"Establish minimum standards to be considered a council"

[CynicalScouter]

No, but National's ability to issue council charters is. And I cannot think of ANY bankruptcy I ever heard of where the court ordered the chartered entity to relinquish their congressional charter (and I looked).

Remember: they filed a Chapter 11 (reorganization) not a Chapter 7 (liquidation). You might have an argument that National surrendered its ability to function entirely with a Chapter 7, but that is not what it happening.

Edited July 13, 2020 by CynicalScouter

[carebear3895]

1 hour ago, David CO said:

Who cares?

It's peoples livelihoods.... 

[David CO]

1 hour ago, carebear3895 said:

It's peoples livelihoods.... 

That's a big part of the problem.  The executives think BSA exists to pay their salaries.

[MattR]

9 minutes ago, David CO said:

That's a big part of the problem.  The executives think BSA exists to pay their salaries.

Just curious, when Ford came out with the Pinto and gas tanks were exploding, did you blame all the workers for that?

[David CO]

2 hours ago, MattR said:

Just curious, when Ford came out with the Pinto and gas tanks were exploding, did you blame all the workers for that?

All subcompact cars were unsafe.   

[Eagle94-A1]

Here is how I see it regarding pros. Disclosure, I was a DE and worked for National Supply.

There are a lot of good, honest professionals who wants what is best for the youth. I was one, some of my workers were as well. And I have had some good DEs I've worked with over the years. But there are also a lot of pros who do not live up to the Oath and Law. They will lie, steal, and do whatever it takes to get ahead.

The good ones tend to not stick around long.They get burned out, frustrated, or harassed  into leaving. Because they have to work twice and thrice as hard as the unscrupulous pros, they get burnt out much faster or get so frustrated with their situation that they leave. Why work so hard and not get truly recognized for the hard work. Worse is being harassed to leave. When I was a DE, my DFS and SE were both willing to do anything to not only meet goals, but be #1 in their division. When they realized I would not play their games, they harassed me into quitting. Cancelling training 4 days before leaving, rearranging my my week of summer camp until after I was married, causing me to cut short my honeymoon for a "mandatory meeting" in which only 1 other DE was at because he was at camp,  having me drive 2 hours round trip for a "meeting" which lasted all of 1 minute because I was picking up a video for them to return, etc.

They few good pros that advance tend to get sidelined to smaller councils. Their performance does not compare to those taking all the shortcuts.

[David CO]

56 minutes ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

They will lie, steal, and do whatever it takes to get ahead.

That pretty much describes all of the executives I've ever dealt with.  It's all about the paycheck.  No concern for the kids.

[PACAN]

@David CO

There are certainly scouting professionals that leave a lot to be desired.  The Peter Principle applies in many cases at the SE level.   This happens in lots of organizations including Congress for sure.  There are many issues with professional scouters.  One I've seen over and over is zero training in Customer Service and how to trust volunteers to do jobs.    "No you can't collect the $5.00 fee for the Pinewood Derby...I have to sit here for 4 hours writing out $5 receipts to the 50 scouts who are here".    The Executive Boards are neutered either by design or they just give up.

[CynicalScouter]

Update: Moving Some Churchill Recommendations Forward

While several items were mentioned about not moving forward "at this time", there's nothing about

Quote

"Establish minimum standards to be considered a council"

Since they haven't explicitly rejected, I can reasonably assume they are going ahead with it.

And we still have no idea what the "minimum standards to be considered a council" are going to be.

I am thinking this is probably right.

On 7/10/2020 at 12:12 PM, David CO said:

How much income a council generates for national.

But this was interesting

Quote

Recommendations that were paused for possible consideration of implementation in the future, include:

• Establishing a fee-based structure for councils in place of the National BSA collecting membership fees from councils

 

Edited August 13, 2020 by CynicalScouter

[qwazse]

I think the fee-based structure simply will consume a lot of time doing calculus that National Management Team is not prepared to do. The problem isn’t so much dividing the year in to months or weeks, but figuring out the price points.

Just think about it. How much more expensive can you make a night out with hotdogs and s’mores before participants realize that for the extra expense they can have the same night out with brats and tiramisu?

[CommishJulian]

On 7/13/2020 at 6:46 PM, Eagle94-A1 said:

There are a lot of good, honest professionals who want what is best for the youth.... And I have had some good DEs ...  But there are also a lot of pros who do not live up to the Oath and Law. They will lie, steal, and do whatever it takes   ...  The good ones tend to not stick around long. They get burned out, frustrated, or harassed  into leaving. ...   Why work so hard and not get truly recognized for the hard work. Worse is being harassed to leave.

Eagle.  I never thought in a million years I would have ever heard that said from a BSA Pro, current or former.  I commend you for having the courage to lay it out here for all of us.  I also commend the exceptional environment Scouter.com gives us in order to share, support and learn from each other's experiences in BSA's many micro climates and pockets of alternate realities.

David CO, I do agree with you about executives only really caring about their livelihoods as an employee of Scouts BSA.  Luckily, I been able to work with a handful of exceptional (now laid off) Scout Professionals who never got valued for what they kept bringing into the Districts and Council. 

With all that, I'll always have faith in Scouting; it's something far more.  As Nick Fury said, ""Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.""

Edited September 29, 2020 by CommishJulian
Grammar fix, and a positive ending.

[ParkMan]

1 hour ago, CommishJulian said:

Luckily, I been able to work with a handful of exceptional (now laid off) Scout Professionals who never got valued for what they kept bringing into the Districts and Council. 

I've heard this comment before from others.  I'd be curious for people to expand on this.  What are examples were you've seen professionals fired who were doing a good job?  No names of course.

Edited September 29, 2020 by ParkMan
expanded the thought

[CynicalScouter]

Proposed standards for councils now out.

 

[qwazse]

None of these are changes that will refocus councils and the communities in them toward better scouting. The first flaw of modern councils is that they are identified as an administrative unit of BSA, not an integral part of any community within their bounds. To correct this, a roll back is needed:

• the council shoulder patch should be a red strip with white lettering.
• the council name should be that of the largest city in its area. 

Laurel Highlands would be renamed Pittsburgh council. If folks in Davis, WV are bothered about being in Pittsburgh council, they can mobilize their community and form a self-sustaining council.

[ParkMan]

1 hour ago, qwazse said:

None of these are changes that will refocus councils and the communities in them toward better scouting. The first flaw of modern councils is that they are identified as an administrative unit of BSA, not an integral part of any community within their bounds. To correct this, a roll back is needed:

• the council shoulder patch should be a red strip with white lettering.
• the council name should be that of the largest city in its area. 

Laurel Highlands would be renamed Pittsburgh council. If folks in Davis, WV are bothered about being in Pittsburgh council, they can mobilize their community and form a self-sustaining council.

Nice idea.  I'd be up for making council names be more community oriented again.

I don't mind the administrative ideas here.  Organizations need structure and goals to help them work efficiently and effectively.  Not every decision in Scouting can be about unit level activities. 

However, I find that many of the issues in Scouting today stems from the simple reality that the administrative structure is preventing concerted effort on the core issues that are hampering membership in the program.  Until we figure out how to deal with local membership losses, the program will continue to shrink.  Merging councils or putting more pressure on DEs won't solve that.  More beascout websites won't solve that.  You've got to engage unit leaders in wanting to recruit.  You've got to figure out how to excite people not in the program to want to join, to start new units.