Positive Council Changes during Financial Reorganization

[Cburkhardt]

Let's try to keep the focus on what you believe a council should do and what functions can properly be eliminated or reduced during the coming time of financial tightening.   

[DuctTape]

Interesting that yesterday a Voice of the Scouter survey appeared in my email inbox and was focused on council responsiveness, programs, etc... as to how it provided benefit to scouters and units.

[ParkMan]

@Eagle94-A1

In the spirits of @Cburkhardt's topic.  Some comments in regards to your last post.

25 minutes ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

IOLS and BALOO are few and far between. And there is a heavy emphasis of doing online training. Which in a rural area can cause problems. He had one person take over 4 hours to download and do YPT2.1 We had to beg to get the syllabus and do live class YPT2.1.

What marketing materials?  My district has lost so much membership because of lack of recruiting, we are down to 3 packs and 7 troops. When volunteers want to do their own recruiting, we are told NO.

NO. When volunteers come forward, they either get overwhelmed and burned out, or every time they try to do something, they are told no. And sometimes it is both. Pros are not listening to the volunteers and COs.

Sad thing is that it wasn't always like this. SEs set the tone.

I think you may be in the worst council in the country.  

For councils to survive the upcoming re-org, they are going to have to rely even more on volunteers.  Between district and council volunteers, we probably have 200 people volunteering in significant ways in our council.  Add in key units and the number is probably 500 volunteers in major roles.  I believe there are just over 20 professionals.  No way those 20 people could run an entire council. 

SImilarly, in our key units and district roles, you have decades of Scouting experience and serious non-Scouting professional experience.  A DE has 10-15 years experience.  That's not to knock DEs - not at all.  But to walk away from all of those skills and knowledge is absurd.

Smart councils already recognize this.  Coming out of the re-org, smart councils will not wholly cut back on programming.  In turn, there should be a renewed focus on engaging volunteers in these roles.  If I were the council president or district chair in your council I'd be organizing a volunteer engagement summit.  Maybe districts have to combine, maybe you have to work in teams - I'm not sure.  But, you'd build functional teams to go tackle these problems.

[Jameson76]

52 minutes ago, carebear3895 said:

Larger councils that are able to fool unsuspecting people into take DA jobs.  Only council that I've met that used them is Northern Star in Minnesota. 

Our council has Program Specialists - 11 of them, they seem to be the ones paid to be Scout Leaders from what I can gather.

Also the council has these 10 folks on staff

• Marketing Coordinator
• Director of Outreach
• Director of Development and Marketing
• Development Director
• Development Team Coordinator
• Major Gifts Director
• Senior Development Director
• Development Assistant
• Senior Marketing and Communications Executive
• Development Executive

Seems to be a lot of Development going on.....

Of the (on the website) 74 staff noted only 20 have District Executive in the their title (27%).  There are many directors / ect - not sure what they all do

[David CO]

31 minutes ago, Cburkhardt said:

Let's try to keep the focus on what you believe a council should do and what functions can properly be eliminated or reduced during the coming time of financial tightening.   

OK.  I think councils should not have a monopoly over a territory.  Units should not be forced to register in a bad council (which is most of them).  Units don't have a monopoly on a territory.  Why should bad councils have a monopoly on a territory?  Make councils compete for units.  Let the bad ones go bankrupt.

[malraux]

6 minutes ago, Jameson76 said:

Of the (on the website) 74 staff noted only 20 have District Executive in the their title (27%).  There are many directors / ect - not sure what they all do

I count 34 employees on role at my council. 11 DEs, 3 camp staff with 3 camps(ie 1 per camp).

That's for a council touching 5 states and including ~15,000 youth involved.

[DuctTape]

32 minutes ago, David CO said:

OK.  I think councils should not have a monopoly over a territory.  Units should not be forced to register in a bad council (which is most of them).  Units don't have a monopoly on a territory.  Why should bad councils have a monopoly on a territory?  Make councils compete for units.  Let the bad ones go bankrupt.

Interesting concept. I will spend some time pondering this. Thanks for the thought.

[walk in the woods]

2 hours ago, David CO said:

OK.  I think councils should not have a monopoly over a territory.  Units should not be forced to register in a bad council (which is most of them).  Units don't have a monopoly on a territory.  Why should bad councils have a monopoly on a territory?  Make councils compete for units.  Let the bad ones go bankrupt.

I think I agree with you but would have to think about this a bit more.  My little town sits in one council, obviously, and is within a stones throw of two others.  Switching to those councils would be trivial if the option were available.  But, If my unit wanted to join the Kansas City council (500 miles away) in order to take advantage of the Mic-O-Say program, would that be allowed into your model (assume for the sake of argument we'd be willing to make the drive for work weekends and summer camp, etc.)?  I'd also be interested to hear your thoughts on units becoming free agents.  I won't hold you to it, just curious.

[PACAN]

David CO:  OK.  I think councils should not have a monopoly over a territory.  Units should not be forced to register in a bad council (which is most of them).  Units don't have a monopoly on a territory.  Why should bad councils have a monopoly on a territory?  Make councils compete for units.  Let the bad ones go bankrupt.

