District Chairman Removal

[Eagle92]

Abel,

Do some folks manipulate it, yes they do. Part of the problem is that the CORs as a whole (there are a few exceptions like yourself)either are not doign their job, or do not realize that being ont eh district and council committees is part of their job. Heck I didn't realize a COR was part of the council committee until AFTER I left the profession.

 

I will say this, not everyone is manipulating the system, or if they are they are cleaning shop so to speak. I know of one SE who is putting front line scouters on various council committees in order to meet the needs of the youth. Only complaint I have with him is that he wasn't the SE I worked for; I wish I would have worked for him as a DE.

 

[Twocubdad]

BP describes exactly how things work in our district, top to bottom. An announcement is usually made that so-and-so is stepping down and someone else will be filling the slot. No vote, no nominations, no announcement that the position for those who are interested in serving.

 

On the finance and membership side -- which includes the district chairman -- the DE is the driving force behind the selections. Our DE is smart and politic enough that I'm sure he touches base with all the power brokers. Of course that DOES NOT include the schmucks who attend meetings and do the heavy lifting on the actual district committee.

 

The process works exactly the same on the program side except the decisions are made by the one or two volunteers at the top of the ol' boy network. With one or two exceptions they are all members of the same mega-troop. When there's an opening on the program side, it's usually a domino effect, with all the underlings moving up a link along the food chain.

 

None of this corresponds to anything like a fiscal or calendar year. Appointments are good for as long as they please the ol' boys. Changes occur only when positions come open.

 

All of which is why I no longer volunteer at the district or council level.

[BadenP]

Abel, I agree with you and that is why I left professional service after five years, disgust over the type of training we received at National with such topics as , "How to Manipulate your Volunteers", "How to exploit all your district resources, people, service organizations, and companies to make your FOS campaign a sucess", "How to get rid of problem volunteers with little effort", to name just a few.

 

As emb021 stated in his post James West created the professional service to maintain control of the BSA on a National level, allowing only the COR's to have any say on a local level. As I have said before don't kid yourselves volunteers have little to no control over the BSA, and it was designed that way. I agree with what Baden Powell said about keeping this a volunteer run organization, and it is so sad that those in power at its inception chose to ignore his advice. In spite of that the BSA program is still the best youth program there is and ever was.

[Eamonn]

I have sat on the Nominating Committee that selects our District Chairman, several times.

DE doesn't have a vote and at times wasn't invited to attend meetings.

We have a couple of times invited a member of the Executive Board to sit on the Committee. The hope being that he might know more Community Leaders than others on the Committee.

As far as I'm concerned all this talk about COR is a load of hot air!

Every month for 3 years I send each and every COR a reminder, come invite to attend District Committee meetings. Only the very few who held positions on the District Committee attended.

I paid for a dinner each year when we held the Annual meeting again I invited them all, hoping that maybe free food might get them out -It didn't!

 

As for:

"My question is, do the council professionals, and the Council President owe the remaining volunteers and parents in our district a clear explanation as to why the District Chairman was dismissed? And is merely being a thorn in their side reasonable cause for dismissal?"

Hopefully the professionals have had nothing to do with this. So they should just sit in the corner and shut up!

What the Council President might do??

Might depend on what the Chairman has done

If the guy is a real twit and everyone knows that he is a twit and has acted like a twit.

The District should be passing the hat and buying the President a bottle of his favorite tipple. - Thanking him for removing the guy.

The Chairman we had before the one we now have was asked to step down. Everyone was happy to see this guy go!

The guy before me a good pal of mine got into it with the then SE over FOS goals. My pal lost his temper and ended up telling the SE what to do, sadly he used some very strong Anglo-Saxon language and was kinda shamed into going.

I think if I were the Council President, I would want to attend the very next District Committee meeting. That way I could set the record straight and put any rumors and misinformation to rest before it got out of hand.

Eamonn.

 

[John-in-KC]

From my experience (and at this point I am simply a working volunteer deep in two different operating committees)...

 

When the District Chairman is a strong community guy, respected in the local Chamber of Commerce, knowledgable about Scouting, and someone who can mentor (often young) DE's about life in the real world of business, Scouting support happens in a District.

 

When the District Commissioner is a strong Scouting guy, respected by the Cubmasters and Scoutmasters, knowledgable about Scouting people in the district, and someone who can support the District Chair and DE in the real world of Scouting on the ground, Scouting program above Troop happens in a District.

 

Even though we are a suburban District, we're blessed that our District Director is "one of us," living in the District. He, the Chair, and the Commish form a very good team, adn life as a volunteer is pretty darn fun these days. That will probably change soon enough, since there's always someone ending their tenure...

[BadenP]

Sorry Eamonn but your experience is not typical of what many here have apparently experienced. Many districts do not even have a full committee and the burden falls to the Key3. As far as the COR's are concerned you are right most shirk their responsibilities because they don't care about the units or scouting. But the system set up in the BSA by West is that the professionals run the show with the COR's getting membership and a vote on the council executive committee if they want, but sadly most do not.

 

The bottom line if the DE has a real problem with the DC or DCommish watch how fast they disappear from the scene, this happened recently with the district commish in my district where I am a Venturing advisor. He openly voiced his opinion that the council had taken the wrong direction in the way they were handling the venturing program, two weeks later at roundtable it was announced that he had stepped down and a new person from the district, a friend of the SE, would be taking his place, no further explaination was given.

