What scouting needs vs wants

[JoeBob]

4 hours ago, CynicalScouter said:

If improvement is not made, the commissioner team, in partnership with their District Executive, will work with the chartering organization to identify the barriers to success, which may include the selection of new unit Key 3 leadership that are committed to addressing the metrics to ensure the Promise to Parents is delivered to families

I am cackling!  The 'Promise to Parents' perfectly distills the BSA Pro's attitude towards volunteers, does it not? In a nutshell:

BSA to Volunteer (who has invested enough blood and sweat to be Key 3):

"You work for us (for free). 

You will work harder (because of our national follies)

to meet our expectations (of high executive salaries),

or we will fire you (thereby increasing your compensation by the return of your free time)."  

In the past, when BSA was a prestigious outdoor character program, being a volunteer provided enough self-esteem and 'give-back' satisfaction to entice plenty of volunteers to step up.  Now being associated with BSA is almost a stigma.

When costs are climbing, recruits are dwindling, fun is being sucked from the program, existing Scouts are stepping off, paperwork is justifying itself, new volunteers are shying away, COs are pulling back from the brink, and existing volunteers are overworked; BSA chooses to blame the volunteers...  Classic.

Fire me, PLEASE!!!

Edited May 29, 2021 by JoeBob

[InquisitiveScouter]

3 minutes ago, JoeBob said:

Fire me, PLEASE!!!

OK, you are fired!

Now, fire me, too, please!!🤪🤪

[Eagle94-A1]

I need to revisit this because this has me irked so much.

5 hours ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

Finally regarding this "If improvement is not made, the commissioner team, in partnership with their District Executive, will work with the chartering organization to identify the barriers to success, which may include the selection of new unit Key 3 leadership ( emphasis added) that are committed to addressing the metrics to ensure the Promise to Parents is delivered to families,  What gave the Council the right to interfere with a Charter Organization's appointments? If the council wants to change leadership, I hope they plan on losing not only experienced Scouters who know the metrics are a bunch of hogwash, but also units that will not deal with the hogwash.

 

When I was a DE, we had one pack that had a history of losing new members before recharter, The pack was almost dead, with 5 Cubs, and I got 40+ new Cubs for them during the round up. When recharter came, they only had 8-10 rechartering. I attempted to talk to the parents of every Cub who dropped out.  A lot did not return my calls or want to talk to me. Of the ones I did talk to, some were willing to try another pack. The issue was the CM, her DL husband. They were rude, obnoxious, and were running everyone away with their behavior. And there was not a thing the council could do about it. My boss and I met with the IH/COR about the problem. We told them the issue, what was happening, and how we could not do anything about it because it was his unit. He did not want to get involved.

So how can teh council come in and dismiss Scouters from their roles?

[CynicalScouter]

17 minutes ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

So how can teh council come in and dismiss Scouters from their roles?

Note the language

Quote

If improvement is not made, the commissioner team, in partnership with their District Executive, will work with the chartering organization to identify the barriers to success, which may include the selection of new unit Key 3 leadership that are committed to addressing the metrics to ensure the Promise to Parents is delivered to families

1) This could mean that the DE and commissioners will do what you did: tell the CO/COR/IH the unit is failing and why (Key-3) and work with the CO to start kicking out the Key-3. BUT since more COs couldn't care less/"We just rent them space"...

2) I suppose in an extreme case where the DE and commissioners identify the Key-3 as an issue, simply refuse to accept their application at recharter and ask for a new Key-3. Of course that's entirely theoretical and never going to happen. Or

3) The unit dies.

For as heavy handed as this appears, the odds of actual implementation seem around 0.

Edited May 29, 2021 by CynicalScouter

[Owls_are_cool]

On 5/29/2021 at 5:32 AM, SSScout said:

What think ye on this?   A "Promise to Parents", not a "promise to kids"?  

Much of this word for word gold standard for Journey to Excellence. 9 short term camps. 75% of the troop go to a long term camp. 2/3s of troop advance a rank. Recruitment goals. Etc. 

While I do attempt to achieve gold in JTE every year, it says nothing about character growth of scouts which is one of the aims of scouting. This is hard to measure, but much more important. JTE likely needs a rewrite to measure what is important. 

We (the Key 3) meet with a unit commissioner yearly and identify areas where my troop needs to improve (maybe needs more focus?). This document points to this meeting a bit. I find this meeting benefits myself and my troop. 

Friends of Scouting is an easy sell for me, because my district office has always been helpful to me and my troop. The summer camps in my state are well maintained and well run. The council and district does try to take some of the load off of the unit volunteers. Not all scouters are as lucky in this area. I do not think customer service is in a district's JTE, but it should be. 

While I like clear expectations for my unit, this seems to be another layer of paperwork that units must go through. It is a lot of work on volunteers to get recharter completed and now this? If this was my council, I would be pushing back. 

[John-in-KC]

On 5/29/2021 at 11:26 AM, JoeBob said:

 

If improvement is not made, the commissioner team, in partnership with their District Executive, will work with the chartering organization to identify the barriers to success, which may include the selection of new unit Key 3 leadership that are committed to addressing the metrics to ensure the Promise to Parents is delivered to families

This implies the Council has enough Commissioners to support this course of action.

