Training Experience Is A Negative?

[Stosh]

I used to teach SM Fundamentals and I was the only trainer in my council that taught Webelos Outdoor Training.  I was WB trained and hold a Masters of Scouting from U of Scouting.  I have taught more classes than I have taken.  Well, then they did the train the trainer stuff and made my WB credentials obsolete and so they don't ask me to teach anymore except when they get into real trouble, then I get a last minute call to see if I can come and help them out.

 

Now when others around ask why I don't "step up and teach" it's because I'm not "qualified" and I don't have enough of the "real" beads.  Seriously, does anyone want to hang around people who have this attitude?

[Gone]

If the training "stinks" then why aren't you holding up your hand and volunteering to be the next training guru for your district?  Let me guess - no time or no desire - so instead just sit back and gripe while the person(s) who are doing the training (who are also sacrificing their time and would likely say they don't have a lot of time either, but are taking away from family time or their own personal time) keep offering the "stinky" training to people taking the training. 

 

 

I am training my unit and my kids. I am fulfilling my role to keep the unit strong and deliver on the BSA promise to the boys and adults of my unit...which is what the program is about. We teach WRFA, first aid. CRP/AED, shooting sports, CERT/S&R, JLT (TLT) and leader-specific training. Our unit does all this because we don't trust district/council anymore to develop training that is not a total waste of time.

 

The council and the district's job is to find out what units need and spend the money they have on those needs, rather than 6 figure salaries for over-paid executives.

 

I think you have the role of district/council backwards. I am not there to serve them, they are there to serve my unit. They have money, we don't. My job says I am supposed to run a quality program and fulfill the ideals and mission of scouting for my kids. That's what I do. My job is NOT to do council and district's job for them.

 

If their model doesn't work then it is time for a new model that does.

[cchoat]

As a retired Army Training NCO and long time scouter (thirty plus years in various positions all around the world) and currently serving as a Scoutmaster and District Commisioner, I am fully aware of the impressive "chosen one's" that we all run into in our scouting careers.  Many of these "Enlighted one's" coudn't light their own farts, but that's another story.

 

I finally took Wood Badge this year, the course is not offered around here but one every two years, and I was finally able to move my schedual around to attend.  With a Masters Degree in Organizational Leadership, I was surprised to find that many of the topics I had spent long hours decomposing and regurgitating in college being taught in tight, concise little packets.  I came out of the course invigerated not so much because of the material, but because of the high level of energy that the staff pumped into us, and my fellow patrol critters. 

 

My point, good traininers can take a dull program and make it sing.  Poor trainers can take good material and turn it into trash. 

[Eagle94-A1]

BW,

 

In Calico's defense, he's in the same school I'm in: see a problem work to solve it. Challenge is that sometimes there are too many problems and not enough folks.

 

Also another thing to consider, some units are smooth running ships with an abundance of leaders who can help out on the district . Other units, are barely surviving. My son's troop is growing, but we are having growing pains.

[Stosh]

BW,

 

In Calico's defense, he's in the same school I'm in: see a problem work to solve it. Challenge is that sometimes there are too many problems and not enough folks.

 

Also another thing to consider, some units are smooth running ships with an abundance of leaders who can help out on the district . Other units, are barely surviving. My son's troop is growing, but we are having growing pains.

 

Hmmm.  Not only am I a UC for another troop on the district level, I'm a SM of a struggling new troop start up.  Not only is my ASM of the new troop but she is also the DC for our district.

 

It's not an issue have having enough time for everything, it's an issue of making enough time for everything.  Excuses are nothing more than feeble attempts to explain failure.

[Gone]

BW,

 

In Calico's defense, he's in the same school I'm in: see a problem work to solve it. Challenge is that sometimes there are too many problems and not enough folks.

 

Also another thing to consider, some units are smooth running ships with an abundance of leaders who can help out on the district . Other units, are barely surviving. My son's troop is growing, but we are having growing pains.

 

I get that. What I don't get is the attitude that comes with it. 

 

I accepted a role which comes with a responsibility to my kids and my unit. With as many kids as we have and as robust as a program as we have developed, there is little time for anything else. The success of our unit did not happen overnight, was the work of many involved parents who support what our kids wanted to do, and was not subsidized (despite years of asking for help) by council or district; so we focus on our jobs...making the unit work.

 

I'd love to help other units. We do that whenever we are asked OR when we see a problem that requires urgent response. We've trained their leaders, we've lent out our gear, we've had joint events/outings, etc. But just as you can't give every beggar a $5 as you walk down the street, so too can you not continue to fix the problems district/council has. There are far too many to fix. BSA has money, let them fix it. That *is* their job. We have a DE, let him come ask. Haven't seen him or a UC in years...going on 5 now.

