Suggest Councils that should be Combined

[desertrat77]

Unfortunately, our council camps, nationwide, will be the first items on the auction block.

Many of these camps have been neglected for years.  Execs consider them cash cows, skimming the profit (little if any) and spending it elsewhere.  The BSA has de-emphasized the outdoors for years.  Many council decision makers will offer up the camp/camps and won't blink an eye. 

As mentioned earlier, legacy camps with solid alumni support like Bartle and Ten Mile will survive.  Most of the others won't.

Edited February 25, 2020 by desertrat77

[yknot]

1 hour ago, skeptic said:

For the past decade or more I have felt that National should have had and have a focus on preserving the council level camps whenever possible, including making upkeep help available.  While I am not one to feel the Summit is white elephant and not a great idea, no more than are any of the other National high adventure and training facilities.  But I do feel that the money put into the Summit might have been better utilized for the broadest benefits by working to "fix" and "save" local camps first.  After all, if Scouting is local, then the key outdoor element needs to utilize local facilities to the max, and at the lowest level of expense.  As noted, once the property is gone, it is pretty much gone, even though in a few instances it went to a friendly and cooperative entity that still allows scouting groups.  At this point though, I feel that the international interest in our large reservations and so on is a plus, and that properly managed and developed they are worth keeping.  But, that being said, a primary focus should be on bringing the cost down so that more youth can benefit.  Surely there are methods to do this, and the National board should have individuals that could spearhead this type of redirection.  

There is a certain amount of "local" logic in having regional high adventure or destination bases in the southwest, upper midwest, south, and now mid Atlantic, so I don't hate the idea of Summit either, but I think it's implementation has not been well managed.

The loss of council camp properties has been an ongoing crisis BSA has ignored. It speaks to the lack of outside expertise because support easily could have been offered through property management expertise and advice, bench marked program adjustments, or collective purchasing agreements. Facility upgrades are a common challenge and there are common components in engineering, environmental impact issues, etc., that BSA could have developed some basic institutional competency with and been in a position to offer resources. 

 

 

 

[David CO]

3 hours ago, MattR said:

 Pick an outside entity with no skin in the game and have them do a 360 review. Fiscal health, endowments, donors, usage, membership, camps and history of all that. Talk to council staff and volunteers, district staffs and units. Ask start, stop, continue questions about processes and camp, and hire, fire, encourage questions about people. The big question is whether each council is delivering a quality program and has a bright future. If a small council is doing that then don't muck with it. If a large council is just barely making ends meet then merging it with a failing council likely won't help. There is always a trade off between centralized, large control and distributed, small control, so don't assume bigger is better.

This sounds like a government solution.  When in doubt, form a new committee.  I don't think we need a new committee, or any other new entity.  Just ask the Chartered Organization Representatives.  This could be done by mandating a one-time vote of confidence/no confidence in every council.  Only the COR's vote.  If they vote no confidence, everybody at council is fired.  Then let the COR's form a new council.  If they want to merge with another council... fine.  If they want to divide up into smaller councils... fine.  Let them decide.   No interference from national.  

Once the new councils are settled, have them choose delegates to a sort of constitutional convention.  This time, we have a vote of confidence/no confidence for national.  If they vote no confidence, everyone at national is fired.  Have the delegates form a new BSA.

Could BSA leaders survive a vote of no confidence?  I doubt it.  

Edited February 25, 2020 by David CO

[Cburkhardt]

Chicagoland:  The Pathway, Three Fires, Rainbow and Northeast Illinois councils should consider combining into a single council to provide Scouting to the greater Chicagoland/NW Indiana geography.  There is an overall cultural and economic unity to Scouting in that area.  There is a long-standing spirit of cooperation among Scouters from these and predecessor councils.  Districts could remain as-is, with economies of scale allowing many more unit-serving executives.  The resulting council would have a single media market.  There are sufficient camping facilities just waiting to be centrally managed by professionals as a park system.  There are iconic Scout Reservation facilities capable of serving the entire metropolitan area.  This makes sense if the interests of our young people are our uppermost priority.     

[carebear3895]

11 minutes ago, Cburkhardt said:

Chicagoland:  The Pathway, Three Fires, Rainbow and Northeast Illinois councils should consider combining into a single council to provide Scouting to the greater Chicagoland/NW Indiana geography.  There is an overall cultural and economic unity to Scouting in that area.  There is a long-standing spirit of cooperation among Scouters from these and predecessor councils.  Districts could remain as-is, with economies of scale allowing many more unit-serving executives.  The resulting council would have a single media market.  There are sufficient camping facilities just waiting to be centrally managed by professionals as a park system.  There are iconic Scout Reservation facilities capable of serving the entire metropolitan area.  This makes sense if the interests of our young people are our uppermost priority.     

Didn't pathway basically write the book on "how to NOT merge councils" 

 

In all seriousness, I'd like to see them pull a Michigan Crossroads. One large council that handles properties/program, and smaller Field Service councils that just focus on units and fundraising. 

Edited February 25, 2020 by carebear3895

[carebear3895]

Just a friendly reminder, Council Properties are always the first thing to go when mergers happen....

Edited February 25, 2020 by carebear3895

[mds3d]

I really don't know how I feel about this.  We have more than 15 districts in our council as it is.   There are no small bordering councils.  I think this just doesn't apply here.   I don't live that far from the central office and it already seems far away.  I can't imagine what the farther districts think. 

 

Seems like a thing to tackle after everything settles down so that no new problems arise.    Maybe we should just merge all the councils up to the area.

[ParkMan]

Lots of good points on this topic.

