ParkMan

Four very specific things I'd do: Make the primary task of the DE to build and support the district team. Not FOS, popcorn, program, and not even unit service. It's like the oxygen mask in an airplane - you cannot help others until your team settled. National needs to define specialized training for district volunteers. This training needs to be delivered live. National needs to define a regional training for district key three members. Camp School for district key three. National needs to create a problem solving team to help troubled districts

Sure - if there was a way to accomplish the same with 2-3 people 2 hours a week, then that's fine with me. I know you've mentioned several times that the Scouting program could be simplified. I do largely agree with that. That said - I don't think simplifying the program would have helped us a lot. The troop is well run and manages to find enough volunteers - so that would solve a problem we don't have. Now, how can districts solve the problem of units with fewer leaders. These units need mentors - A solid UC is important here They need specialized training. This training needs to be results oriented - not some pie in the sky theory stuff. How to strengthen program with a few leaders How to actually go recruit new leaders How to actually go recruit new scouts

Because we're volunteers. Take roundtable for example. Roundtable is really nothing more than a monthly meeting of volunteers - they swap knowledge, socialize, tell stories, build relationships, etc... One person could organize roundtable in 2-3 hours a month. But, since we want to have breakouts by program, pull together some announcements, and do this in an hour or two a week, you want 3-5 people. Now scale that up to include training, coaching for leaders (Commissioners), camporees, summer activities, pinewood derbies, OA, eagle boards, support for membership, solicitation of donations, etc. you end up with 30+ people pretty quickly. A troop is much the same way. Our troop was a pretty well functioning team and we had 20+ volunteers for 60 Scouts. A SM, a few ASMs to support trips, some board of review people, some merit badge counselors, treasurer, advancement person, a membership person, etc.. You could run our troop with 2 or 3 people working 10-20 hours a week or 20+ each putting in 2 hours a week.

This is the crux of the issue. I've been a district volunteer for several years now - most of the time in more senior roles. In that time we've gotten no support from either national or our council in building our district team. The only training available is the online training. Our DE will brainstorm with us on names and even ask people at times if we need him to. But, I see no effort expended by the BSA at all to foster the development of district teams. We've neglected district committees for 20 years (at least) and now it's catching up with us. Help for unit leaders - missing. Training for unit leaders - missing. Community support for starting new units - missing. One or two paid DEs can not substitute for a district team.

Mostly agree - but not 100%. In life most of us benefit from coaches, mentors, and advisors. Most of us benefit from having someone who has traveled the road before us that we can ask questions of. I do it in Scouting, I do it at work. The UC role is Scouting's attempt to provide that. Let's gather together that experience and build a program to get that experience shared. This forum has had conversations about how UCs should have the authority to overrule unit leaders - I've never agreed with that idea myself. Yes, when that starts to happen, it's an example of top down leadership. Similarly, when professionals do that, it's wrong too. I'm starting to come to the realization that just as we have "youth led" vs "adult led" for troops, so too do we need "volunteer led" vs. "professional led" for districts and councils. Professional led districts tend to exhibit top down control. They focus more on fundraising and membership. These are metrics upon which professionals are measured. Volunteer led districts tend to exhibit community driven control. They focus more on unit quality and local programming.

These are not the point of a UC. The whole purpose of a UC is to be a coach, mentor, and adviser to the unit leaders. That's where the value is in the role. You've got to focus on where your role brings value. A UC should be a pretty senior Scouter and comfortable putting paperwork, popcorn, and FOS into it's proper perspective. That said - as a UC you do have to have a broader view than just outdoor program. For example, you can have the most adventurous troop - but not doing any recruiting. You could have a great program, but have Scouts that cannot afford it. You can have a great troop that cannot meet or go camping because they didn't turn in their recharter paperwork. As a UC, you've got to keep those aspects in mind. The UC after all is an adviser to the CC as well as the SM. If you see the troop is struggling financially, you can suggest selling popcorn. If you're three weeks out from re-charter date and the paperwork isn't in, you probably ought to ask. Does that mean you need to be the shill for the Council on these - nope.

