River Rafting Trip

Situation

With over 220 Scouts, Troop 223 in Pacific Palisades, California, is the largest Scout Troop in the Western Los Angeles County Council. The overall Troop comprises two separate boys and girls Troops, which sometimes organize their campouts together but also hold separate events. Each month, the Troop invites its 220 Scouts and over 130 Assistant Scout Masters (ASMs) whether they will be participating in that next month's campout. Out of 350 invited, about 200+ attend the campouts.

The volunteer organizers of these campouts were using spreadsheets, emails, and online survey tools, but using several single-purpose tools created many headaches around moving the data between tools. Every move was manual and time consuming and had to be repeated multiple times leading up to the start of the campout. Last minute changes were especially challenging.

Carpool organization was also a huge chore each month, with the need to assemble 50+ drivers and count available seats to ensure the entire Troop could be mobilized to and from the campsite. Often, this step alone required 10-15 hours of planning every campout.

Camping in the Santa Monica Mountains

Solution

Once the Troop discovered Eventene, they were able to adopt an all-in-one solution to plan these large campouts. Eventene sends out the campout notices by email and tracks every response. The organizers can now simply open a report to get the latest attending status. The system can also easily send reminders to those families who have not yet confirmed their attendance.

Eventene also helps the Troop organize the volunteer carpool drivers, meal counts, weekend agenda, maps and other documents, permits and campsite maps.

Additionally, each of the ASMs now relies on the Eventene Mobile App during the weekend campout. The App provides quick reference to list of activities throughout the weekend, an attendee directory with contact info, navigation to the various campsites and locations, and the ability to take a roll call at any stage of the weekend to ensure all Scouts are accounted for.

Photos

Following are a few images from Troop 223 campouts.

Backpacking in the California Sierra Nevada Mountains
Camping in Joshua Tree National Park

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