Positive District Changes during Financial Reorganization

[MattR]

 

3 minutes ago, qwazse said:

Let's dream of doing one better. Pay 1.5*interest on student loans while every qualified 20-something serves as an ASM or SM. 

And that's how we could get scouts as an after school program, making it so much easier to recruit scouts. And those older scouts in high school could be used in those schools.

I think one could apply for grants to fund it.

[David CO]

4 minutes ago, qwazse said:

 

But, @David CO, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Compensating youth for an intrinsically rewarding program might be inappropriate                                                                       

Ya think!

I can't think of anything that would be more indicative of a top down perspective in scouting than paying kids to be scouts.  

[dkurtenbach]

40 minutes ago, Sentinel947 said:

I dunno if being outdoors is in danger. The National Parks are being loved to death. The AT and PCT are increasingly overcrowded and outdoor product companies are making record profits. People are still going outdoors. 

Non-Scout people go outdoors to be active -- to hike, to hunt, to fish, to explore the landscape, to take photographs, to find and learn about the vegetation and the animals.  All too often, Scouts go outdoors to be largely inactive in the open air (unless they have cabins or pavilions).  They may do a hike or activity (geared to the younger Scouts) for a few hours during a weekend, but they spend a lot of time in their campsites working on advancement requirements, sitting by campfires, having Scoutmaster conferences (and even Boards of Review), laying in their tents or hammocks with their phones, cooking and eating, playing games, and just goofing around.  Many Scout camps and campgrounds frequented by Scouts are quite tame, with campsite parking spaces (and spaces for troop trailers, too) and restrooms and water spigots and charcoal grills and benches around a concrete or metal fire ring.  Oh, and leave the fallen tree branches on the ground -- you can buy cut firewood at the camp store. 

It is really easy to make the outdoors boring - both for the youth and the adults.

[David CO]

5 minutes ago, MattR said:

I think one could apply for grants to fund it.

No!  No!  No!   I was joking.  The one time people agree with me here, and I was joking.  Aaargh.

[MattR]

Just now, David CO said:

No!  No!  No!   I was joking.  The one time people agree with me here, and I was joking.  Aaargh.

I'm not talking about scouts, I'm talking about 20 something folks. Likely the same ones that work at the summer camps. Is that who you're disagreeing with? Ideally, it would be nice to get college students to volunteer but my experience has been they aren't very reliable.

BTW, I took my daughter out of girl scouts because the troop was charging other troops to have her train them.

[yknot]

59 minutes ago, David CO said:

No!  No!  No!   I was joking.  The one time people agree with me here, and I was joking.  Aaargh.

I'm talking about aged out scouts here, post 18. 

 

[yknot]

1 hour ago, dkurtenbach said:

Non-Scout people go outdoors to be active -- to hike, to hunt, to fish, to explore the landscape, to take photographs, to find and learn about the vegetation and the animals.  All too often, Scouts go outdoors to be largely inactive in the open air (unless they have cabins or pavilions).  They may do a hike or activity (geared to the younger Scouts) for a few hours during a weekend, but they spend a lot of time in their campsites working on advancement requirements, sitting by campfires, having Scoutmaster conferences (and even Boards of Review), laying in their tents or hammocks with their phones, cooking and eating, playing games, and just goofing around.  Many Scout camps and campgrounds frequented by Scouts are quite tame, with campsite parking spaces (and spaces for troop trailers, too) and restrooms and water spigots and charcoal grills and benches around a concrete or metal fire ring.  Oh, and leave the fallen tree branches on the ground -- you can buy cut firewood at the camp store. 

It is really easy to make the outdoors boring - both for the youth and the adults.

Is that not the truth? My kids only went once each time. There was no one leading them that could tell them what kind of bird that was that just flew by,  what tree, what rock formation. They had fun on the shooting range and some water stuff, but it was not an outdoors experience. They did more outdoors stuff at home. 

[David CO]

1 hour ago, MattR said:

Is that who you're disagreeing with? 

I disagree with the top down approach to scouting.  Anyone who takes a top down approach, I disagree with.

Let's start at the beginning.  A group of boys want to go camping.  They belong to an organization.  So, that organization charters a boy scout troop.  Members of the Chartered Organization volunteer their time to the troop because they love and support the kids.  This is good.

Let's look at something else.  A council employee gets evaluated based on the number of kids who sign up.  His job depends on numbers.  So, he pushes to charter new troops and new scouts.  Many of the scouts and scout leaders don't really want to go camping.  They have other motives for joining.  But they boost the employee's numbers, so he's fine with it.  He even encourages it.  This is bad.

I am one of the people who love and support the kids.  I don't care about the numbers.  I have no great desire to promote scouting.  I want to help the kids to go camping and have fun.  A game with a purpose. No other motive here.

[TAHAWK]

On 2/10/2020 at 7:27 PM, Cburkhardt said:

“All Hat and No Cattle”.  There must be a large contingent of commenters on this blog that enjoy reading and talking about the “big council stuff” but not District Scouting closer at the more meaningful, granular level.  Over 3,700 views and 140 great replies in 5 days on how to improve things at the Council level during the bankruptcy.  But, not a single posting on how to upgrade things at the District level.  As a Scoutmaster of a new 30-Scout Troop that receives solid support from our District, I wonder why there is such a difference.  Maybe it has been too long since you helped form a unit, run a district camporee or recruited a new unit commissioner? Perhaps the BSA perfectly operates and provides support to our Districts?

