Scouting's Administrative Burden On Volunteers

[qwazse]

Starting in January troops are tracking, per boy, one new rank, six more service hours, multiple chats with the 'rents about cyber chippy thingies.

 

The administrative burden builds from the ground up.

[Gone]

Starting in January troops are tracking, per boy, one new rank, six more service hours, multiple chats with the 'rents about cyber chippy thingies.

The administrative burden builds from the ground up.

As @@Stosh would point out, troops aren't going to track all that, the individual scout will through managing his own book.

[Stosh]

 Yep.  If there's a ton of paperwork and the boy can do it for himself, the adults should be drinking coffee instead of trying to do all the boy's work and burning themselves out.

 

If that information needs to be accumulated from the boys, then each patrol needs a functional Scribe who then reports all that information to the Troop Scribe who turns in his report to the Troop Committee.

 

Oh, welll, your Scribe POR's are not functional?  Nothing to do because the adults are doing all their work?  Hmmmmm, then I don't think it is proper to blame National for an adult-led breakdown of the troop.

 

And Adult Association process might be developed to work with the boys to have them comfortable enough to work out a system whereby these things get done with a coordinated effort of both working together.  If the boys are to learn to work with adults on a peer level rather than parent/child, teacher/child, relationship, this might be a great opportunity.

 

By the time the boys are 11 years old, they should have grasped the idea of paper and pencil and enough arithmetic to record the necessary information. 

[qwazse]

Oh yeah, spank those adult led gremlins ...

 Yep.  If there's a ton of paperwork and the boy can do it for himself, the adults should be drinking coffee instead of trying to do all the boy's work and burning themselves out.

 

If that information needs to be accumulated from the boys, then each patrol needs a functional Scribe who then reports all that information to the Troop Scribe who turns in his report to the Troop Committee....

By the time the boys are 11 years old, they should have grasped the idea of paper and pencil and enough arithmetic to record the necessary information. 

 

As @@Stosh would point out, troops aren't going to track all that, the individual scout will through managing his own book.

 

But, read my post again. For your convenience I've highlighted anything that mentions adult administration ...

 

Starting in January troops are tracking, per boy, one new rank, six more service hours, multiple chats with the 'rents about cyber chippy thingies.

The administrative burden builds from the ground up.

 

Hint: nothing's highlighted.

 

Who has an increased administrative burden? TROOPS If things are working correctly, who runs them? BOYS

So, come January instead of, say, destinations/skills/menus/costs/insertion/extraction/projects/helping little old ladies across the street (yes that's still a thing)/hiking and camping independently with your mates ...what do BOYS get to track more of? Horse Proccessed Hay.

 

And who thought this would be a good idea? No BOY I EVER KNEW!

Edited July 15, 2015 by qwazse

[Get Outdoors]

It's great to know that our council isn't the only one out there that's incompetent.  Our council requires we turn in paper advancement forms for scouts and adults. We had a record keeping issue with an eagle scout candidate and had to go back (hoop jump) to find the paper. No kidding, council had stacks of these forms, feet high that went back to well over a year that the "didn't get around to entering into the system"  

 

Staff at our council have been there as long as I've been around in scouting, at least 12 years and I think someone needs to do some house cleaning. It's so obvious to me when someone  really doesn't like what they do for a living.

 

When I retired as SM last year, my number one piece of advise to my replacement was to avoid dealing with all things council (at all costs) let the committee deal with that nonsense. The second is distance yourself from the district "red coats". Staying in contact with many district folks is a good thing but avoid the policy police, the scouters that think they know more than the next guy. (but haven't read the GTA) Avoiding as many bureucrats and egomaniacs as possible allows you to focus your energies working with kids will a whole lot less frustration.

[skeptic]

Would you not have kept copies of ALL your forms turned into the council?  While our council does a pretty good job with paper, getting it filed with the unit info fairly quickly, seldom have I had to dig through them, as most of the time I have had my own copies.  The council keeps files up front for about 7 years, then stores them; but they are still available way back in most cases, especially basic charter info.  Today, even if you do still do paper copies, it should be filed with on-line advancement with simply a print out.  

 

Many of the problems and issues on these threads are as much the fault of the units and volunteers as it may be the office staffs.  

[blw2]

we've had more than a few cases of lost applications

at least a time or two by council, but it's hard to say if some of them were lost in the unit shuffle.

 

I forgot how many times i filled out the app for my 1st volunteer position with the pack before I finally got registered.  More than a few!

 

Then how many times I've filled out the same stupid thing again for position changes, and additional lost apps....  it really is insanity!