 

 

Hmmm.  Not only am I a UC for another troop on the district level, I'm a SM of a struggling new troop start up.  Not only is my ASM of the new troop but she is also the DC for our district.

 

It's not an issue have having enough time for everything, it's an issue of making enough time for everything.  Excuses are nothing more than feeble attempts to explain failure.

 

Time is finite. I spend so much time on my unit there is literally nothing left after family, friends, work, religion and scouts. Someone has to lose out, guess that's my district/council.

[Stosh]

@

 

"Time is finite. I spend so much time on my unit there is literally nothing left after family, friends, work, religion and scouts. Someone has to lose out, guess that's my district/council."

 

I agree.  My boys are all taught that Family. School and Church are all a higher priority than Scouting and there never seems to be any hassles.  The kids seem to make time for Scouts if it's important to them.

 

Last weekend I was camping with the Mrs. and my daughter, husband and granddaughter for the weekend.  Saturday the scouts came out and the Mrs. and I took the boys and their families out on a hike.  Mrs. is big time naturalist and worked with the Scouts to get the Identify 10 Plant requirement in besides getting in our monthly outing.  So, how much time did it take, how much double dipping and scheduling to make time did that involved.  

 

Tonight is date-night for the Mrs. and I and it's a beautiful day for kayaking with the local kayak/canoe club in town.  Friday night is a big campfire with my two daughters' families with specialty on making S'mores.  

 

Now that I'm "retired" I don't have as much time because I get a wee bit lazy on having to focus on the scheduling.  Now it's just a free-for-all and as long as I'm outside, that's all that counts.

 

By the way, my involvement as a UC is about 1-2 hrs a month and it's a bone worth tossing to the district to keep them at bay.  

Edited August 27, 2015 by Stosh

[Gone]

 

By the way, my involvement as a UC is about 1-2 hrs a month and it's a bone worth tossing to the district to keep them at bay.  

 

We've offered to run their archery, shooting sports and other range activities. We have several NRA instructors and RSOs, two former SEALS, one sharpshooter, and a competitive marksman. We have all of our own gear including targets and throwers. Because the district pooh-baahs see running range sports as the biggest feather you can have, they keep that for themselves and tell us "thanks, but no thanks".

 

They'd have John Elway play water boy or tackle rather than put a ball in his hand if it means taking kudos away from themselves. Barked up that tree for too long. More power to those who don't mind continuing to bark....I'm all out of bark.

[CalicoPenn]

If you want to stay within your own unit and do all that wonderful stuff, fine, go for it - just stop complaining and grumping about how bad the district is, how bad the council is, how horrible training is unless your willing to step up and change things - the grand poobahs not accepting your help with range activities?  Maybe they're being cautious since your folks aren't participating.  But the key point to all of this is you can either step up and help change things, or you can do your own thing - just stop complaining about how poorly other people run the district if you have decided you're not going to be bothered with them. 

 

The Council is there to make sure you have access to the BSA materials, and have access to camps and other facilities - they aren't there to spoon feed you everything - units have to do some of the work too.  Districts aren't there to spoon feed units either - in fact, Districts can't really work unless the units in them help pull their own weight.  Districts are more like a cooperative (OMG - Communism in the Boy Scouts!)  It's Unit Scouters and former Unit Scouters coming together to provide programs and advice to the units in their District.  If folks from the units in the district won;t step up - there is no District and there won't be any district wide events, which is a shame since it's those district wide events that help form a greater Scouting bond beyond one's unit.

[Gone]

If you want to stay within your own unit and do all that wonderful stuff, fine, go for it - just stop complaining and grumping about how bad the district is, how bad the council is, how horrible training is unless your willing to step up and change things - the grand poobahs not accepting your help with range activities?

 

So districts and councils ONLY get better if the volunteers step in and do the work the paid staff should be doing? Please!

 

Districts and councils are here to help US, not the other way around. If their programs are not viable, if their events are boring, if their politics keeps people from helping where their strengths lie, then WHY should we help keep alive something that is essentially parasitic?

 

You have yet to explain why councils and districts are necessary. What they offer far out paces what they demand. They are a money-losing product line. A drain. If districts require units to work then the model is broken. It is very simple: Most of us spend oodles of hours making our units work and don't have time (literally) to offer to district. So if district require us to run, then they need to find a new model. That's how the business world works, BSA should too.