 

I have said for years that this Franchise model the BSA uses should be canned.   Units that get poor or no service customer service should be allowed to pick who their service provider is.  This is how we personally manage the services we get from other things.  We should all join carebear3895 ! The problem is that national has almost zero control over the individual feifdoms they call councils.   This is why national apparently does not, wiil not or cannot or will be unable to restructure below their level without a significant edict.  aSEs are pretty much uncontrolled by those whom he supposedly works for (Executive Boards) since he picks them (or "nominates" them).

 

JMHO.  

[David CO]

57 minutes ago, walk in the woods said:

I think I agree with you but would have to think about this a bit more.  My little town sits in one council, obviously, and is within a stones throw of two others.  Switching to those councils would be trivial if the option were available.  But, If my unit wanted to join the Kansas City council (500 miles away) in order to take advantage of the Mic-O-Say program, would that be allowed into your model (assume for the sake of argument we'd be willing to make the drive for work weekends and summer camp, etc.)?  I'd also be interested to hear your thoughts on units becoming free agents.  I won't hold you to it, just curious.

Absolutely.  If your unit's favorite campground is in another council, why shouldn't you be allowed to join that council and give them your money and support.  I think a unit would actually be less of a free loader that way.  Support the camp you use.

I don't know why we should even have councils in urban areas.  Let the councils reside on or near their camps.  It would make the logistics of managing campgrounds much easier.  Almost everything is done online now, anyway.  Who cares where the office is located?

I was a Lone Scout, so I naturally like the idea of free agents, but I'm not enthusiastic about the idea of free agent units.  I think we should have separate Lone Scout councils.  Boy Scout councils don't support Lone Scouting, and they often refuse to register boys as Lone Scouts.  Personally, I would never consider volunteering for a Boy Scout council position.  I don't like Boy Scout councils.  But I would give some serious consideration to offering my time and money to a Lone Scout council.

 

Edited February 6, 2020 by David CO

[David CO]

1 hour ago, PACAN said:

The problem is that national has almost zero control over the individual feifdoms they call councils.   

I think the opposite is true.  National has too much control over the SE.  

You're right about the SE control over the nominating process.  Since national controls the SE, and the SE controls the nominating process, national ends up controlling the nomination of officers of the councils.  This shouldn't be.

In Chicago, after the COR's twice refused to vote in the SE's hand-picked slate of officers, national stepped in and threatened to revoke the council's charter.  I think this proved to everyone involved who really picks these slates. 

Edited February 6, 2020 by David CO

[ParkMan]

Free market competition for units.  I'm trying to understand how this would work.

A unit based in Atlanta could join a council based in Denver because they preferred the service and the camps.  It's an absurd distance - but it makes the what if clearer to me.

What that would mean:

• CSP for the Atlanta troop would be from Denver
• Awards & uniforms could still be bought from the local Atlanta scout shop.  It's just money to the store.
• Advancement reports have to be done through Denver
• Camporees would be in Denver
• Roundtables would be in Denver
• adult training would be in Denver
• Scouters would volunteer in Denver to assist with District/Council work
• There would be no Atlanta support for membership activities for the Denver aligned unit.  In fact, the Atlanta based district would probably try to steer new scouts away from the unit aligned with Denver.
• Eagle board would be held in Denver
• Eagle banquets attended in Denver
• OA lodge membership & activities in Denver

Sure - I suppose this would work.

What I'd do if I were a council board in some small council is fire most of my staff and create an online only, minimal service council with tiny fees.  We'll process apps, advancement reports, do Eagle Boards online.  No camporees, OA, no districts, no training, no summer camp, etc...  Drive for a youth membership of 100,000 Scouts with a staff of 10 people - in essence a national council.

Edited February 6, 2020 by ParkMan
clarified a thought

[David CO]

1 hour ago, ParkMan said:

Free market competition for units.  I'm trying to understand how this would work.

A unit based in Atlanta could join a council based in Denver because they preferred the service and the camps.  It's an absurd distance - but it makes the what if clearer to me.

Yes, but imagine the possibilities if your council headquarters was in Las Vegas.  All of the COR's would show for that annual meeting.  "Sorry dear...but I'm doing it all for the kids."

Edited February 7, 2020 by David CO

[ParkMan]

20 minutes ago, David CO said:

Yes, but imagine the possibilities if your council headquarters was in Las Vegas.  All of the COR's would show for that annual meeting.  "Sorry dear...but I'm doing it all for the kids."

Hah!  Yeah, count me in for that one.  That's one way to drive up COR involvement!

[walk in the woods]

2 hours ago, ParkMan said:

Free market competition for units.  I'm trying to understand how this would work.

A unit based in Atlanta could join a council based in Denver because they preferred the service and the camps.  It's an absurd distance - but it makes the what if clearer to me.

What that would mean:

Many of the items you listed are already done online or could be.  Another items on your list would include the Atlanta unit recruiting other units to the Denver council.  In short the ATL council would have to compete.  Interesting exercise.