What Does Your District Most Need To Do?

[SeattlePioneer]

I am fortunate to be a Scouter in an exceptionally fine District. It has excellent District officers and a teerrific District Directo who supervises an additional staff member who is DE ---so we have two paid staffers.

 

We have some excellent District events around the year.

 

I don't have a lot of contact with the Council, but they seem to be doing a good job too. (Chief Seattle Council, Seattle).

 

But from what I hear, not everyone is so blessed.

 

What would you most like to see change in your district or council, and what would you most like to see them do?

 

 

 

Seattle Pioneer

[Eamonn]

I really do believe that I am the District and I am the Council. Not by myself and I don't view myself as being a VIP and hope that I don't have any ideas of seeing myself as being anything grand.

I do sit on the Council Executive Board and have been a member of the District Key 3 for about nine years. As such I do take responsibility for the shape the District is in and have voted on things that will have long lasting effects on Scouting in our area. I hope and pray that I have made the right decisions and I have served both the District and Council well.

We have a very talented board, with people who have strong Scouting backgrounds as well as people who have backgrounds in finance and management.

The Council is small with 10,600 members and something like 90 Boy Scout Troops. We have a Scout Executive who is eligible for promotion and has been looking to move. I'm unsure if he has been with us for five or six years. Our Field Director is new to the position and only joined us last November. The Program Director is a very close and dear friend of mine. He was the Assistant Scout Exec. but due to a reshuffle he was faced with the choice of moving or being demoted. He has been with the BSA for about 30 years and apart from a brief time in New Jersey (He was here then there and came back) he has been with us. We have 4 DE's. One Lady has been the DE of the same District for about 9 years she is a Senior DE, we have another Senior DE who has been with us for about 5 years. A DE with 3 years service and the new DE who serves our District.

Many of the office staff have been with us for a very long time, but for some reason we don't seem able to keep a bookkeeper. I think the reason being that we don't pay enough.

The District I serve was the smallest District and just before I came on board as District Commissioner was faced with being done away with. At that time we hired a new DE and brought back a District Chairman, who had in the past done a good job. We were told in no uncertain terms that if we didn't turn the District around and show that we could bring home membership and money that we would be gone.

The District has made Quality District more times than any other District in the past 9 years not making it twice. We are no longer the smallest District and are have by far the best community FOS campaign in the Council.

We were a Quality District in 2004, but this year have seen a Troop, a Pack and 4 Crews not recharter. Last year we had no dropped units. One crew moved to another District. The others were tied to Troops and never really made the cut from the Troop and the Crew members just lost interest.

I think that I am a very traditional Scouter. I am not in favor of innovative or out of the box thinking.To my thinking Packs have Dens that meet weekly and come together once a month for Pack meetings, they are chartered by Organizations that want to charter them. These Packs that meet once a year do a craft and return a year later are not in my view packs.

I really think if we (Pros) were to put as much effort into getting out into the community and starting real units that do real Scouting, we would be a lot further ahead than we are waiting till November and rushing to start these Mickey Mouse units. So far we have not allowed or got any of these units in the District I serve in part I think because everyone knows my thinking and understand that at times I can be a real pain.

I of course would love to see the day when we are the biggest District and don't have to work as hard at bringing in the funds that we need to meet our goals.

I hope that in light of the scandals we seen this year in other Councils that National takes a long hard look at how Professionals are promoted and the requirements for Quality Council.

I am very concerned that we do not seem to be able to keep adults in the program with the same level of commitment that we used too.

I fear that many of the new leaders we have do not have the Scoutcraft skills that leaders of the past had and these skills will be lost and gone forever. Which will hurt the program that is offered to our Scouts.

Eamonn.

[dsteele]

I want to see our district become one where every hand is outstretched in a warm handshake to everyone who has an interest in seeing Scouting grow and advance within our limited geographic terroritory.

 

I want to see it become one where everyone feels a duty-bound sense of honor to futhrer Scouting in every sense of the word -- financially, through membership growth, through strenghening current units, to maintaining standards.

 

In short, I want us to continue to be the quality district we earned last year. Due to council redistricting, it was actually the first year in our district's history. So it also happened to be our first year of quality district.

 

I want that to continue to be the standard of program we offer to our youth. Other opinions may differ on what the requirements for Quality District should be . . . but our district (I hope) will always meet whatever the national standards are. They are set by smarter people than us . . . and by meeting them, we lay the framework for a quality program for every youth we serve.

