Thinking out of the box

[eisely]

Right now BSA is pretty rigid about where a unit gets its charter. Council boundaries are established by BSA national and those boundaries tell you where you get your charter.

 

What would happen if this restriction were lifted and councils had to compete for units? Competition is messy and chaotic but the end result, at least in that part of our lives governed by purely economic considerations, is fundamentally better than a tightly controlled system will provide. Should this logic be extended to scouting?

[Eamonn]

Maybe on the flip side of the coin.

Councils would have the choice of not taking units that they might not want?

Ea.

[OldGreyEagle]

"Councils would have the choice of not taking units that they might not want?"

 

Gee, if you do that and capitalism being what it is, then one would expect a Rogue Council to be developed to service all the rogue units that no other Council wants. Now those Council Committee meetings would be fun.

[GernBlansten]

Or removing the geographic exclusiveness of councils. Allow multiple councils to compete for the units, just like multiple units compete for scouts.

[CA_Scouter]

How would this 'deliver the Promise'?

 

 

sounds like adult shenanigans to me...

 

 

[Oak Tree]

Actually, I like the idea.

 

In the old days, stores had some geographic monopoly. If there wasn't an REI near you, you might have to make do with gear from Walmart. But since the internet came along, now you can buy from REI no matter where you are in the country. Maybe the same thing could work for councils.

 

People could say that they are part of the "BSA.org" council. They submit all their advancement forms over the internet. Recharter on-line. Buy stuff from Scoutstuff.org (you'd need to enhance the current function to allow you to buy anything you can get at a council office). You could get all your FOS materials on-line or through the mail. Training could be done on-line - either self-paced or in a virtual classroom. Tour permits could be on-line.

 

Now, there are a few things that are normally very geography-specific, and it's not clear how easy it would be to move all of those to an on-line model.

- District and council events

- Camporee

- Klondike Derby

- Recruitment days

- OA Ordeal

- Personal meetings of the DE with new units

- Some checks and balances on units not getting completely out of control

 

I think you'd still need to have local professionals - not so much the office help, because that can mostly be automated, but the professionals to run things that need to happen locally.

 

And you'd end up missing out on some of the values of local knowledge and connections. And if you start to recreate some of the ways to make those things happen, then you are at least partially recreating the council.

 

The part I struggle with the most in this new model is the question of why you would decide to pick BSA.org over your current council. Normally you choose based on better service or cheaper prices. But it costs nothing (officially) to be part of a council. And whatever on-line services you get from the internet council, you can probably get the same on-line services from your own council. I guess it would be this: you'd get a 1-800 number that you could call for help. There could be people there 24 hours a day. That service would certainly be an improvement over my current council office.

 

Anyway, it would be an interesting experiment. Maybe National could sign up 100 packs and troops for the first internet council and see how it goes.

[Bob White]

This would benefit the BSA how?

[Oak Tree]

How would it benefit the BSA? Better service for the units. Happier units, more retention. Who knows? Less cost of providing service. Better record-keeping.

 

There was an argument that Barnes & Noble shouldn't open an internet store, because it would just cannibalize the sales at their existing brick and mortar stores. Clearly, that argument didn't win the day. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that their internet store has been a success and isn't going to be closed down anytime soon. They've even integrated the two units - you can order stuff on-line and pick it up at the store.

 

I realize the BSA model isn't exactly the same. I haven't done an MBA market analysis study on the topic. I'm just saying, that off the top of my head, this sounds like a reasonable exercise and an interesting experiment.

[Bob White]

if a unit from outside my council service are joins our council, we would have no support structure or volunteers inside their community to serve them, how does this allow for better service to units?

 

If I belong to a council that my community is not a part of and I support that councils fundraisiong efforts, how does my community benefit?

[GernBlansten]

Take the analogy of a two troop town and apply it to councils.

Troop A has been around along time. Gets complacent and doesn't meet the needs of the scouts. Troop B is new and energetic. Scouts start flocking to Troop B. Troop A evaluates its program and begins to rebuild. Both Troops benefit, the scouts benefit and BSA benefits.

 

Council A gets complacent and doesn't meet the needs of the units. Council B (same geographic area) is new and energetic. Units start flocking to Council B. Council A evaluates its service and begins to rebuild. Both Councils benefit, the units benefit and BSA benefits.

[Gold Winger]

Bob, this is what is called a 'wild idea' One that may be difficult or nearly impossible to implement but entertaining to discuss.

 

Sometimes wild ideas bear fruit such as the United States or microwave pizza.

 

Actually, some countries a similar idea going with their competing Scouting organizations. If you don't like group A, you can join group B. The big problem with implementing it now in America is that BSA has too much inertia.

[evmori]

This isn't a bad idea. Just one that would take some time to think through.

 

Maybe leave the Councils alone & eliminate the boundaries from the Districts? That way there is some local muckity mucks to sorta keep a handle on things.

 

Camporees could be done by Council instead of District. There could be four in a given month & the size could be controlled by only allowing xx number of Troops to attend and each Troop could only attend one!

 

Could work! Would make things interesting! Maybe better!

 

Ed Mori

1 Peter 4:10

[John-in-KC]

Between any set of Council Service Centers, there's a midline. That's the point where you are equally distant from one service center to another.

 

What happens in my neck of the woods is that some of the furthest away units are very close to the neighboring Council's service Center. They do indeed go there for the Scout Shop, and they even drop off advancement reports there (they're batched up and mailed down once a week).

 

A couple of years ago we had a conundrum in my Council. My Council Service Center has a BSA Supply Division Scout Shop (and regional warehouse). We had State changes in sales tax exemption law which took the tax exemption away from Supply Division (it's not corporately based in our State). The guidance from the State taxation authorities was each UNIT had to establish itself as an IRS 501©(3), then obtain State sales tax exemption, to buy tax-free at the BSA Supply Division Shop.

 

Meanwhile, the neighboring Council was a BSA DISTRIBUTOR... running the Scout Shop as an element of the local Council. They were not affected by the State taxation rulings; they were already a State non-profit corporation.

 

Where I live, I'm a quarter-mile short of the midline between the two Service Centers. Two of my unit leaders lived North of the midline, actually closer to the neighboring Council Service Center. The third unit we chartered SM lived a mile south of the midline.

 

I was a COR at the time. My IH and I made a decision, and we communicated it to the SE, the President of the Council, and to the units under charter: Mail in advancement reports to Council Registrar. Use the other Council's Scout shop to buy awards and such.

 

We did that for about 3 months, until Council, the State Legislature, and the State taxation authority got things undone.

[Bob White]

No matter where you draw the line somebody has to live on it and will be closer to one office than another. That is true in every council. It's true of school districts, voting precincts, State lines, etc.

[eisely]

I make no apologies to anyone for suggesting a wild idea. It is just that and nothing more. An idea that deserves discussion. I am not even sure that I am personally in favor of the idea. And there is no doubt that implementation would be complicated and difficult. The idea originated in the number of complaints one sees on this forum about poor service and support from councils and districts. If one made the whole scheme more competitive in some way, service and programs are bound to improve.