Do you use Scoutbook to schedule Key 3 meetings? I don’t see an easy way to do so, because it will show up in the Calendar for everyone, which doesn’t seem like a good idea. Which is frustrating, as every other Troop event gets scheduled in Scoutbook.
Sure, you can schedule them and invite only the Key 3. It will show up on the calendar for anyone that’s subscribed to it, but they won’t get the email reminders for the meeting if they aren’t invited.
With that said, I don’t see why it would be a problem for the adults in the troop to know there’s a Key 3 meeting scheduled, but they’re not invited. That should be a pretty easy expectation to communicate to the parents and other adult leaders.
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Wow, been involved in multiple Units for years. None of which have ever had a Key3 meeting. What is being discussed that wouldn’t be of concern to the Committee?
@JSyler those are… exactly what the troop committee are supposed to be talking about.
So in your view the Key 3 has no function?
Here’s the Troop Committee Challenge:
The Troop Key 3
Explain that the unit Key 3 is a critical component to the success of the troop. The troop Key
3 consists of the troop committee chair, the Scoutmaster, and the chartered organization representative. The unit commissioner serves as an advisor to the Key 3. This group usually
meets once a month to discuss the troop, its challenges, upcoming events, and progress toward completing its action plan and Journey to Excellence goals just like any other Scouting Key 3. It is a time for the troop’s Key 3 to spot early warning signs and work together toward continued troop success to support the troop’s youth leaders. The unit commissioner meets with them to support their efforts, to help with problem solving, and to keep the troop moving in sync with the district and council calendars.
Who are the Unit Key 3?
- Unit leader (Cubmaster, Scoutmaster, Venturing crew advisor, Sea Scouts BSA Skipper)
- Unit committee chair
- Chartered organization representative
Key 3 Meeting
I understand this meeting is where the chartered organization communicates with the unit and where the unit communicates with the chartered organization, through the chartered organization representative,
The meeting also appears to be one place where the Unit Commissioner communicates with and assists the unit
Nope, but what you’re describing is a committee meeting…
Nope. Been a Key 3 for a really long time now, and never once had a meeting like that of just the Key 3. Had one or two ad hoc Key 3 meetings to discuss issues where Scout or Scouter privacy was an issue, but not a routine status meeting.
My feeling is that Key 3 meetings can take care of things that don’t require the whole Committee, saving the Committee’s time. Also, the Chartered Organization Representative isn’t necessarily a member of the Committee.
I don’t know. I’m the brand new Committee Chairman of a brand new troop, so I’m trying to do things by the book until I know a better way, and “the book” seems to very clearly indicate that there should be regular Key 3 meetings. The troop I’ve been associated with for the last three years has never had a Key 3 meeting to my knowledge, and the COR is only very rarely at Committee meetings (usually around rechartering time).
We’ve rarely (to my knowledge) had anything in either our pack or troop that required the Key 3’s attention but didn’t require action in one way or another by the committee. The few exceptions I can think of are personnel/membership issues, some of which would not generally be handled by the committee at large, for example where it would have bearing on a member of the committee. Our CoR has always been a member of our committees, though, so that might color my experience.
Same here. Our prior COR (I’m the current COR, by the way) was at every committee meeting. The first thing we check when setting the dates for Committee meetings is Key 3 schedules; if they can’t make a particular date, we don’t have the committee meeting in that date.
We started having key 3x3 meetings with our family Pack, Boy Troop, and Girl Troop. Much too difficult to get 3 committees together to coordinate schedules and common policies.
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That’s a really good idea! We have a Boy Troop, a Girl Troop, and a Venturing Crew.
What is the Key-3?
“What is the Key-3?”, August 19, 2015, by Bryan Wendell, updated for 2018, Scouting magazine, Scouting 101 series
Journey to Excellence Unit Guidebooks
These guidebooks were created with busy unit leadership in mind. It is intended to help the unit key 3, the committee chair, the unit leader and the chartered organization representative in using the Journey to Excellence (JTE) concept as a unit planning tool and year-round checklist of fun activities for their program. The guidebooks were made from various publications and documents available from the National Council website and includes instructions on how to use them. JTE uses and blends many existing BSA programs, some of which the unit leadership may not be familiar with.
- Guidebooks are available from JTE website.
