district autonomy

[Scouter&mom]

How much autonomy does the district committee or a district event committee have? Especially from the professionals? We have a district camporee coming up, that a committee of experienced volunteers have been planning for a while. This committee consists of SM's and ASM's several of whom have chaired previous camporees. Can the committee really not send out leader's guides without the DE's approval? This event is basically a duplicate, with a few updates and changes from the previous one. We are in a very small council with only 3 professionals (oops 4, they hired a new one first of the year after a 9 month vacany). Our district has not had a chairman in over two years, and the previous one had not made an appearance at a scout event in over a year. Long story short, there is a group of about 10-12 scouters involved in everything to run the district. Do we really have to get the DE blessing to proceed running the district events or can we do what needs to be done and provide the program to our boys?

[scoutldr]

I think you answered your own question...you haven't had a District Chairman in two years? That's why the DE is filling that role. Your concept is correct...the Volunteers should be running the program side of things...but if your key volunteer positions are vacant, that model doesn't work.

[Eamonn]

" Do we really have to get the DE blessing to proceed running the district events or can we do what needs to be done and provide the program to our boys?"

Providing a program for the boys is something that lies with each unit.

District events can and very often do supplement this.

I'm not sure if we do things correctly in our area (District)

The District Chairman working with the other members of the key 3 select District Chairs (In this case it would be the District Activities Chairman) He or She working with a small committee plan the district events. Very often the Activities chair will call on someone to organize an event.

Before the event this person will give a report to the District Committee about what plans are being made, what the program is and ask for any thing that is needed.

The District Committee will at times offer ideas and suggestions, maybe at times pointing out why something can't be done or maybe isn't such a great idea. But mostly they want to offer any help and support that they can.

The DE does sit in on the District Committee meeting. As a rule he or she just sits there waiting to be told what help he can offer. Maybe ordering patches or checking something out that the committee is unsure of.

A big problem can happen when a group does something for very long time with little or no supervision and that is that for a very long time they might have been doing something wrong.

As a rule this "Wrong doing" has to do with money and budgets. Districts are part of the Council and district events do need to be accountable to the Council in most cases the go to person on this kind of stuff is the DE who is an employee of the Council.

Eamonn.