District Chairman Removal

[Abel Magwitch]

So in other words, in council planning meetings, the SE made his own policies that may have been contrary to national policy. This begs the question - Did the SE have the authority to make his own policies even if it went against the National Policies for council operations that are available at the Scout store?

 

Please Eagle, tell more.

 

As I said in my last post, we are without a District Chair currently. The reason that was given was that her term had ended at the end of the year. Funny thing though, the rest of the District committee officers still have their positions. Their terms are being allowed to continue till March when the district business meeting is planned.

 

 

On another completely different note, the word is that supposedly my council has been purportedly misreporting their membership numbers. And purportedly our council was recently audited by national. There was a significant overnight drop of some 4,000 youth members. But an interesting development has occured since those youth members were dropped - A traditional membership report has been handed out to the district commissioners in the council comparing the 2009 membership figures to the 2008 figures. And even though there was a major drop in membership after the audit team left in late autumn, the council is boasting it made gains in 2009. How you may ask? Well it's simple. Council simply discounted some 4,000 members from the 2008 totals claiming that these Scouts though registred were no longer active.

 

 

There are funny things happening in our council as of late.(This message has been edited by abel magwitch)

[Narraticong]

So, it has now been several weeks since my original post. Still no response from either the Scout Executive or our DE to my very reasonable email request regarding why there has been no public response to why our Chairman was removed. We see here that it is debatable whether the district volunteers are owed the courtesy of an explanation. But for the SE and DE to not even respond to my email is at best impolite.

 

I believe I will forward the previous request to them and suggest that perhaps due to their very busy schedules, this matter may have been overlooked?

 

Yes, I am a lowly volunteer. Eagle Scout, Scoutmaster of the fastest growing troop in our district, James West Fellow, FOS presenter, on and on. At this point I have not scheduled an FOS presentaion for my own unit. Perhaps when I receive an email from my DE asking why, I'll just ignore it...

 

Ken

[Eagle92]

AM,

I PM'ed you. Hopefully it is working.

[Abel Magwitch]

Not working Eagle, Here is my email AbelMagwitch100@gmail.com

[Abel Magwitch]

Narraticong, Here is a thought. Ask your COR to find an answer for you. They are a voting member of both the district and council committee. The COR and the rest of the district committee and anyone else who voted in the district slate should be given an answer.

 

[BadenP]

Abel'

To answer your question the topics in quotes were what the speakers started with as to what the content of their class was really about, the published titles were, How to Make Your Volunteers Do What You Think Is Best for Your District, How to make FOS a Success: Manipulating All Your District's Financial Resources, How to Effectively Deal with or Eliminate Problem Volunteers. The final analysis was how to control and manipulate key volunteers and key people in your district, and nothing about how we work for the council volunteers, quite the opposite in fact. "You work as a representative of National through the guidance of an SE who sets the vision and priorities of the council as National's representative, and who selects an executive committee of volunteers to assist him in carrying out that vision."( NEI-1)

[Abel Magwitch]

BP, thank you for your candid eye opening comments. I will tell you this - as a long time volunteer from a long time Scouting family, things were very different back when I was a Scout in the 70's. Vounteers were still appreciated and had a real say in this volunteer organization. As a youth, I can remember noticing changes; a shift if you will from the volunteer to the professional that started in the late 70's.(This message has been edited by abel magwitch)

[John-in-KC]

Ken,

 

As I said earlier, as AM just reinforced: Your COR is the player here.

 

Simply put: You ... Don't ... Count.

 

You're a Scoutmaster. You're an end user, implementing program for a chartered partner. If the chartered partner (meaning IH/COR) are happy, then all is well as far as your unit is concerned.

 

Get the COR involved.

[jhankins]

Former professional here.

 

A trend I've noticed is that many districts have fallen out of the habit of being run by the volunteers, and in turn that translates to the council level as well. When a DE is tasked by an SE to draft a Webelos to Scout Transition curriculum for new leaders (instead of a University of Scouting class or a Membership committee meeting), there's just one symptom of a greater problem.

 

Many DEs do the job of both the DC and DCom because they don't get done otherwise, and their paycheck is on the line.

 

Membership audits are happening across the country. Some SEs were authorizing payments to support scouting through LFL and Scoutreach, to find out that the kids were paid for by council, but never actually receiving program. I've heard of one council losing 20,000 kids in a year.

[Abel Magwitch]

jhankins, what you said constitutes FRAUD!

 

It's fraud at the professional level.

 

So here is a question - what are the consequences to the professional(s) that committed the fraud in the first place? When the audit team comes and sweeps the mess under the rug what then happens to those professionals who benefited with promotions and raises due to the fraud they committed?

 

[BadenP]

Abel

What Hankins related is more the exception than the rule, however professional scouting , once you reach the SE level, is a good old boys network that looks after their own and most of them are just transferred to another council. Some I am familiar with from my days as a DE were promoted to National and PTC.

[Abel Magwitch]

BadenP, These things have just happened in my council. I guess I belong to one of those exceptions. Very sad state of affairs of late. SE got promoted, numbers looked funny, audit team came in and long time executive board member told to step down for questioning things. Very sad indeed.

[Eagle92]

My old boss got "promoted" to national and the DFS became a SE in another council. the SE that replaced him cleaned shop and we "lost" a significant number of scouts. No district made quality district, except fo rthe one I had worked in b/c I did clean shop right as I was walking out the door and the Vols wer very happy to see it happy, upset that i was leaving.

[Abel Magwitch]

Eagle96,

 

I have been noticing trends in my council. I have been able to research our council's membership numbers through the years. All the way back to the 1920's. But starting in the 70's, everytime the council got a new SE, the membership numbers dropped significantly, anywhere from 4,000 members to a one time loss of amost 18,000 during one of the SE transitions. The loss always came from special programs.

 

One of my conclusions is that the oncoming SE is allowed to start his tenure with a lower number youth, and I do mean lower. It is then quite easy for the new SE to make his criticals by showing a nice steady increase of membership. And of course, the increases only really happen in the special programs area. Special programs seem to be a nice out of sight, out of mind way to manipulate membership totals.

 

Something really stinks at our Scout office.

 

 

[jhankins]

It is fraud, and unethical. One of the reasons I'm not a professional anymore is because business practices came to light that I wanted to correct in my district and was told things wouldn't change so my SE could get his fat retirement. Every word of the Scout Executive's Code is an oath professionals take, and if I was going to be told to follow it, I wasn't going to do the job. I got a great start on cleaning house before I left. Sure enough, the SE retired, and the membership and financial audits came in. Everyone responsible has now retired with six figure retirements.

 

Not every council does this, but was being done. Not every professional is involved. With the financial situation we're in, more of this is coming to light.