Cub Scouting - The Pack Key-3
Scouts BSA - The Troop Key-3 (2018)
Troop Committee Challenge, Position-Specific Training for Troop Committee Members, syllabus,511-039, 2018 Printing, p. 11
The Troop Key 3
Explain that the unit Key 3 is a critical component to the success of the troop. The troop Key 3 consists of the troop committee chair, the Scoutmaster, and the chartered organization representative. The unit commissioner serves as an advisor to the Key 3. This group usually meets once a month to discuss the troop, its challenges, upcoming events, and progress toward completing its action plan and Journey to Excellence goals just like any other Scouting Key 3. It is a time for the troop’s Key 3 to spot early warning signs and work together toward continued troop success to support the troop’s youth leaders. The unit commissioner meets with them to support their efforts, to help with problem solving, and to keep the troop moving in sync with the district and council calendars.
Summary
When the relationship between the chartered organization and the troop is strong and the troop is involved in the life of the organization, the troop is nearly always successful in providing quality programs, recruiting and retaining members, and making a difference in the life of the chartered organization and the families involved. …
Venturing BSA - The Crew Key-3 (2014)
Crew Committee Challenge, Position-Specific Training for Crew Committee Members, syllabus, 511-902, 2014 Printing, p. 10
The Crew Key 3
Explain that the unit Key 3 is a fairly new concept to the BSA and is a critical component to the success of the crew. The crew Key 3 consists of the crew committee chair, the Advisor, and the chartered organization representative. The unit commissioner serves as an advisor to the Key 3. This group usually meets once a month to discuss the crew, its challenges, coming events, and progress toward completing their action plan and Journey to Excellence goals just like any other Scouting Key 3. It is a time for the Key 3 to learn how to spot early warning signs and work together toward continued crew success to support the crew’s youth and young adult leaders. The unit commissioner meets with them to support their efforts, to help with problem solving, and to keep the crew moving in sync with the district and council calendars.
Sea Scouts BSA - The Ship Key-3
Unit Commissioner - Advisor to Unit Key-3
Unit assessments
One of the things the Unit Commissioner may do per Commissioner Tools training is to:
- Conduct assessments to help a unit improve. - In concert with the Unit Service Plan and Journey to Excellence (JTE) …
Unit Assessment Forms. These blank assessment forms taken from Commissioner Tools may be given to a unit leader to complete prior to the Collaborative Assessment being completed by the unit Key 3 and the unit commissioner. Ideally, the unit should complete these within my.scouting.org when they are sent to them by the commissioner; however, they may be used as a worksheet prior to entry in my.scouting.org. They may also be used when collaborating with a unit to complete the assessment of a unit’s strengths and needs.
- Pack Assessment Blank Form
- Troop Assessment Blank Form
- Crew Assessment Blank Form
- Ship Assessment Blank Form
- Post Assessment Blank Form
Created 2019-10-11
DRAFT - more to be added
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While I’m with the folks that are surprised anyone would have a K3 meeting outside of the committee meetings, I think circling back to the OP, the solution would be creating it but not inviting anyone other than the K3.
If you set it up as recurring using the Adv Feature plug-in, you should only need to be selective on the invitation once.
I do wish that Scoutbook would let us create our own event type, but maybe in the new calendar that is supposed to be coming out it will…
My only problem with that is that it still shows up in everyone’s Calendar. I don’t know about anyone else, but I subscribe to my Troop’s calendar in my personal calendar program, so everything shows up—with reminders! I was trying not to clutter this up, but apparently there’s no way to do so and still have these meetings in Scoutbook. Thanks!
I only get reminders for events to which I am invited, rather than any event that’s on my calendar.
One way I could see working around this would (for example) be to create a “fake” patrol that represents the committee, assign all of the committee members to that patrol as leaders, and create committee events on that calendar. You could do the same thing for Key 3-only events in their own “fake” patrol. That seems like more trouble from my perspective, but I guess that’s one way to reduce clutter on the calendars. However, it means you have to get your committee members and Key 3 to subscribe to two additional calendars…
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That works, but not as cleanly as you might hope…
You can’t invite anyone to a patrol event unless they (or their child) is a member of that patrol. If you don’t invite a person to the event, you can’t use the email reminder functionality in Scoutbook. That’s manageable, assuming your Key3 members are tech-savvy enough to subscribe to the fake patrol’s iCal feed and properly set up the reminders on their mobile device.
With all that said, our Troop does exactly this for the external planning calendar… The calendar for the Rocking Chair Patrol (that’s the adult leaders’ patrol, by the way) has all the school holidays and events, District and Council events, etc. It’s very useful to the PLC when they’re planning stuff, but nobody needs more and more reminders they don’t really care about…
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