[Eamonn]

BadenP

I'm very familiar with the old:

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, what the volunteers don't do the DE must".

But...

If a District is not operating as it should and not doing things by the book, I would hope that any DE worth his or her salt would do everything in his or her power to change things and bring it around to where it should be.

 

In the past the Council I serve has fired a SE and made it clear to another that if he didn't go that he would soon be let go!

Thankfully we have had some outstanding Council Presidents who know how this game is played and play it right.

The President who fired the SE was awarded the Silver Buffalo Award back in 2008.

The mindset in the Council and of the Board is that the professionals work for us.

A lot has to do with having knowledgeable volunteers who refuse to allow the wool to be pulled over their eyes.

Ea.

[Eagle92]

E,

You are VERY fortunate in that your council committee is not a pawn of the SE. Wish my council committee would have fired a SE or DFS in the past, but they had manipulated the system in their favor. Lots of long time upper echelon volunteers who voice contrary opinions were removed, and some quit outright in order to not be affiliated with some of the decision. When those two were promoted and left, a big celebration by these folks ensued.

 

The bulk of my experiences, 4 (5 if you include district mergers) different district committees in 4 councils, and a unit level ASM in a 5th council, has been as BP desricbed.

[NE-IV-88-Beaver]

E,

I'm with you on because of how it works in my district and council. Volunteers have been able to have ineffective DE's removed on occasion. This is probably directly related to the relative strengths of the council board and the SE.

 

I can now understand some of the cynicism that some of our fellow posters express when commenting on district and council administrative issues. I don't know if I could have stayed involved for as long as I have in a situation such as they have presented.

[Eagle92]

NE,

It can be challenging. When we had our "challenging" SE and DFS combo, we did lose a bunch of great volunteers and actually had two units trying to switch councils (my district borders the 2 neighboring councils and one potential CO was just down the road form where a pack and troop was meeting). Luckily when they left, things improved greatly.

 

Luckily we got a great SE on the council level. Some of exec board members I've met also work on the unit level, or have been long term scouters. As for our DE, great guy who is program oriented. Only problem I got with him is that he will be working summer camp, instead of workgin CS day camp with me, LOL.

[Abel Magwitch]

I have to go with BadenP on this one. His words reflect my own council to a tee. Are there good council's out there? Most likely. Are there good professionals and volunteers who are in the program for the sake of the Scouts? Undoubtably. But there are council's out there that reflect BadenP's own experiences. I am part of one.

[Abel Magwitch]

Eamonn writes - If a District is not operating as it should and not doing things by the book, I would hope that any DE worth his or her salt would do everything in his or her power to change things and bring it around to where it should be.

 

 

My DE is aware of the shenanigans going on at the professional level, but is unwilling to make any waves. She told me that her family really needs the money and she cannot afford to lose her job.

[Eagle92]

As a former pro, I can tell you that the PTB can make your life hell if you try to correct things. I had my PDL-2 course cancelled at the last minute, about 2 days before I was to leave. I also had my honeymoon cut short due to an "urgent meeting" that all pros were suppose to attend at camp, "no excuses" (only myself and the pro sent as PD were in attendance). I also had my week long summercamp assignment moved to the week after my wedding instead of before (which actually hurt the camp more than it did me as I was suppsoe to be leading a HA trek and they had to scramble for a replacement) and was told that I would be getting transferred to a district 2 hours away, despite the PTB knowing my wife had a semester left at the local college. All because I was trying to fix the district's problems.

 

It was only with the support of my wife that I was able to say I quit. Ok it was more of the lines, "quit your job or I want a divorce" ultimatum from her after 2 months of marriage, but she knew me well enough to know that I wouldn't put us in financial difficulties without her support. Best decision ever made.

 

Moral is that it can be very, VERY difficult for a DE at times.(This message has been edited by eagle92)

[Abel Magwitch]

BadenP states: "Abel, I agree with you and that is why I left professional service after five years, disgust over the type of training we received at National with such topics as , "How to Manipulate your Volunteers", "How to exploit all your district resources, people, service organizations, and companies to make your FOS campaign a sucess", "How to get rid of problem volunteers with little effort", to name just a few."

 

 

Are you serious BP? Those were the actual names of some of the topics?

 

We have had an interesting situation develop in my council. Our district failed to have its annual business meeting in January. Back in December, I inquired of our District Chairman why our district was not taking nominations for the upcoming year; why the district nominating committee was not identified to the district. She replied that the district business meeting had been moved to March of 2010. After doing some digging, I found out the reason why these things were happening was that the Director of Field service (a professional) would not approve the DC's nominating committee. This of course brought up other questions - what business did the professional have in approving the nominating committee? The council president (the volunteer) is supposed to approve the nominating committee. Needless to say, my district currently does not have a District Chair. In fact, all the district officers from 2009 have been relieved of their positions with the exception of the district commissioner. Currently, the district only has a key 2 running the show.

 

 

I tried to send you BP a private message, but apparently the private messaging is not working. I wanted to know if you were being serious about the professional training topics you mentioned and wanted to know what other interesting topics you were required to take concerning the management of the volunteers.

 

 

[Eagle92]

AM,

Can't say about PDL-II or III, but at PDL-1 those were not the names of courses. But what was taught was how the system operated, and it is very easy to manipulate the system IMHO.

 

Now what occured at local council planning retreats is a different story.