PLC Meetings

Patrol Leader Council (PLC) is the team of scouts that are responsible for planning and conducting the troop’s weekly meetings and monthly outings. Contrary to popular belief it is NOT the Scoutmaster!

The Scoutmaster (and assistant Scoutmasters) provide direction, coaching, and training that empowers the scouts with the skills they will need to lead the troop.

Meeting time:

PLC Meetings will be held the 2nd Tuesday of every month at 6:30pm, a half hour prior to meeting start. Please be prompt so we can begin right at 6:30pm.

Participants:

The following scouts should plan to attend PLC meeting, including:

Senior Patrol Leader (SPL)
Asst. Senior Patrol Leader(s) (ASPL)
Troop Guide(s)
Patrol Leaders
Asst. Patrol Leaders
Troop Scribe

Election Process:

Elections will be held about 1 month prior to summer camp. All troop members (scouts only) will elect the senior patrol leader.
The SPL will then select the ASPL and Scribe the following week.
The patrols will then elect the Patrol Leader the following week.
The patrol leaders will then select their assistants
The goal is to accomplish this just before summer camp
At summer camp the incoming and outgoing leaders will work together to train and transition each member

Term of office:

The scouts will elect leaders for six month terms. Supported by our adult leaders, these scouts are responsible for every aspect of the Troop program and activities during their term of office. The scouts elected as leaders are generally among the more experienced members of the the troop. As a boy led troop we strive to allow these boys the opportunity to demonstrate the leadership skills they have been acquiring since joining Boy Scouts. Being on the PLC is an opportunity to put into practice the vision of Boy Scouting; to build leaders capable of making moral decisions.

Dedicated coaching –

The only parents that are part of the PLC is the scoutmaster or designee. Their role is to sit at the table and listen. They should only be involved when asked or they see a need to intervene and talk.

Communication:

Communication is key. Without constant communication there is a severe lack of progress by this team. This group will use email as the primary tool for planning. They are welcome to continue texting on a last-minute item, but we want to stress to this group that for planning purposes they need to use email.

The thought process behind this is that scouting has the primary mission of preparing young people to become leaders. As they become leaders in the adult world, email is still the primary form of communication they will experience in the working world. As such we want them to get used to this method.

We ask each parent to help educate and encourage their child in the use of checking email on a regular basis as we need parental support to ensure communication is maintained.

Mailing list –

To help facilitate the email exchange of this group, we have single email address that has been created that when sending to this address it will go to everyone in the PLC. The benefit of this process is that scouts do not need to know who is in the PLC and what email addresses each person has.

The other benefit of this process is that we maintain scouting’s two deep leadership policy. This email will go to BOTH the scout and their parents so we do not have to worry about emails going to a single scout without parental knowledge.

The email address is Troop834-PLC@trooptrack.com. This email address can be used by any email system and when sent it will go to all applicable leaders and PLC scouts. We apologize in advance for additional emails to your inbox, but we need the scouts to communicate better while maintaining safe scouting policies.

Being elected is an honor.
With Honor comes responsibility

Plan your work, then Work you plan…

Step 1 – PLC meeting

What: the PLC should meet and plan ALL upcoming activities
Frequency: This should be 1x per month. Ideally at a different time & location as your meeting. Best to do this at a Panera or someone’s house
Goal: figure out what your doing at each meeting & the trip for that month
Jobs: each PLC member should arrive with a notepad/laptop, calendar and be ready to contribute
Scribe: the scribe should record all notes and updates and send that out after meeting
Planning job: it’s the job of the SPL to plan this meeting. Use this Link – This is the 2026 PLC agenda

PLC Planning links:

Step 2 – Plan for 6 months

Start here with planning the trips and activities you want to do for the next 6 months
This is planning at the MACRO level: This is the list of main events/activities we want to do in the next 6 months
This document is where we start each PLC to see what is happening in the next few weeks and what meetings to plan
This needs planned 2x a year for that 6 month period
Here is a Link to the document we use
Scribe: the scribe should update the above file with all changes/updates
SPL: the SPL leads the discussion

Step 3 – Plan the weekly meetings

PLC needs to plan each meeting up to the next PLC meeting so you know what your doing at each meeting
this is planning down to the minute for each meeting. This includes who is leading each session within the meeting, including who is leading the game and what game is being played.
This should be completed by Friday of each week for upcoming meeting and posted to Group Me on that Friday
Start with last week’s agenda and make a copy for the next meeting
Click here for template from last meeting

Weekly Meeting links:

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