Thanks @yknot Some follow up questions/comments. Can you share what you see here? Are COs ceasing to sponsor units? Thanks - this is the kind of info I was hoping to learn. Maybe it's just me - but I get the sense that there are two issues here: having enough volunteers having outdoor knowledgeable volunteers I believe both require focus from the BSA. In our district, those units who have weak programs and put out the "help wanted" sign seem to struggle. Strong units who recruit individuals do just fine. Similarly, I see strong programs with a track record do fine in introducing parents to the outdoors. Yet, even in those programs there are relatively few people who instantly show up with the confidence, knowledge, and experience to instantly lead outdoor activities. The successful units seem to have a knack for growing parents into leaders. I do think a District could help here. I can see a role for increased training at a district level on how to build a unit program, recruit leaders, and to take Scouts outdoors. I think this is what Roundtable was supposed to be. But, it got too caught up in process and procedure and many leaders simply bailed.

What kind of things would you suggest here? Generally though - I think the job of any level in Scouting is to make that level successful. A den leader's role is to make a den successful, a Scoutmaster a troop, a district advancement chair the district, etc. Now, it goes without saying, one of the best ways to achieve success in Scouting is to focus on the quality of the program. So, at a district level that does indeed mean that the district needs to have a concerted focus on having strong units. I think that's one of the challenges for a volunteer challenged district - how does a district team of a limited number of volunteers have a meaningful impact on unit quality?

^ This ^ For all our griping about executive salaries, this is the key point. If the CSE could end the lawsuits, could turn membership around, could grow funding, clean up trouble councils, they'd be worth 1 or 2 million a year.

Ideally yes - the nominating committee would select people of proper experience to fullfill the responsibilities of the board. Taking a step back - we have to come to grips with a governing concept for the councils. Do council board function more like a non-profit board or perhaps something else? I believe that you treat them like a non-profit board. My prior recommendations are in that regard. If I sat on the national governance committee, my recommendation would be: The council board has a clear mandate to fulfill the mission of the council. That mission needs to be clearly articulated. The board can determine it's own structure and self-nominate to fill vacancies. The stakeholders in the council (chartered organizations) should vote on the board nominees. COR cast these votes but can delegate as appropriate. A majority of CO's can demand a recall of board members. A majority of CO's can overrule decisions of the board. Because we are a volunteer driven organization, the board president serves as the "executive" chair of the council. This is a non-paying role. The Scout Executive serves on the board in a non-voting role. The Scout Executive's duties and compensation should be determined and reviewed by the board. The Scout Executive determines structure of the staff. The Scout Executive serves as the executive director of the staff. Some staff are assigned to different volunteer "executives" - Council VPs, District Chairs, etc. Those volunteers provide some duties to the assigned staff members, though they are managed by the Scout Executive. For example - it is clear that the program staff works at the overall direction of the VP of Program though day to day they report to the Scout Executive. A member of the professional staff can be allocated to assist the board. However, for the purposes of that work, the board sets those responsibilities and determines compensation. I don't think this is far off from what we do today - but I think it would clarify things quite a bit.

Touché @Cburkhardt. I think you have several very good ideas there. I very much like the new unit formation team. My belief is that the district structure as defined by the BSA is largely fine. A district is in essence the group that builds Scouting in a community. In a rural area or suburban area this might be several communities. As the group that builds Scouting, I believe the core groups in a district are essentially correct: activities - a district needs a team that puts on community wide Scouting activities - Camporees, fun days, summer events, etc. membership - a team that starts new units and encourages existing units to grow training - a team to help new leaders get going program support (aka advancement, camp promotion, etc.) - the team that helps unit solve difficult challenges they face. unit coaches - aka commissioners. These folks should be engaged month to month helping unit leaders be successful. community building team - I think of Roundtable here. To me Roundtable is very important in building a vibrant Scouting community. I believe in having a district finance team as well. Local scouters are the best people to identify and work with local businesses to raise funds for the program. The problem in the BSA isn't one of structure, it's one of execution. There is no meaningful district training. There is no leader development process. There is minimal help and support for district volunteers. I agree with you - we need to raise the stature of district roles. District teams to be thrive, grow, and be full of energy. A district should be the example that units want to emulate. I would stop the direct management of districts by professionals. Instead of taking over, a DE needs to focus on correcting structural issues in the team. DE success should in large part be measured by the efficacy of the district they serve.

Usually a board has a nominating committee who makes recommendations. In the BSA, I would propose that every COR has a vote. A COR could choose to proxy that vote to someone. That's a slight change from now as I believe that existing board members also get a vote in the current BSA rules.

