Sam Houston Area Council B.S.A. Troop 505
Chartered to St. Vincent de Paul Roman Catholic Church
Houston, Texas

Congratulations! While the importance of the job of SPL probably cannot be overstated (because a lot of responsibilities come with being the SPL), you should not forget to have fun! You'll burn out otherwise, and not only you but the rest of the troop will suffer as a result. Remember, too, that the troop wants you to succeed (they elected you, after all), and that the adults are there to help you succeed. Be sure to let them know what you need... be specific!

You already know that, as the top junior leader in the troop, you will be expected to lead with your vision and by your example. We know that you have a vision for the troop and your own ideas about the direction you'd like the troop to take... you said so yourself, in your campaign speech! Now it's up to you to translate your vision into action.

One of your predecessors started an "SPL notebook" which has been passed on to each succeeding SPL; you should have received it by now. This notebook has in it such things as e-mails, calendars, program ideas, an alphabetical/topical index of what's in Troop Program Features, blank meeting plan and campfire plan forms, past Green Bar meeting agendas, etc. Be sure to read the emails in the front of the SPL notebook. Even though they happen to be addressed to previous SPLs, they of course now apply to you as well... especially the parts about giving your assistants meaningful assignments and responsibilities, and visiting with all your junior leaders about what they are doing and how things are going and what they need help with. Of course, while you're at it, don't forget to read through and become familiar with the contents of the rest of the SPL notebook!

Finally, don't underestimate the importance of good planning. Each of your predecessors has, in his own way, found that Green Bar meetings are more productive if he comes prepared with his own plan for upcoming meetings and campouts. The Green Bar may decide to do all of it as presented with no changes, or none of it, or somewhere in between (usually somewhere in between). But if you don't come prepared with a plan, what usually ends up happening is everyone sits around asking, "What do you want to do?" "I don't know, what do you want to do?"

Just as an Eagle Project plan should tell someone else everything he would need to know to carry out a project without you, so too a meeting or campout plan should tell someone else everything he would need to know to carry out a meeting or campout without you. Previous SPLs have established a good pattern: fine-tune the specific details of the troop activities that will occur prior to the next Green Bar meeting, and begin planning the themes for the troop activities that will occur two and even three months out. Anything more than that is "gravy".

Effective planning consists of thinking about what you need to do, what you have or need to do it with, several ways to do it (because "stuff happens"), writing down the plan (so that everyone knows what it is), doing it (obviously!), and afterwards thinking about how well it worked and what didn't work (and writing that down as well). To pick one example... the then-SPL brought enough ideas to the 8/15/05 Green Bar meeting so that themes for all the meetings to 12/12/05 could be decided -- and even then, not all of his ideas were selected (i.e. the troop elected to work on the Dentistry MB in the fall, instead of the Camping or Wilderness Survival MBs)!

A side benefit of having written meeting plans that you (and future SPLs) can refer to is, you have concrete physical evidence of having completed the "run all troop meetings, events, activities, and the annual program planning conference" and "run all Green Bar meetings" responsibilities of any SPL. Rather than just being able to say, "yeah, I was SPL for 6 months" you can say, "yes, I was SPL for 6 months and here's what we did during that time." Check out the Bulletin Board page on our web site (you will see that some SPLs -- and some scribes -- were more thorough than others).