How does your Council support "rural Scouting"

[sherminator505]

In the interest of stopping another thread hijacking, I would like to pose a different question - Does your council have experience with supporting rural Scouting, and if so, how does the council support it?(This message has been edited by sherminator505)

[SeattlePioneer]

Generous vehicle allowances for District Executives?

 

Some huge districts ought to have a private airplane for DEs to get around in!

 

 

 

Interesting question.

[Eagle707]

In the Inland Northwest Council, we have our main office in Spokane, WA and field offices in Hayden Lake, ID (about 50 miles east of Spokane) and Clarkston, WA (about 110 miles south of Spokane). The other thing that we try to do is boost attendance at Roundtable and OA chapter meetings. Our DE also does a lot of driving both to Spokane and to work with potential COs.

[Scoutfish]

Define rural.

 

Cape Fear Council is by far not the largest or most rural, but is a big oile mix of city areas and plenty of rural ( pig farms, swamps, fields, and pastures) areas. I live on the easternmost border og the council, but could not honestly tell you the other borders, but our council is made up of around 7 counties.

 

It takes me about 3 hours to drive to a town that lists 3 troops and 2 packs that is still in our council. I know Our DE wil drive to meet us at our Council cub or boy camp ( two seperate camps side by side)in a flash, and it's a two hour drive from my unit to the camp.

[jhankins]

As a professional, I drove almost 3,000 miles per month just for business miles on my personal vehicle. I had a generous car allowance since the mileage was so great on my personal vehicle. I could not have driven any less, as the council office was 70 miles from my home in the rural part of the largest district and council. The territory I shared with my senior DE was pretty darn close to 15K square miles. Our units the farthest away we actually decided to give to another council because of the distance to serve the units was too great.

 

My farthest unit from the council was 120 miles away. I would act as their mobile scout shop (they'd place orders and I would deliver). I would hand carry Round Table fliers to them and help them recruit. It wasn't a defined rural scouting program, but we attempted to give them the same service.

 

I'm pretty sure those units have dried up, though, with the economy shrinking their community.

[Eagle92]

Actually one of the DEs in my PDL-1 class was retired USAF, had her license and DID fly around her district b/c it was so large.

 

I know the reason why one of my DE's quit was b/c he was working 2 districts at the same time, one of which was 2 hours away form he lived and was 3 counties large. When he left, the DD that took over had 6 counties, and in 9 months that he had his new Prius, had over 100K miles!

 

 

One thing we have doen inthe past is maek each district pretty autonomous in event planning. More later.

[Eagle92]

Hopefully I won't get interupted again trying to respond.

 

As I said my council has pretty much left each district somewhat autonomous in their operations with little to no coordination between districts. This is especially true of day camps from my observation that the long time day camp directors do like the autonomy and do not want to do things that may save money like coming up with 1 council wide design for t-shirts, one application form for all day camps, having some set crafts at all day camps so that we can order in bulk, etc.

 

 

BUT on the benefits side, activities do go on despite whether a DE is there to help or not. My district has had challenges getting and keeping DEs as we are a rural district, and council for the most part. The long time volunteers know what to do and how to do events in the absence of a DE.