I think a lot of this talk of merging councils is pointless without a vision for the future. If I were to offer an observation on why the BSA is struggling it's simple - we have to stop managing our way out of problems.  The right way to chart a future for Scouting is to develop a vision for Scouting we can get behind.  Let's figure that out first.  Council mergers is way down on the list of important things to do.

@MattR has hit on an important theme.  The beauty of a bottom up structure is that it promotes innovation.  The danger of a top down structure is that it stifles innovation.  In my mind, councils are the place where we see innovation in large scale Scouting.  National should have a team of smart people who are pulling best practices from successful councils and sharing them with others. Weak councils can learn from successful councils.  The trick here isn't to force mergers - it's to learn from successful councils.  What does a successful rural council look like?  What does a successful urban council look like?  Let's propagate that knowledge.  Let's build a culture of innovation.

[HashTagScouts]

3 hours ago, yknot said:

The loss of council camp properties has been an ongoing crisis BSA has ignored. It speaks to the lack of outside expertise because support easily could have been offered through property management expertise and advice, bench marked program adjustments, or collective purchasing agreements. Facility upgrades are a common challenge and there are common components in engineering, environmental impact issues, etc., that BSA could have developed some basic institutional competency with and been in a position to offer resources. 

 

 

 

Good thought.  Large companies that require maintenance, such as Home Depot, WaWa, Circle K, etc. have field maintenance employees, that travel from location to location to make repairs or do installations.  The individual retail location might have janitorial staff that takes care of the daily cleaning, but the bigger maintenance is from these roving company resources.  You could easily adopt a philosophy like that with camp properties, where say all of New England had a team of 3.  Bigger projects, perhaps all 3 would need to be at one particular camp for a week working together.  Rangers are not always full-time, and in some cases they may only be PT caretakers today.   

[Cburkhardt]

Carebear3895:  Hard to reply, as you provide no reasoning or specifics to support your opinions.

[Cburkhardt]

Mds3d:  I do not suggest an immediate timeline.  But, it is not going to take more than a year or so to understand where the BSA is.  There is no advantage to delay discussions until then.  

My sense is that with fewer and more-targeted services being performed at the council level, getting to the central office is not going to be as important as before.  Small satellite scout shops where DEs might also have work spaces is where we might be headed.  

Area boundaries are not drawn for volunteer convenience, as these are purely configured for national supervisory convenience.  With the Regions likely being dropped, areas will probably double in size.  That is just going to be too big for a council.  Better to combine geographies in a way that makes cultural and organization sense — like the consolidated Chicagoland/NW Indiana Council I have suggested.

[Cburkhardt]

Parkman:  Why don’t you suggest a sequence of events and the timing that would go with it?  What we need to grapple with is that the bankruptcy court is going to force a short schedule.  
 

The bankruptcy process will essentially strip national operations to the bare essentials over the next 6 months.  During that time our weakest councils will struggle financially and programmatically.  I am aware that up to 20% could be at a structural standstill or in default.  The suggestions for a broad grassroots re-envisioning of Scouting at the local level has an appeal, but I do not yet understand how that happens in the bankruptcy environment.

Councils that are dysfunctional now are likely to be even more dysfunctional in a time of transition.  If reallocation of resources to the district/unit service level is an agreed priority, what is the advantage of continued spending and wheel-spinning by so many councils?  

[RememberSchiff]

1 hour ago, Cburkhardt said:

Parkman:  Why don’t you suggest a sequence of events and the timing that would go with it?  What we need to grapple with is that the bankruptcy court is going to force a short schedule.  
The bankruptcy process will essentially strip national operations to the bare essentials over the next 6 months.

As I understand, the only short schedule was requested by the BSA - 80 days for victims/creditors to come forward. Please show a source confirming Judge Silverstein is forcing a short schedule or anything else.

On 2/20/2020 Judge Silverstein's  signed several interim (no expiration date) orders- debtor is authorized to continue run business, pay bills,....

https://cases.omniagentsolutions.com/documents?clientid=CsgAAncz%2B6Yclmvv9%2Fq5CGybTGevZSjdVimQq9zQutqmTPHesk4PZDyfOOLxIiIwZjXomPlMZCo%3D&tagid=1153

P.S. Interesting to note in above link, the number attorneys from different Councils with "Request for Service of Papers"

Edited February 26, 2020 by RememberSchiff

[Cburkhardt]

Chicagoland:  The Pathway, Three Fires, Rainbow and Northeast Illinois councils should consider combining into a single council to provide Scouting to the greater Chicagoland/NW Indiana geography.  There is an overall cultural and economic unity to Scouting in that area.  There is a long-standing spirit of cooperation among Scouters from these and the predecessor councils that existed there.  Districts could remain as-is, with economies of scale allowing a rennissance of membership growth --

[carebear3895]

26 minutes ago, Cburkhardt said:

Chicagoland:  The Pathway, Three Fires, Rainbow and Northeast Illinois councils should consider combining into a single council to provide Scouting to the greater Chicagoland/NW Indiana geography.  There is an overall cultural and economic unity to Scouting in that area.  There is a long-standing spirit of cooperation among Scouters from these and the predecessor councils that existed there.  Districts could remain as-is, with economies of scale allowing a rennissance of membership growth --

My Question is what would that accomplish? All 4 of those councils are economically well-off. The only thing that would foresee happening is more properties being sold off. Like you said, and I agree, Scouters in that area already work well together. Why change things for the sake of change? 

 

That's why I suggested the Michigan Crossroads Council comparison. That I could see happening.  

Edited February 26, 2020 by carebear3895