How do you get involved in the district?

[ScoutNut]

If you are truly interested in helping then the place to start is to attend your District Roundtables - regularly.

 

This helps you get to know who the folks in your District are and lets them get to know you. Also, often if there is a need for volunteers, Roundtable is where the need will be publicized.

 

Your DE is to busy to coordinate all District volunteer opportunities on top of his regular duties. Every District has different committees of volunteers who do different things. Each committee has a Chair and each District will usually have a District Chair.

 

If your Council/District Committee Chairs and Commissioners have never met you, don't know who you are, and don't have a clue if you are a reliable volunteer or not, how do you expect them to know that you are interested in helping out?

 

You should check your District/Council newsletter & Web site. Every newsletter (and most Web sites) I have seen, from lots of different Councils, includes at the very least a list of the names of the different District Chairs, and often their contact info.

 

I started off many years back when my Council mentioned at Roundtable it was looking for folks to help with our Council-wide popcorn distribution. I signed up at Roundtable to help staff various District activities and events. Every training I attended I would fill out the evaluation form and check that YES, I was interested in staffing a future training.

 

Eventually, they realized they had a couple of real suckers - um-mm - enthusiastic volunteers, yeah that's right - in their midst!

 

I must say that I have met some great people and made some good friends in the process.

[Gonzo1]

Find out when roundtable is and show up.

 

 

[bt01]

Great Question!!!! It started about 8.5 years ago(longer) when I was helping with the roundtable. Then I was roundtable staff now I'm the Roundtable Commissioner.

[OzarksOsage]

I'm in the New Horizons district of the Greater St. Louis Area Council. Our district is huge, with about 9,000 scouts and three or four thousand adults. There are many, many Scouters with years of leadership experience, both in Scouting and in their professional careers--a great bunch of people. Anyway, in our district, it seems that the threshold for working at the district level is Wood Badge training. Working those ticket items gets one's foot in the door. Of course, WB is not required to help out in a program area at a Day Camp or camporee, but to be on the organizing end of such events seems to pretty much require Wood Badge.