FOS

[AnnLaurelB]

I get why FOS is important; I really do.

 

But... the two presentations I've suffered-I-mean-sat through were annoying at best. If you WANT something from people, shouldn't you ... I dunno ... be CHARMING or something?

 

Funny? Creative? Bring presents? Show slides? ANYTHING!

 

Anything but calllll ouuuut Scout naaaaames and haaaaaand the aduuuult a paaaaaper. If you want people to cough up, you really need to do a song and dance.

 

Maybe LITERALLY. Anyone else experience the, "WHEN is this STRANGER gonna stop TALKING?" thing?

[The Blancmange]

 

Funny? Creative? Bring presents? Show slides? ANYTHING!

All excellent ideas! I think your district has a volunteer to chair next year's FOS campaign. :-)

[AnnLaurelB]

*heads for the hills*

[SeattlePioneer]

Ann Laurel---

 

 

And e-mail your District Executive or District FOS Chair and let them know. They WANT good presentations, but they may not know if that's not happening.

 

 

 

 

[packsaddle]

At least yours was merely boring. We had one that was downright toxic. That was the end of subjecting families to DE speeches.

[jamist649]

Our presentations have been awful too. Over the past few years, we've had one extreme to the other on these things. Everything from "Poor little low income Scouts..." to "We need a new roof on the dining hall at camp..." to "Ya'll don't pay hardly anything for this wonderful program" I really loved that last one (as a leader). Oh yeah? I don't "pay anything"? How much is my time/gasoline/paper/toner/donations/uniforms/popcorn/etc...worth?

 

Sorry for the negative tone, but we recently had our annual FOS presentation at our Blue/Gold. The presenter was drier than a desert and spoke so softly *I* couldn't even tell what he was talking about. A few days after this event, our DE called me and was all snotty: "We didn't get ONE PLEDGE from your group!" Uhh, sorry dude..but I'm thinking you should have seen that coming when you sent the Ben Stien wannabe to do it.

 

 

[SeattlePioneer]

Hello Jamist,

 

 

I hope you explained that the FOS presenter did a poor job.

 

 

You might consider finding someone in your unit to make the FOS presentation who could do a better job, and perhaps to serve on the district FOS committee to help make presentations to other units.

 

I had one dud presentation where I got one donation. I was distracted by other activities and just did a poor job.

 

I confessed that to my DE who attended a later unit meeting and did far better.

 

My DE does a very good job. But the best presentation I've ever seen was done by our Council Executive, who did a masterful presentation at our council FOS training meeting. He was REALLY good --- I was looking around for my check book!

[AnnLaurelB]

Our Scout Exec was supposed to come, but at the last minute he sent someone else in his stead. She was nice and all, but NO ONE had ever seen her before (I think that's part of the problem--the parents are like, "Who are you, again?" It's sort of *detached*.

 

Now, I'm no fundraiser, myself. But if she was gonna tackle this task, she needed to ask herself "WHY would I give this person money?!?", and perform accordingly.

 

I'm just kind of relieved to learn that we weren't the only ones who didn't get a lot of pledges (actually, she didn't tell me what, if any, we got).

 

I was *extra* annoyed that she insisted on making ME *stop what I was doing* and force the paper with my son's name into my hand. I'm like, "Lady, I have 60 people in this hall, looking to ME to M.C. this dog-and-pony. Can you just set it at my place? I can't do this right now."

 

Okay, I didn't say that. I folded it, put it in my uniform pocket, forgot about it, washed it, and never thought of it again. I bet you that's what happened to a lot of those papers!

 

And if she'd been ANY kind of compelling, that wouldn't have happened as much.

[moosetracker]

Since now I primarily volunteer at district I fear the day they ask me to do some of the FOS.. They didn't ask this year, I was greatful.. I do not think I will be good at it. Maybe they just know I would not be good, and will not ask.. One can only hope..

[AnnLaurelB]

I think anyone who has to get up and do FOS presentations HAS to ask themselves what would move THEMSELVES to scramble for that checkbook.

 

Easier said than done, of course.

[Scoutfish]

You guys ( and gals) want to hear something amazing?

 

I have never been to, seen or even heard of FOS presentations until this website!

 

Our DE devotes an entire RT meeting to popcorn, and we have a Popcorn preview in about...uh oh. Last week!

 

Maybe it's done on the council lever to people whos names are on some sort of high income $$ list. WE do have some very affluent neighbors hoods all around our Council offices. I mean 5 mil for a house in a gated community , affluent. Of course, we are on the coast so there are a good many people who have exclusive high $$ vacation homes aside from their regular homes.

 

I don't know.

 

I do know that in the 3 years I have been in scouting, not once has the DE ever asked us about a FOS presentation.

 

Maybe we just do that good with our popcorn? Nah, that can't be it.

[BS-87]

Scoutfish, if memory serves me correctly...

 

Your council does not do an FOS campaign. Which may shock many people here.

 

Instead you have a series of community luncheons and other events called Investment in Character or something along those lines.

 

Still the same thing, minus unit presentations... I personally think they're missing out by not giving your units the opportunity to see a presentation on how they can directly support Scouting in your Council...

[packsaddle]

All any of the councils need to do is to put it all online. There are so many ways to do this it pains me to know how little BSA seems to know how to do it.

Make a really good, effective pitch. Post it on youtube or even the main websites. Then let the people decide on their own instead of using them as a captive audience. They might even pick up some $$$ from non-scout-family sources...now THERE'S an idea!

 

There IS that problem of the really good, effective pitch. Might need to work on that a bit. Probably don't want to see the CSE waddling up to the microphone, for example. This is where that Mike guy would really shine. Hello, hello, any neurons still firing in Irving???

[Twocubdad]

BS-87 -- you seem to have a unique point of view in all this, especially relating to FOS. Just curious, do you mind sharing your primary role in Scouting with the group?

[BS-87]

packsaddle-

 

When you're doing a boy talk at a school, would you rather have a captive audience or do you think sending the boys' teachers some emails letting them know there's a really great recruiting video on your website?