A sign of the times?

[Eamonn]

Have just found out that the powers that be? Have met and our Council which last week had four Districts, this week is down to only three.

The writing has been on the wall for some little time now. So it's not really a shock.

Still this District is the District that I served as Chairman and District Commissioner of for a decade.

While it now might seem like all the work that was put in was a waste of time. I like to think that those of us who served back then did our best to serve the units and the Scouts in the units at that time.

The DE I worked with back then just sent me an email that starts "OMG".

She just can't accept that the Council has allowed the District to fold. Her thinking seems to be that managed right things could be as good as they once were.

Sadly I'm not so sure.

While we were very unlucky to have got lumbered with a lazy good for nothing DE. Who arrived at a time when things in the Service Center were a real mess. His boss was moving to a new Council the week that he started, the next guy was there only a few weeks when he got arrested for molesting his son's girl friend and the SE at the time was a twit. Who knew that his days were numbered.

I think that we might have been able to recover from the damage done in the two years that the DE was around if we the volunteers had moved a little faster. But it was about this time when I was having back surgery and then HWMBO became ill.

It has been sad to watch as units that not so long back were strong and well run have fallen and folded.

I have a hard time not understanding where the good people went?

I don't understand why the volunteers that did come on board just didn't seem to care? It was almost like they were just passing through.

The District is being divided up into the other remaining Districts. A couple of these are not very strong. I'm sure that some of the remaining old timers will be upset and will just throw in the towel.

 

The thing that "Got Us" Was of course membership.

I'm not sure and of course will never really know but I do think that had we had a better and more involved Commissioner Support Team we might have been able to help prevent the losses that we had or at least better support the new adult leaders who did step up to the plate.

Of course with the loss of youth members the financial challenges were great. There were less popcorn sellers, less people to ask to support FOS and less community involvement.

Another thing that hurt was allowing the District Committee to fall apart, not seeking out new faces and allowing people who had too much on their plates already and who were tired already to fill positions that they had little enthusiasm for. Flogging a dead horse who doesn't have a goal, just doesn't work.

I had been approached by the District Chair. To replace him when the District rechartered. It seems that the Nominating Committee was just down to the Key 3 and they weren't getting very far.

I looked at how things were and to be honest seen that the task was more than I was willing to take on. So while I didn't say no. I did drag my heels.

At least now I'm off the hook!

As I look at the other Districts I see that maybe having these few extra units might help in the short term for a little while. But membership is down Council wide.

The Council Commissioner is patting the Commissioner staff on the back saying what a wonderful ratio we have of Commissioners for X number of units! -Not that hard when the units are no longer there.

Sad thing is that there isn't any Council of about the same size near by that if we should merge would offer our volunteers the service that they were used to. We have a big metro Council that is so big everyone becomes just a number.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I was on the District Charter as a Member at large but being as there is no longer a District?? I suppose if I don't recharter as a ??? I'm done.

Oh Well!

Ea.

 

 

[Papadaddy]

Our council went from 4 districts to 7, and last year went back to 4. I could understand it if there was a decrease in professional staff (and salaries), but the same names seem to be on the roster, just with different titles. Now each district has more than one Pro assigned. Long ago I quit trying to figure out council organization and politics. We only have one council-owned camp, so I hope that is fairly safe. Wouldn't surprise me to see them sell off some excess acreage, though.

[fred8033]

papadaddy wrote: "I could understand it if there was a decrease in professional staff (and salaries) ... "

 

Hmmm.... That raises a good question. Just curious. Not trying to incite something.

 

How many professionals are in your council? Our council has 80 professionals listed on the contact page. It does NOT include scout store staff, but does include nine camp rangers for seven camps.

 

Just curious.

[Abel Magwitch]

I am curious - do you have a new SE? Were does your council membership stand? What was it last year?

[SeattlePioneer]

Hello Eamonn,

 

 

Sorry to hear about your district being abolished. It sounds like you did a fine job, but a wide web of people are needed to make Scouting go.

 

Take pride in the program you helped make possible. We do our best --- sometimes it's just not enough.

 

 

 

 

[packsaddle]

"The DE I worked with back then just sent me an email that starts "OMG"."

If this happened yesterday it sounds like it was an epiphany for her.

My advice is to shrug it off. Any volunteer who thinks they had responsibility or control over a large organization which is subject to large strategies and large market forces and the cumulative decisions made by the public...is mistaken.

 

Volunteers should remember that what's important in scouting is family first. Family.

Scouting is not life. It is fun and all kinds of good things. But it isn't life. Family is life. And in family, you can find all the things you think you lost just now when an artificial organizational unit was removed. You've lost nothing if you still have family.

[SSScout]

Ah, E bemoan not the loss of a name for an area. You have dented the lives of umpteen young (no more!) men, and they are glad of it, even if not conscious of it.

 

Thru the 12 plus years of my adult Scout career, I have been (unwittingly) a member of (in my county) one of three, then six, then ONE, then three sub districts, then one of three real districts, with lots of cooperation and interactive activities intended. I have interacted and worked with no fewer than eight DEs and a Regional Director or two, who had to fill in when there was no DE to be had to assign to our area.

Remember Bob the Tomato, tho he be neither Scout nor even human, when he said (animationally) "It's for the kids".

 

Altho, yeah, I sometimes tell the Scouters I counsel (not council!) that they can easily operate a quality program without the knowledge that there is such a construct as a "District". It is there for the benefit of the local unit. If it does not benefit the local unit, then dunworryboutit.

 

[Oak Tree]

Eamonn,

 

Watching things change can be sad. The DE could have done better. The SE could have done better. The district commissioners could have done better. The new volunteers could have done better.

 

Or maybe they were all doing the best they could. I know you have been doing the best you could.

 

It's hard to know from a distance whether things have really changed there. It could just be demographics. Rural areas' populations have been shrinking and their people have been aging in many states. Nationally numbers are down - there are many other things competing for our kids' time, and as we become more urban, it's not surprising that rural districts can struggle.

 

Do the best you can for the youth you have.

[Eamonn]

A once active forum member emailed me some little time back when I was going off about how things in the district were going down hill.

He said that a builder builds a house.

He uses all his skill and know how to build the best house that he can.

Once the house is built, he moves on.

The people who buy the house can if they want change everything.

They can allow the house to fall into a state of disrepair.

It is after all their house and the builder has no control over what happens to it.

 

I'm happy that I did my bit. Did what I thought was important and for the best.

Sure it's sad to see things not work out.

But that's life.You only have to look back at the great empires of the past.

Ea