District Volunteers, dumb tasks, and real service

[Beavah]

A simple request, such as "where is your troop going to summer camp this year" would go ignored. Out of all the units in the district, I would be lucky to get one or two responses. I never understood that. I tend to think the attitude was "none of your durn business", when they got a request from a silver looper.

 

Yah, didn't want to hijack da original thread, eh?

 

I've watched Camping Chairs go through the same thing scoutldr describes for years. I feel his pain.

 

Da question on my mind has always been : "Why on earth would anybody in a unit respond to this?" A call from a stranger who's not tryin' to be helpful to their program askin' about their summer camp and the number of kids who went. Sort of intrusive, even just a little bit creepy, eh? Especially if the guy isn't well known as someone who has been really helpful to the unit in the past. Just so a district can do its paperwork and get its award (and perhaps because they can't be bothered to look at da tour permit the unit filed for camp...)

 

I reckon a lot of districts slip into that sort of thing, eh? Maybe it's partly that districts have gotten too big, so it's too much time as scoutldr describes. Still, I encourage folks to set the silly paperwork and statistics aside. Doin' that alone is just pretending to do service. Instead, re-imagine what a district camping chair, or advancement chair, or membership person, or commish might do to be of service.

 

Publish reports of unit trips that give others good ideas? Provide lists of places to go camping / contacts / activities / itinerary? Summer Camp reviews? Keep an eye on Tour Permits to see how (and where) each unit is gettin' out? Work with da UC to enhance each unit's outdoor program? Identify backpacking/paddling/winter/family camping experts who can go work with a unit to enhance their program? Help active outdoor units pair up with less active ones to give 'em ideas?

 

Lots of ways to be creative. Collectin' statistics without actually bein' helpful has always seemed to be just a waste of a good volunteer's time, and of unit goodwill. No matter that those statistics show up on evaluation and award paperwork. Leave it blank.

 

Folks should spend their volunteer time doin' good works, not busy work.

 

Beavah

 

[scoutldr]

Just to clarify, the request was for information about the upcoming summer, not where they went last summer. The SE was adamant that if a troop went out of council to camp, they were "traitors" who were not supporting their own camp. Our job, as camping chairs, was to beg, plead, cajole and coerce the troops to go to OUR camp. My philosophy was to have "butts in cots"...I didn't care what council they were from, especially since the OOC troops paid a surcharge which was pure profit. And this camp suffers from not having any capital improvements or program enhancements in at least 20 years. Anyway, the last straw was when my DE forwarded an e-mail from the SE that said "I need this information within 30 days...if your camping chair can't or won't do what I need, then fire them and find someone who will." I replied with my resignation from the District Committee to save him the trouble. Everyone agrees that the SE is an arrogant a-- and is hard on the DEs and talks about the volunteers as though they were scum. But they won't fire him because he manages to make Quality Council.

[Eamonn]

Beavah

While there is some truth in what you say.

Still if a Camping Committee is going to help units that are not offering an outdoor program, they do need to know who is and who isn't?

Of course if the only reason for the question is just to keep the paperwork up to date? Then it does fall under the heading of busy work.

If after asking and finding out that a Unit is not offering a program, nothing is done? Shame on the committee!

Of course, it might be said that the information should be available from the Tour Permits, but not everyone files these! Or maybe the UC should be on hand to give an update? But UC's are rare birds in some areas.

We might hope that all members of the District Committee are warm, friendly, cuddly people with only the best of intentions. But some at times do forget that Unit Service is one of the four functions of the District.

Sometimes even the dumbest of tasks result in real service. - Maybe not all the time? But maybe some of the time,"eh?"

Eamonn.

[Beavah]

Yah, and that SE made quality council by spendin' his time gettin' folks to do (or worse, fudge!) paper busywork!

 

Good on yeh, scoutldr, for choosin' not to be a part of it. There's better ways for good volunteers to spend their time, like helpin' kids!

 

Eamonn, ain't nothin' wrong with gathering information, as an integral part of a bigger picture effort to provide help, service, program, etc. Just usually when you've got that kind of bigger thing going, gatherin' the information is incidental and not worth mentioning. Scoutldr's comments just struck me as bein' the other kind of approach, eh? And apparently I was right.

 

My hope is that district and council volunteers who read these threads come to realize they can participate at those levels creatively and offer real service... without lettin' themselves get caught up in the odd, oft dysfunctional dance of professional evaluation pressures and metrics.

 

Simply refusin' to do dumb tasks is OK. Good folks like scoutldr should spend their hard-earned volunteer hours in ways that really matter.

 

And if along the way a poor SE isn't able to fake "Quality Council", so much the better, eh?

 

Beavah