crap shoot… and I don’t believe they allow for any returns (because they don’t operate on real-world customer service principles).
I understand the need for a non-profit to generate revenue for operations, but there is no real way to put a happy face on the crappiness of fundraisers 🙂
I empathize with your rant. I found it while trying to “follow the money” Initially I hated the idea of having to make my grade school kids into door to door sales weasels. I accepted it because that is how the pack makes money. Even after er raise the money I am still paying to do any activity that is not free to begin with!
I am trying to find accountability of where the money that doesn’t go back to pack goes and can’t kind anything. Why does council get an uncapped percentage? What do they do for the scouts? Like you say it seems like a ridiculous scam like having 8 year olds run a pyramid scheme for the BSA.
To be honest, Bruce, the council actually does stuff. The council (and BSA as a national organization) do things like pay for all of the stuff for the camps and whatnot. Also, advertising, maintaining supplies, having legal support for lawsuits, hiring people who couldn’t be found in a volunteer capacity (people working at the scout offices, financial people, legal people, marketing people, etc). It is a well known fact that anyone who really knows anything about the laws in this country only knows this information because they went to school with the thought of making lots and lots of cold hard cash. Getting legal people to volunteer in a legal capacity is kind of like trying to squeeze orange juice from a peach. However, there has to be ways to make that needed money without humiliating the scouts and raping the people who are trying to support scouting. Pop Weaver makes a sub-par product that does not come close to justifying the price BSA charges for it. Of course, whenever you mention something like this to a “paid scouter”, they tell you that your “attitude” needs to change. Well… my attitude is never going to change as long as we have our scouts going door-to-door selling crap…
Thanks for reading, Bruce!
Scouting is not a volunteer job first of all people who work at councils are paid like they would be any other job. Number two why are you cussing while representing the bsa online. last but not least. Sell some thing else profit potentials has some good ideas. Dont be one of councils minions screw popcorn as a whole.
Hey, guy I don’t know, thanks for reading.
I never said that council people are volunteers. I know there are plenty of paid positions..
Where did I “cuss”? Even when I’m hot under the collar about something, I try to keep all of my comments on this blog at the PG (PG-13 tops) level. If you are referring to “crap” or “sucks” or something similar to that, I don’t consider those “cuss” words. If I offended with my language, that was not my goal.
We do a Little Caesar’s fundraiser (which I spearhead) that does quite well for us, but the council would have a fit if we didn’t sell the popcorn. I’m not in a position (nor do I want to be in a position) with enough power to get us completely out of popcorn. Plus, I know that a large percentage of what keeps Scouting as a whole going is revenue from popcorn sales. It just, to me, keeps coming back to the fact that the popcorn is a poor-to-fair quality product that sells for a gourmet price, and I have issues selling that…
I think you and your troop need to LQQK at popcorn a whole nother way.
Popcorn sells itself. Especially when boys/parents are motivated. Obviously from your post you troop gives you no motivation.
Our troop with over 65 scouts has a few fundraisers- popocrn, candy, wreaths, pumpkins etc.
Some like popcorn sales others don’t.
It’s pretty much the same scouts who sell every year.
BUT the ones that do, do and average $400 /scout with about $1,100 being the highest any four scout sells.
Only BIG or should I say HUGE difference is we give the full 35% to the scout to use in their accounts for anything scout related such as yearly scouting fee, weekly dues, trips, summer camps gear etc. <————- I bet your LQQKING at popcorn a whole nother way now.
All the fund raisers above the scouts get the commissions.
With the scout ading $145 in his account we have boys earn over $300 into their accounts. Can you say – “Summer camp paid for”
When you combind the Military sales that are tax deductable (varies per person of course)But you get a double benefit….Let me think…. I make a $100 military tax deductable donation and $35 goes to boys account…..HHMMMMM and the problem is?????
After taking over the popocrn in my troop a few years ago which the previous year was $0.00 for teh entire troop 0f 60 scouts, I went from $3,00 to $11,000 in a few years. New scouts from cubs continued selling as they did in cubs knowing that they get the full commission amount and older scouts Parents are finally woke up.
We also do also troop fundraisers such as car washes, jewelry sales. We have someone offer driver defence course every couple years where they dontae the funds. Wendy’s which gives you 15% of total sales within a given time period and you don’t have to do anything other then have a few boys in the store. No receipts as they calculate everything for every sale made. So even if someone has a grudge against the BSA they don’t know their actually donating to BSA. Typically it over $225.00 each time.
I would get motivated as I don’t know why any troop would not offer this to the boys as we do…
Popcorn Kernel…
I can see your point. If our boys received the entire 35%, I can see how that would be motivating. Sounds like you have the right attitude about popcorn to make it work. I have nothing bad to say about that 🙂