Fully agree here. I am sure that it is very helpful to have people of this type on the board. I think a lot of this comes back to board credibility. I get the sense that the credibility of council boards is at a low at this point in time. Further, I think the same can be said for Scouting professionals. Reductions in programming, increases in costs, mandates on rules have developed a rift between the unit volunteers and professionals/board. The BSA needs to be paying attention to credibility here. Stacking a board with lots of disconnected, successful, high-net worth people doesn't breed confidence. 50, 75 years ago the world was different. Today, qualifications and experience matter much more.

I largely agree with you here. I generally dislike royalty myself. In clarifying the purpose and goals of the executive board, I think we'd find that there would be board committee that would develop board level knowledge in specific areas. I think those area would largely mirror what we see in district & council committees. You'd have: staff oversight strategy program finance & fundraising membership Generally, I think Scouting experience would be a benefit in these roles. For some it would be essential. For example, the strategy & program committees should consist of those most familiar with the BSA. Staff oversight should probably consist of those people who interact with the staff the most - district & unit key three leaders. Membership would fall somewhere in the middle - people who know why kids join scouting, but also are aware of how to market the organization. The finance & fundraising committee could consist of those people with less experience. But again, we need to let the needs of the roles drive the experience. Just as I dislike royalty, so too do I disagree that this is a tenure system. You don't serve for 20 years and get a seat on the board.

Ok - just curious. Did our National Commissioner say something about this? I looked online, but didn't see anything

It's certainly natural for national to want control over the SEs. National is trying to accomplish certain things and having SEs in councils who largely are in line has it's benefits. But, it's really not good for national. Stronger, independent SEs are ultimately going to deliver better results for national.

An executive board should be the group that understands the purpose of a council, translates the purpose into specific goals, determines high level policies, creates the high level structure, and selects key leaders. My understanding is that the executive board is analogous to a board of directors in a public company. Membership in the executive board should be dictated by who has the skills to do that work. Stacking it with a bunch of high level potentates who are disconnected from Scouting isn't helpful. You could have the CEO of a fortune 100 company in your council - but if he's just going to come to meetings, approve a few motions, and not otherwise be engaged, we should find someone else. Similarly, stacking it with a bunch of folks who understand Scouting, but can't translate it into board level activity isn't helpful either. So, we need to be on the lookout for people with the right combination of specific skills to make a council board successful. In terms on composition and size - you want a board big enough to get the work done, yet not too big so that it bogs down. Of course, big boards can work with proper structure. But in a council setting, it's not necessary. .From a governance perspective, we need to follow the trend in business. Employees (SEs & National) should not have significant influence on board membership. It makes sense that the exec board be chosen by the CORs or their designee. I would be fine if a COR were to designate a CC to vote on their behalf.

Our council camp is 90 minutes from here and in the middle of nowhere. Our council service center is 5 minutes off the highway and within a 30 minute drive of over a million people. I don't go that often - maybe once a quarter. But, it's nice that it's not at camp. I rarely talk to the office staff - doubt they even would know who I am if I was there anyways. But, I do like to stop by the Scout Shop when I need something. I'd hate if I had to do it all online. I hate online shopping.

So, when I was thinking about this, that was my first thought too. No-one really cares where you attend programming. But, the more I thought about it I realized that this is really just the case because of our monopoly system. Say that Atlanta charges the $60 a year per scout national allows. Denver charges $5. Atlanta may be using some of those funds to really fund program. Is it then really equitable to partake in Atlanta's programming? Today, joining that other council isn't a choice and so the odd unit out of council the attends is just a bonus for headcount. But, if that became the norm - I think people would start looking at it differently.

Hah! Yeah, count me in for that one. That's one way to drive up COR involvement!