 

We no longer have districts.  We have Service Areas run by  Council employees with little Scouting background.  Bankruptcy might be a good thing.

 

"All hat and no cowboy."

Edited February 13, 2020 by TAHAWK

[yknot]

Never mind

Edited February 13, 2020 by yknot

[TAHAWK]

As a practical matter, the right person has to ask - someone who they owe.  It's been that way for decades.  Too easy to say "no" - or ignore - strangers.

When we had  districts, as effort was made to force us into a "COMMUNITY LEADER" model.  Only business execs [$$$$$$$$$$] - others elected were vetoed by the SE after the elections.  Clean sweep of the volunteers who had led their districts - including those with membership growth AND over 100%of FOS goal collected. 

When the voters in our strongest district would not be dragooned and kept electing their choice, the districts were eliminated. 

Our district, to our shame, went along.  We had four years of a "District Chairman" who was a CEO with almost no Scouting background who.  He did nothing.   He attended less than 20% of the District Committee meetings and felt it was totally the "professionals" job to fill the District Roster.  As they were effectively strangers, they failed - no District Commissioner for half the time.  No Training Chairman for 75%of the time.  No Roundtable Commissioners for 80%.   If not for the Program Chair becoming the de facto District Chairman, nothing would have happened.

And then he and his committee were thrown under the bus with the death of districts.

And it is much, much worse.  

 

 

Edited February 13, 2020 by TAHAWK

[Sentinel947]

4 hours ago, dkurtenbach said:

Non-Scout people go outdoors to be active -- to hike, to hunt, to fish, to explore the landscape, to take photographs, to find and learn about the vegetation and the animals.  All too often, Scouts go outdoors to be largely inactive in the open air (unless they have cabins or pavilions).  They may do a hike or activity (geared to the younger Scouts) for a few hours during a weekend, but they spend a lot of time in their campsites working on advancement requirements, sitting by campfires, having Scoutmaster conferences (and even Boards of Review), laying in their tents or hammocks with their phones, cooking and eating, playing games, and just goofing around.  Many Scout camps and campgrounds frequented by Scouts are quite tame, with campsite parking spaces (and spaces for troop trailers, too) and restrooms and water spigots and charcoal grills and benches around a concrete or metal fire ring.  Oh, and leave the fallen tree branches on the ground -- you can buy cut firewood at the camp store. 

It is really easy to make the outdoors boring - both for the youth and the adults.

I stand by my point. Americans are getting out doors plenty. The people who are interested in getting out in nature and doing fun things are there. The average BSA Troop doesn't execute an exciting or compelling outdoor program most of the time. Some of that is the Guide to Safe Scouting, but I'd say more of it falls on the leaders of those troops. My Troop isn't all that special, but we do plenty of adventurous outdoor stuff: backpacking, canoeing, rock climbing, caving, shooting sports. All that stuff does cost money, and even the fairly well off families in my unit can't afford 8-12 expensive weekend outings a year, especially across multiple kids. So we always do a few local, close, low cost activities each year as well. 

[TAHAWK]

Sounds right.  So how do we get Scoutmasters to influence the Scouts towards exciting program?

 

 The answer used to be training, but the training materials seem less oriented towards adventure, less and less time is allocated to training, and little is done to encourage exciting program or to discourage unexciting program.  E.g.: a weekend "lock-in" indoors to watch movies is a "weekend campout" for scoring Journey to Mediocrity," a principle tool, we are told, to promote "good program."  😍

[MikeS72]

9 hours ago, TAHAWK said:

Our district, to our shame, went along.  We had four years of a "District Chairman" who was a CEO with almost no Scouting background who.  He did nothing.   He attended less than 20% of the District Committee meetings and felt it was totally the "professionals" job to fill the District Roster.  As they were effectively strangers, they failed - no District Commissioner for half the time.  No Training Chairman for 75%of the time.  No Roundtable Commissioners for 80%.   If not for the Program Chair becoming the de facto District Chairman, nothing would have happened.

And then he and his committee were thrown under the bus with the death of districts.

And it is much, much worse. 

Every time I read about this kind of thing happening to districts and councils I am thankful that I am in what I consider to be the best district in one of the best councils in the country.

While every council has issues from time to time, we have a strong, vibrant program; and are experiencing steady growth in both the Cub and Scouts BSA programs.

[RememberSchiff]

Agree some Scoutmasters need help with this. What if District had two or more  experienced, enthusiastic,  fit , young  adult outdoor guides  available to units at no cost? Maybe members of a local college outdoor club,  former Philmont rangers and other super scouts, REI employees, graduates from college outdoor education programs,  Maine Guides, ...  Like a Council Philmont visit, they would visit a troop , talk about their adventures,  answer questions, hope scouts  and adults take hook....Ok lets start planning this trek...and help provide two deep leadership for weekend trek.  

My $0.01,

Edited February 13, 2020 by RememberSchiff