One reason I ceased registering as a Scouter/commish was … wait for it … metric management.   I was not about to force my units to do lean six sigma data input. 

[MattR]

This looks like 2 different subjects. One is about the desired program and the other is making changes if a unit isn't doing that program. To me, a program that's defined by how much advancement is done is the problem and not necessarily changing leadership. If the program was defined as fun in the outdoors and some unit was solely running advancement then maybe working with the leadership wouldn't be so bad. However, there really is no description of the program, so jte is all there is.

[Jameson76]

2 hours ago, Owls_are_cool said:

We (the Key 3) meet with a unit commissioner yearly and identify areas where my troop needs to improve (maybe needs more focus?). This document points to this meeting a bit. I find this meeting benefits myself and my troop. 

2 hours ago, John-in-KC said:

This implies the Council has enough Commissioners to support this course of action.

One reason I ceased registering as a Scouter/commish was … wait for it … metric management.   I was not about to force my units to do lean six sigma data input. 

 

You guys seriously meet with commissioners? Unless there are pics, gonna call that "unproven"

We are in a large council and they seem to have professional staff all over the place (at least 5 in marketing and untold number in "development")  On paper there seem to be Commissioners; Council, assist Council. asst to the regional manager commissioner, Commissioner colleges, commissioner meetings, etc etc.  They seem to have commissioner gathering at times.

In our District on the calendar there is a monthly commissioner meeting.

In 40 years as a leader in 4 different councils, 5 different troops I have met a commissioner once.  With my current troop over the last 14 years never seen one.  Concept is great, reality is much different.

[mrjohns2]

45 minutes ago, Jameson76 said:

In 40 years as a leader in 4 different councils, 5 different troops I have met a commissioner once. 

I can’t tell if you are being facetious or not. Our unit commissioner attends all Pack, Boy Troop, and girl troop meetings. He lets us know when he can’t. He also attends a normal unit meeting of each, each month or so. He does this for three COs. Each have 2 or 3 units. So, I’m the 3 years I have been on the troop committee, the commissioner is always there to help. He does a great great job of not “getting in the way”, but is there when needed. 

[InquisitiveScouter]

3 minutes ago, mrjohns2 said:

I can’t tell if you are being facetious or not. Our unit commissioner attends all Pack, Boy Troop, and girl troop meetings. He lets us know when he can’t. He also attends a normal unit meeting of each, each month or so. He does this for three COs. Each have 2 or 3 units. So, I’m the 3 years I have been on the troop committee, the commissioner is always there to help. He does a great great job of not “getting in the way”, but is there when needed. 

You are the exception, I think.

[yknot]

47 minutes ago, Jameson76 said:

You guys seriously meet with commissioners? Unless there are pics, gonna call that "unproven"

We are in a large council and they seem to have professional staff all over the place (at least 5 in marketing and untold number in "development")  On paper there seem to be Commissioners; Council, assist Council. asst to the regional manager commissioner, Commissioner colleges, commissioner meetings, etc etc.  They seem to have commissioner gathering at times.

In our District on the calendar there is a monthly commissioner meeting.

In 40 years as a leader in 4 different councils, 5 different troops I have met a commissioner once.  With my current troop over the last 14 years never seen one.  Concept is great, reality is much different.

We had one.  No help, just hindrance. And a very, very strange guy to boot

[mrjohns2]

1 hour ago, InquisitiveScouter said:

You are the exception, I think.

If this is true, it blows my mind. Our current commissioner does everything you see in the training / literature that a Unit commissioner is supposed to do. In addition to meeting with us, he HELPED (not hindered) with the charter, we have had an issue with popcorn money from council that he is working out, he helped us when we needed advice on an issue between a Scout and an ASM, and other things. We aren't very needy, but he is really part of our team of resources. 

[Owls_are_cool]

2 hours ago, Jameson76 said:

You guys seriously meet with commissioners? Unless there are pics, gonna call that "unproven"

We are in a large council and they seem to have professional staff all over the place (at least 5 in marketing and untold number in "development")  On paper there seem to be Commissioners; Council, assist Council. asst to the regional manager commissioner, Commissioner colleges, commissioner meetings, etc etc.  They seem to have commissioner gathering at times.

In our District on the calendar there is a monthly commissioner meeting.

In 40 years as a leader in 4 different councils, 5 different troops I have met a commissioner once.  With my current troop over the last 14 years never seen one.  Concept is great, reality is much different.

First step is to determine who is your unit commissioner, then set up a meeting with him/her. Easy for me, because my unit commissioner attends the same roundtables and district committee meetings that I do. Sometimes we meet after roundtable, to be efficient with our time. Granted not all councils have their act together, but I learned what is required of unit commissioners in my district, so I make sure I am available to him and ensure he meets those requirements in regards to my troop.

[CynicalScouter]

4 hours ago, MattR said:

This looks like 2 different subjects.

Yeah, I agree. But another thread seemed...overkill? If you need to split, I'm ok with that.

[T2Eagle]

I'm part of a successful troop and pack, in a pretty successful district in a pretty successful council.  I've only ever known two unit level commissioners in my life, one was also a member of our troop, one was a friend wh had like 5 different COs he was commissioner for.  They're nice ideas, but I've never really seen them.