 

 

Okay ... if someone will loan me a step-ladder I can climb off this soap box now

 

Unc.

[Eamonn]

Hey Unc,

If you need a hand getting down, it would be my pleasure.

As I read your posting I was reminded of my Mother. She loved to knit and was very good at it. Most nights she could be found in front of the telly clicking away knitting sweaters and jumpers, most of which were for her little Eamonn.

Her telly watching led to her having opinions on different people and things.

She loved the Beatles and Paul McCartney, didn't like the Rolling Stones and really didn't like Mick.

For a while there were 3 guys from Ireland who were big. The Bachelors, they were very clean cut and dressed and of course coming from Ireland meant that they could do no wrong in her eyes.

A couple of years back OJ was chosen to sing a solo at the HS Chorale concert, it turned out to one of the songs that had been one of the Bachelors biggest hits in the UK.

As I say you brought this to mind and I thought I would share it with you.

 

"I Believe"

 

I believe for every drop of rain that falls

A flower grows,

I believe that somewhere in the darkest night

A candle glows.

I believe for everyone who goes astray

Someone will come to show the way.

I believe,

Oh, I believe.

I believe above the storm

The smallest prayer, will still be heard.

I believe that someone in that great somewhere

Hears every word

Every time I hear a newborn baby cry,

Or touch a leaf

Or see the sky,

Then I know why I believe.

Every time I hear a newborn baby cry,

Or touch a leaf

Or see the sky,

Then I know why I believe.

OJ, did a wonderful job with his solo and I sat in the audience remembering my Mum watching them knitting away.

I think that we do want and expect more for our Councils and Districts and while we do have the odd gripe, moan and groan there is still a spirit of optimism, if there wasn't we would have quit and given up a long time back.

Having said that I know that the time has come to hand the District over to new people, people with fresh eyes, new ideas and strong hearts.

I don't blame any of the failures that we have had as a District on the Council or lay blame at the feet of National, we failed because we messed up, at times due to my complacency, my lack of planning and my poor communication. When we succeeded we did so because we united behind a common goal. The goal wasn't Quality District which was a byproduct, we seen the need for membership not because of numbers, but because we knew behind each new face there was a smile and that the good people who serve in the units could make a difference in the life of this new member.

Every year I take our Community FOS Leaders up to eat summer at camp and give them a tour of the camp so they can see where the money they helped raise is being spent. These people also believe that what they do does make a difference in the lives of the young people in the communities from which they come.

If the time ever comes when we all stop believing, that will be the time when there is no BSA, be no Council and no District. I believe that day will never come.

Eamonn

[dsteele]

Amen, Eamonn.

 

Unc.

[madkins007]

Learn to be a better go-between between national/Council and the units. About all we hear from District is that we need to raise/pay more money, get more Scouts, do more paperwork, etc., etc., etc. Recruting Night, Popcorn Sales, FOS pitch, summer camp (in your own council, please!), etc.

 

We all know that if we offer a strong program, our units will grow. If our units grow, the Council grows- and I wish the District would talk to us about it like that. It usually comes off as an 'add boys at all costs!' message that sounds more mercenary than helpful.

 

In our district, at least, they also need to get better at being able to answer a few basic questions well.

 

At one time, I was talking to our DE and he was pressing me about FOS. Now- in the THREE previous years, we bent over backwards to accomodate this program and yet no one EVER came over to do the pitch and it was sorta bugging me.

 

So, I told him that since he was short handed for that, I'd do it myself but I need to know what to tell the parents the money was for- why should CUB SCOUT parents support the district? What did it do for them?

 

Well, he started to list the reasons-

 

Training. Nope- I was the CS training chair at the time and the District AND the Council helped me not at all- in fact, they put up barriers and REQUIRED me to take in more money than I needed to give them a cut (which REALLY stuck in my craw! We USED to be able to do free training with a few donations to cover coffee and copying.)

 

Summer camp- Our CS camp was in deplorable condition and the BS camp was sparkling new. The CS camp director was really hot over a lot of this sort of thing and laughed when I told her about this answer. Our council also did not offer camperships for CS camping.

 

Salaries and Overhead- He did not really have a good answer when I asked what the paid Scouters in the area did for *my unit* to justify the pay. No paid pro had ever been to one of our meetings and I know they don't put in a ton of time locally on the CS program (whether they SHOULD is a different discussion!)