Free market competition for units. I'm trying to understand how this would work. A unit based in Atlanta could join a council based in Denver because they preferred the service and the camps. It's an absurd distance - but it makes the what if clearer to me. What that would mean: CSP for the Atlanta troop would be from Denver Awards & uniforms could still be bought from the local Atlanta scout shop. It's just money to the store. Advancement reports have to be done through Denver Camporees would be in Denver Roundtables would be in Denver adult training would be in Denver Scouters would volunteer in Denver to assist with District/Council work There would be no Atlanta support for membership activities for the Denver aligned unit. In fact, the Atlanta based district would probably try to steer new scouts away from the unit aligned with Denver. Eagle board would be held in Denver Eagle banquets attended in Denver OA lodge membership & activities in Denver Sure - I suppose this would work. What I'd do if I were a council board in some small council is fire most of my staff and create an online only, minimal service council with tiny fees. We'll process apps, advancement reports, do Eagle Boards online. No camporees, OA, no districts, no training, no summer camp, etc... Drive for a youth membership of 100,000 Scouts with a staff of 10 people - in essence a national council.

@Eagle94-A1 In the spirits of @Cburkhardt's topic. Some comments in regards to your last post. I think you may be in the worst council in the country. For councils to survive the upcoming re-org, they are going to have to rely even more on volunteers. Between district and council volunteers, we probably have 200 people volunteering in significant ways in our council. Add in key units and the number is probably 500 volunteers in major roles. I believe there are just over 20 professionals. No way those 20 people could run an entire council. SImilarly, in our key units and district roles, you have decades of Scouting experience and serious non-Scouting professional experience. A DE has 10-15 years experience. That's not to knock DEs - not at all. But to walk away from all of those skills and knowledge is absurd. Smart councils already recognize this. Coming out of the re-org, smart councils will not wholly cut back on programming. In turn, there should be a renewed focus on engaging volunteers in these roles. If I were the council president or district chair in your council I'd be organizing a volunteer engagement summit. Maybe districts have to combine, maybe you have to work in teams - I'm not sure. But, you'd build functional teams to go tackle these problems.

This topic is a good example of the problems that councils have to come to grips with. It is not clear who a councils "customers" are and who they need to demonstrate value to. A councils customers are different from it's governance structure. National, Council boards, CORs they provide the guidance in how services as delivered, but they are not the customers. For a long time, a council's customers were donors. The council needed to demonstrate they were doing work to make Scouting prosper in the community so that more donations could be collected and fund the council for another year. They were selling the promise and delivery of Scouting in the community. They delivered the program in the way they beat thought possible to make Scouting thrive. Usually this aligned with focusing on units - but not always. Now, councils are starting to look to parents for funding. This makes parents the customers. This is a new dynamic- one that requires a different value proposition - one that is most probably focused on program delivery to Scouts and units. The problem is that today we are often now compelling people to pay, but not delivering and articulating the value. This leads to terms like freeloader and unit tax. I believe that successful councils will adjust by: - communicating better so that everyone knows what they are doing - increasing programming options - increased focus on utilizing council facilities by units - renewed focus on membership so that there are more scouta to collect fees from. - improvements in efficiency to reduce the cost of business - examination of the personnel costs to the council and a push to extract more value from their expenses. I think councils that start cutting back will im turn be the ones that struggle.

I think you treat this at face value. We are here to serve the Scouts. If a Scout calls you up and says he'd like to visit your troop and even join, you tell him the time and place and welcome him. While I understand the feeling that you should tell the other Scoutmaster, I would suggest that you do not. This is not a situation where you actively pursued the Scout. As such, a change of troop is hard enough. If you tell the Scoutmaster, that may result in added pressure on the Scout. This is the Scout's journey and it's the Scouts choice who to tell and when. Now, after the Scout joins your troop there is nothing wrong with a courtesy call to the Scoutmaster to let them know. At that time, if you learn something as a Scouter you can certainly pass it along - that is assuming it was not shared in confidence or you were asked not to share it. Discretion is important here. I'm reminded in this discussion that retention does not lead to a healthy troop. Strong program and recruiting lead to a healthy troop. Retention is a byproduct of a strong program. But, even the best troops lose Scouts. Troops are all different just as Scouts are all different. Better for the Scout to stay in Scouting in a troop they love.

I suspect that FOS days are numbered. National set a rule that a council can charge for a service fee at $60 per scout. Coming out of the re-org, I am sure many councils will assess this. For councils it will be critically important that they can justify this fee to families. For the sake of discussion, let's agree that a council exists to support the units and the scouts. What value & services do you see that your council brings for this money? What value & services do you think that your council should bring for this money? Coming out of the re-org it seems very appropriate for councils to be thinking about the value they bring to Scouting. In the spirit of @Cburkhardt's topic - let keep this discussion dispassionate.