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LATEST POSTS
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And this is where the problem begins. National has zero interest or motivation for scouting to be a quality program. By design councils (and units) exist for the benefit of HQ. By extension units exist to benefit councils. The system needs to be flipped. National HQ primary responsibility should be to support councils, and Councils primary responsibility should be to support units. National should be using big$ donations to fund the basics of the councils. Councils should not be begging scouters and parents via FOS. Camporees should not be used as a means to generate revenue b/c HQ refuses to fund their own system. At present, IMO, National HQ serves no purpose to scouts, units or councils. -
If the unit commissioner isn't working, it's the DE's fault. I have seen districts with great Commission Corp, and it's a beautiful thing to watch. However, the DC's job is complicated and requires above-average skills and training. Most districts don't recruit people capable of developing and using those skills. Yep. In the earlier days, before 1990, 80% of unit leaders were scouts as a youth. So, they walked knowing more about the game than the purpose. They basically stepped into the position running, and the implementation wasn't overly complex. Today's unit is lucky to have 25% leaders with a youth scouting experience. Training just doesn't meet the need for new adult leaders without a youth scouting experience. It's not so simple. Learning the skills on your list, much less knowing when to use them, takes a long time. One-year first-class scouts are typically terrible with skills. Mostly because a program that encourages earning First Class in one year isn't a good skills program anyway. I've trained and counseled a lot of scoutmasters without a youth scouting experience, and most quit in a couple of years, realizing they were not right for the job. However, I believe they would have been fine if they had been willing to delegate skills they lacked to others. I had the skills but rarely needed them because I was a delegator and liked to get other people involved. And, there are very few skills adults need to know that older scouts can't do themselves. But, in almost every case of the scoutmasters I counseled, the scoutmaster took on the responsibility because they wanted to be head honcho, and the responsibilities didn't look hard. Their ego was the problem. The program has a big challenge today because most of the leaders they get today don't have an understanding of the program from youth experience, so they see it from a different perspective. Typically, it is not a perspective that is fun for the youth. Also, the program has changed in the last few years, so its newer identity is not attractive to the last generation of scouts. My 37- and 40-year-old sons aren't interested in being leaders because what they see doesn't appear like the program they had in the late 90s. Barry -
I've gotten into the weeds of what publicly is disclosed on council revenue sources and there is nothing going from national to councils. Councils are just as much a franchisee as units are. -
I think there are 2 problems with the commissioner corps; First there is no enforcement so the efforts of the commissioner can become a huge waste of time (If a unit repeatedly gets low evaluations or refuses to meet why are council executives renewing those charters?). Secondly to be blunt there are too many scouting bro's scratching each others back. When a commissioner witnesses YPT and GTSS violations they need to thrown the bad leaders under the bus, not sweep the issue under the rug. I think this goes back to service. At the cub level the parents can't just disappear once their scout crosses to a troop. We need a culture of lingering at the pack to pass on knowledge, hold hands a little, help those new parents get their feet under them. Most cub packs are like starting a new business with all new employees year-over-year. I think a good scout executive can fix this in every council by treating JTE/Quality Unit/Whatever the new program as mandatory to recharter, and publicly posts the scores. If units get caught lying on their JTE, yank the charter. How many packs and troops would fix their problems in a heartbeat if they had to deal with parents that really knew what was going on in a unit? An alternative, every January districts should have to run a class for AOL and perspective new parents on how to identify properly functioning units. Think of an AOL parent who gets a 15min crash course on patrol method and how they would steer their kids to units?
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The last post that I quickly saw related to the Girl scouts dropping was by Ducttape on 10/30. After that I didn't see one directly related. Went into Character, joining and commissioner posts.
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