 

Uniform bank- This was stretching it! The 'bank' uses donated uniforms, is not available for Cubs locally, and even the Boy Scouts can only get them if they are in a certain district. It is also almost totally run by volunteers.

 

District and Council-wide Cub events- I KNOW volunteers set up most of the programs, they certainly RUN them! When I asked for specifics that the paid staff set up or ran, he hemmed and hawwed.

 

Now- I am a big fan of the BSA being lean and mean when it comes to paid staff, but I know they serve vital roles. I just wish this guy could have answered this basic question better.

 

 

[SeattlePioneer]

Hello, Madkins!

 

I can appreciate your frustrations with your district. Too much of that would probably bug me, too.

 

In reading through your post, though, it sounds like your district and council is aiming to do a good job. For example, while your Cub Scout camp is worn down, the Scout Camp has just been rebuilt: that suggests that money is being spent for good purposes, but that there isn't enough to do everything at once.

 

Are you involved much at the district level? If you are active at that level, you'll soon learn either good or poor answers to many of the questions you pose. Volunteers talk about weaknesses they see.

 

Perhaps you could volunteer to help plan the Cub Scout Daycamp, be a Unit Commissioner or help with the Friends of Scouting campaign. I'll bet that all of these could use some help.

 

I have a Troop Commmittee Chair who has some feuds going with the District. He felt the Troop was being nitpicked when it didn't get free rank awards after meeting MOST of the requirements for getting the freebies. Similarly, the SM's employer was/is willing to make a $1,000 or so donation, but the CC wanted Friends of Scouting to rebate much of that for the use of the Troop, and was peeved when the District refused to do so. He's now trying to get this donated to the church/Chartered Organization and get a rebate from them.

 

Well, it's fine with me if he can get rebates like that, but I think his anger toward the district is misplaced.

 

As someone quite involved with the district, I recognize that we are fortunate to have an excellent organization, while the CC sees mostly negatives based on his limited experience.

 

 

 

Seattle Pioneer

[madkins007]

Seattle- not only was I on Roundtable staff and Training, I was also an employee of the district for some time.

 

Our Boy Scout camp IS great, but the question was asked form the point of view of Cub Scout parents, and the formerly beautiful camp used by Cubs has not had a lot fo money put into it since I was a youth and camped there. Many of our parents who went out to CS camp were shocked by the condition.

 

As an employee, I learned about a lot of things that happened that both shocked me silly (or infuriated me) and impressed the daylights out of me- about what you'd find in most any business, I guess.

 

I am just frustrated that the paid pro who most needs to be able to answer the question used weasel answers instead of having solid info.

 

I have worked with some truely wonderful DEs who performed miracles on their rather pitiable pay, but a lot of them were... well, I'm sure every council has a few that are not to that standard!

[CNYScouter]

Over the last few months I have become more active at the district and council levels and have discover a few things about my district that I would like to see changed.

 

Our council has five districts and the one I am in covers the only major city in the council and has the biggest population base but it is not the biggest in number of Scouts (2nd).

This district has the least number of Venturing Crews in the council (3 are listed but only one is active), has lost the greatest number of Cub Packs over the last few years and of the 30 or so traditional Troops about half have less than 12 scouts and are on the verge of folding.

 

Our roundtable is one of the worst attended with often less than 40 people in attendance while some of the smaller districts are routinely drawing 200+. I no longer attend roundtable because of this. I talked with one of the RCs and told him that the reason I stopped coming to roundtable is that I thought they were terrible. Every month they teach a MB. Any type of training has been eliminated as no one attended. The RC agreed with me but he was outvoted by the rest of the roundtable staff when he disagreed with the topics.

 

At council training sessions, even though most of the people in charge are from my district we have the least amount of people taking training. At the SM training I just completed our district, out of 40 participants and 20+ staffers, had only 2 people on staff and 2 people in the course. I was told this was typical representation of our district at most Training. Wood badge is the same way. We have many long-term Scouters on Staff, but very few new leaders are taking the course.

 

IMHO, This is the core of our districts problems. We have a group of old timers who sit on the District Committee, Advancement Committee, Camporee plannng and Roundtable staff. To become one of these you must have been in scouting 20 years.

They run the district. How do you get on one of these committees? Become an old timer. I found that the other districts have a good mix of old and new blood that keep things fresh.