 

In my area they have $5m for camps but don't spend it. I can get my BSA materials online. Most of the templates I need about Scouting I get from other Scouters, not council/district.

 

I will continue to complain about the district model -- just as others here complain about other stuff going on (or not going on) in scouting -- because it creates dialog. It allows people like you and I who have differing opinions to vet about how to fix problems.

 

So I offer this: If districts rely on volunteers -- and volunteer numbers are dwindling rapidly AND the amount of time they can spend helping themselves and other is finite -- how should the district model change. I mean, were'nt you the person who wrote, "There is also somewhat of an unwillingness on the part of the people in Scouting to embrace change and adaptation."

 

I mean, if you are calling others out on not embracing change regarding scouting overall (STEM, gay leaders, gay scouts, etc.), why are you so unwilling to embrace change -- radical change even -- with regard to districts?

[JoeBob]

I'm with Bad Wolf on this one.

 

80 to 90 percent of District and Council effort is recruiting, fundraising, and paperwork.  They do the things that line their pockets and strengthen their control.

 

The pittance of training that goes towards the real program (knots, fires, cooking, camping, etc.) is the minimum contribution that must be made for BSA to validate their claim to an outdoor program.

 

 

Go back and look at those salaries.  BSA has become a pyramid scheme.

 

On top: high six figure salaries that have no correlation to improving or maintaining the program. 

In the middle: DEs who work their butts off for little pay trying to impress their bosses in order to elevate themselves to six figures.

On the bottom: a bunch of volunteers working for nothing, putting their money and time in, and getting very little of actual value for the effort.

[desertrat77]

BW,

 

In Calico's defense, he's in the same school I'm in: see a problem work to solve it. Challenge is that sometimes there are too many problems and not enough folks.

 

Also another thing to consider, some units are smooth running ships with an abundance of leaders who can help out on the district . Other units, are barely surviving. My son's troop is growing, but we are having growing pains.

Eagle, I respectfully submit that that is not the issue with many districts.

 

The issue is:   you offer to help, and are told "no."   You provide the names and CVs of great scouters who could fill vacancies and are told "no."  

 

These types of districts are not interested in change, though they need it badly. 

Edited August 28, 2015 by desertrat77

[desertrat77]

If you want to stay within your own unit and do all that wonderful stuff, fine, go for it - just stop complaining and grumping about how bad the district is, how bad the council is, how horrible training is unless your willing to step up and change things - the grand poobahs not accepting your help with range activities?  Maybe they're being cautious since your folks aren't participating.  But the key point to all of this is you can either step up and help change things, or you can do your own thing - just stop complaining about how poorly other people run the district if you have decided you're not going to be bothered with them. 

 

The Council is there to make sure you have access to the BSA materials, and have access to camps and other facilities - they aren't there to spoon feed you everything - units have to do some of the work too.  Districts aren't there to spoon feed units either - in fact, Districts can't really work unless the units in them help pull their own weight.  Districts are more like a cooperative (OMG - Communism in the Boy Scouts!)  It's Unit Scouters and former Unit Scouters coming together to provide programs and advice to the units in their District.  If folks from the units in the district won;t step up - there is no District and there won't be any district wide events, which is a shame since it's those district wide events that help form a greater Scouting bond beyond one's unit.

 

The bad districts we speak of do not want help, nor change.   Offer to help, and you are refused.  Make suggestions and receive stony silence as feedback.   Or condescension. 

 

Believe it or not, unit level scouters can make intelligent assessments about districts and district staffs.   Being an unpaid volunteer, the unit level scouter is under zero obligation to attempt to ingratiate him/herself into the orbit of a bunch of self-absorbed district scouters, particularly ones that have no interest in the welfare of the units they allegedly serve..   Mr./Ms. Unit Scouter has much better things to do in life.

 

The district is not an essential organizer for multi-unit events.    Units can contact other units and put together their own encampment or hike or whatever.   Works just fine.

[Eagle94-A1]

Yeah i've been in a district that said no, it's been a while though. And i admit, I've been projecting my district's situation too: not enough folks to help on the district level and we will take anyone.

[desertrat77]

Yeah i've been in a district that said no, it's been a while though. And i admit, I've been projecting my district's situation too: not enough folks to help on the district level and we will take anyone.

Same here, I'm in a district now that says "yes" and although we are still woefully understaffed, it's okay because the camaraderie is great, the focus is on the units, and it's all a welcome change from my four previous district experiences elsewhere.

 

PS  Please take care of that shoulder!