Scouting Fundraisers
Popcorn

Hello Families!

I hope you are enjoying the last bit of summer and getting ready for the new school and scout year! With the new scout year, we have also kicked off our popcorn campaign. It will run from July 25^th through October 31^st. Each scout’s Trail’s End site is currently active and we have Show and Sell Slots available! Please sign up, and we will be adding more in the coming weeks!

If your scout currently doesn’t have a Trail’s End Account, you can register for one at https://bit.ly/3BEV64R. When you register, we are:

Council: Central Florida

District: Challenger

Unit: PACK 738 (Not troop!).

I know everyone is already wondering what the pack popcorn goal is and how much dues are. Per the budget outlined by the pack committee earlier this year, our popcorn goal will be $650/scout. This stems from the $241 in dues based on our 35% commission from sales. Our Pack Goal is $39,425!

The $241 includes national BSA registration for the 2022-2023 scouting year, advancements (loops, patches, pins, etc), pack shirt, pinewood derby car, raingutter regatta boats, Scouts’ Life magazine subscription, plus the many celebrations that we put on throughout the year.

Last year, 62% of our scouts paid for ALL of their dues through popcorn, with an additional 18% paying only half! I think that is a great achievement for our scouts and I hope to see more “pay their way” this year! We will continue this year with all scouts that sell $650+ in popcorn will have their dues fully covered. Scouts selling $325-649 will pay half dues, and anyone selling less than $325 will pay full dues. Scout dues will be due the first week of November.

For prizes, we will continue to use the Trails-End Amazon gift card format. Our council also has incentives (attached) that scouts can earn. We are also offering pack “prizes”. For all scouts that raise the $650, they will get to pour a bucket of water over the popcorn kernel’s head. Our top 3 sellers will be allowed to pie a leader in the face. Lastly, if the pack meets the $39,425 goal, we will have a pack movie night at AMC and rent out one of the theaters for them to enjoy!

We will also continue to earmark funds for “scout accounts” within our Pack bank account. For popcorn, once your scout reaches the $650 goal, anything sold past that will be split 50/50 between the scout and the pack. This means that that 50% of the commissions that your scout earns will be earmarked at the end of the fundraiser for your scout to use towards scouting items (camping fees, summer camp registration, uniforms, etc). Once you provide our treasurer a copy of your receipt for those items, they will reimburse you for those items up to the amount available in your scout account. Should you leave the pack for any reason, those funds will revert to pack funds. For AOL’s, they get a one-time transfer of their scout account to Troop 738 at crossover. Those funds are given directly to the scoutmaster after crossover.

Siblings should each have their own account. This helps for council incentives, and scout account record keeping. Trail’s End has changed the user interface, so it is easier to handle siblings through the app now. You can now more easily move between accounts, and I can set up a “store front” for family wagon sales to split the funds between siblings.

As always, I am more than happy to answer any questions or concerns that you may have about the popcorn season or about fundraising in the pack in general. Any scout account balance questions should be directed towards Jacque Gilliam, our current pack treasurer.

I can’t wait to see you all soon! Let’s get popping!