 

On my own I took Roundtable Commissioner training and sat with our District Trainer, our new DC and the districts old DC (who know is our Council Commissioner). They all asked if I was interested in being a RC and said that I would be willing to help.

I put together a high adventure presentation for my Troop and was asked if I would give this at roundtable, in which I said I would be happy to just let me know when and I was never contacted again.

I think this old boy network needs to be infused with new blood to turn things around.

And they wonder why Scouting is struggling in this area.

 

 

[SeattlePioneer]

Hello, CNY Scouter,

 

 

Wow, you had me cheering when you said you'd taken the initiative to get training in how to conduct a Roundtable, and then been asked to make a presentation!

 

But you can't give up just because someone dropped the ball. Talk to the District Commissioner again and find out when you get make your presentation.

 

And I'd start looking for names of the "young blood" you'd like to see filling more district positions, and feeding those names to your District Committee Chair. And follow up on those suggested appointments at District meetings, if need be.

 

 

Again, I have to say I'm lucky, lucky, lucky. The dicstrict officer in my district are anxious to recruit ne people, and Unit Commissioners are polled each month for name to suggest. I'm afraid I haven't had any to contribute, and few others have either. But the District officers and DE are beating the bushes. Last year, they recruited me!

 

 

Seattle Pioneer

[dkurtenbach]

What our district most needs to do is get away from the "key person" style of operations. This is where responsibilities (such as a camporee, or Join Scouting Night) are assigned to one individual, who is then responsible for going out and finding the people and resources needed, doing the planning, and carring out the activity. Now, on occasion, it works -- the key person has the skill to corral enough volunteers and find the resources to get it done. But very often, the key person ends up unable to get help until the very last minute, and ends up doing or trying to do everything him/herself. In addition to poorly executed activities, the poor key person gets burned out (and then abused when the activity doesn't come off well). The "key person" style can work very well in business or the military where the key person has the authority to command people and resources. But volunteers need to have committees of like-minded folks ready to take on responsibilities as a group. The real weakness in the system is laziness in recruiting -- stopping when a "chairman" is found, rather than getting entire committees in place. That's where a strong Nominating Committee is vital, as well as a commitment to focus on the district "infrastructure," not just district operations.

 

Dan

 

[CNYScouter]

Hi SeattlePioneer

 

I try to do some type of training each year. It just happen that last year I could not attend Pow Wow and the WEBELOS training I wanted to take was canceled and the Commissioners College was being held less than 5 miles from my house so I decided to attend. I had been hearing that they were looking for ways to approve roundtable and I also was curious has what exactly a UC did with a unit as I had never meet ours.

 

My feeling about tracking down the DC and finding out about the presentation is that I I dont have the time to spent in trying to make this happen. I have made the offer to do it. As also being a ASM and the CC of a Cub Pack, if they are not interested I have plenty of scouting things to do to keep busy.

 

This is one of the issues I see with our district. At a previous roundtable it was announced that the RCs did not have to do the presentation themselves, all they had to do was arrange something. However, this has not happened and they are doing all topics by themselves. I get the feeling that most of these old timers have an elite club (which they do) to run things and do not want to let new people in.

 

I just left a Troop that the SM was one of these old-timers. He was the Troops acting UC (wasnt one, he told council that we didnt need one), COR (not in name, but he was the representative), and made all decisions for the Troop by himself. (Troop Committee was in name only) He was on the District Committee, the District Advancement Committee, the Membership Committee, a Roundtable Commissioner (and went to roundtable for the troop). The Troop never attended district or Council events. No other leaders had anything to do with anything at district or council level, even the 2 ASM's who had been there 30+ years.

In this Troop there hadnt been an adult leader that took any type of training in over 8 years. When I took it on myself to attend SM training I was actually openly discouraged from attending as I should have been spending the time taking the troop camping. I found that a lot of the troops that these old-timers were in were run in a similar manner.

 

Not all is lost though, I got a call to be a Regent for our councils Scouting University in the Fall. I have been working to select and develop courses for this. We have been doing a Pow Wow each year but it mostly for the Cub Scout level. The ScU will be for all levels of scouting, including Explorers and Learning for Life. I figured if they dont want to use me at the District Level, Ill do something at the council level.

 

I wanted to take the Trainers Development Course, but that was canceled this year also. I was told that I would have to go to another council for this as no one has signed up for this training in our council 3 years in a row.

