Woodbadge staff are assigned to eat with patrols following the rules below. Generally, we like to prevent a particular staff member from eating with the same patrol more than once in a weekend. There are some special individual rules.
A general observation is that a good portion of the assignments are predetermined. So we use that and just fill in the parts that can truly be random.
The 'other staff eat with own critter in week 1' is also somewhat predetermined. The clever design technique used is to sort the staff needing to be assigned by critter, then go through each meal (wrapping as needed) needing assignment and put the next staff in that meal. This gives a nice distribution.
Random number assignment does not seem to work. Just iterate through one by one patrols. This should be the plan is the same over different runs.
- Assign 2-3 staff to each patrol per meal.
- Meal 1: SM, ASM-Pgm, SPL, Mentor, Professional eat at head table.
- Troop guides eat with assigned patrol all weekend.
- Other staff eat with own critter only once, but not meal 1.
- Assign 3-4 staff to each patrol per meal.
- Troop guides eat with their critter one of meal 2, 3 or 4. (I picked 3.)
- Staff does NOT eat with patrols for meals 5 and 6.
- Meal 4: SM, SPL, QM, Scribe do not eat with patrols.
- Meal 7: SM, ASM-Pgm, Mentor eat at head table.
- Troop guides eat with assigned patrol meals 1, 7.
- Youth staff eat with assigned patrols.
- Youth staff President and Vice President rotate amoung patrols like other staff.
- Other staff eat with own critter only meal 7.