 

I have signed up for Wood Badge training for Aug. and Sept. and I am really looking forward to this.

 

CNYScouter

[SeattlePioneer]

Hello, DK!

 

 

Very interesting post on the weaknesses of appointing one person to do a complicated task with the expectation that he will be able to recruit the additional help he needs to do the job properly.

 

Interesting, because I've just been made the "Key person" in charge of a task like that. It's a position I turned down six months ago, but recently found I'd been appointed to when my name appeared as Membership Committee Chair in the program at the District Recognition Dinner!

 

Actually, that was a great introduction in how to recruit the help you need! Judging from some of the comments at the District Recognition Dinner, the DE is an ARTIST in recruiting himself the help he needs to get things done.

 

My reaction has been to recognize that I have two choices: do everything myself or use pretty much the same methods to get other people to help me. I'm going to try to choose option #2.

 

The DE did give me the names of a couple of people who may be willing to help me, and I'll contact them. I also have three names from the Cub Pack I work with of parents who need to be helping us out. So if I can do the job of being a District level leader, I will be able to recruit people from the grass roots of Scouting and put them to work doing District level kinds of work. This could be good for them and good for the District, too.

 

That's not to say it's comfortable to put people in that position. I'm not comfortable, and it's a large part of the reason why I turned the DE down when he asked me to do it. But I'll do my best and give it a try. If I fail, I'll probably be off the hook in the future. Unfortunately, if I succeed......

 

 

 

Seattle Pioneer

[dkurtenbach]

SP, congratulations on your new position! Membership is incredibly important, so obviously the DE was being very selective about who he was going to volunteer for the job.

 

Since your DE is such a great recruiter, I suggest you use those skills -- and give him a little payback -- while avoiding the pitfalls of being the "key person." Tell him you won't be making any moves as Membership Chair until you have a good, solid committee behind you, say, five people. Tell him to let you know once that is taken care of, so you and the new committee can start thinking about Join Scouting Night. Then ask him to list the resources that Council (through the DE) and the District Committee will provide for your use -- flyers (Council), placing articles in local newspapers (District Marketing/Community Relations Committee), displays or activities to draw people in (District Program Committee).

 

In the meantime, of course, do your own recruiting. But make it clear that Membership is not YOUR job, it is the job of the Membership Committee. And make it clear that pulling in the people power and other resources necessary to do the work of the Membership Committee is not YOUR job, it is the job of the District Committee and the Nominating Committee.

 

Best of luck!

 

Dan

[SeattlePioneer]

Thank you for the encouraging words, dkurtenbach.

 

Unfortunately, I don't think it's reasonable to throw the burden of recruiting staffers back to the DE. He thre it to me to get rid of some responsibility!

 

I have no experience doing this kind of leadership job, and I've tended to be the do-it-all-yourself kind of leader because I wasn't comfortable putting the arm on people to get them to do things I wanted them to do.

 

But I have to recognize that doing it all yourself is a poor way to do things, for obvious reasons.

 

Among the things Scouting needs the most are people who can get other people to do things --- get boys to joijn Scouting. Get adults to help with program and activities. These things are the key to renewing Scouting all the time.

 

As I noted, my DE did give m,e the names of a couple of people to pitch to help me. He also suggested that I find some people in the Pack for which I'm Unit Commissioner to help me out.

 

I'm doing exactly that. If I succeed, there will be some new people exposed to District level activities and programs, and people with new Scouting leadership experience. Surely that's better than depending on the DE to flog a couple of "regulars" to do yet another chore.

 

Besides, if a Membership Chair who is responsible for recruiting new people can't recruit some people to help him, he's probably not suited for the job, don't you think?

 

I saw a training program in a catalog for national Scout training once --- it was titled "Working Through Volunteers" or something like that. As I recall, it as about just this kind of thing, delegating reasonably complicated responsibilities to new people who would be expected to make some significant part of the resources they would need to do the job. If my foggy memory is correct, this is one of the methods Scouting teaches people in order to get things done.

 

That's pretty much true on the unit level, too. Leaders there are encouraged to identify the best person for a job that needs to be done and then find methods to get that person to do the job. Same thing, pretty much.

 

That's the theory I'm working with right now, anyway. With this theory, I don't have to feel sorry for myself!

 

 

 

Seattle Pioneer