So, how big is your district?

[moxieman]

Our Roundtable theme last night was District Open-House. Various members of the district explained what their roles/their committees roles were and how they can help the units in the district.

 

As part of his introduction, our District Chairman displayed a map of our district and stated, that area-wise we are one of the largest districts east of the Mississippi River covering 6,747 square miles.

 

For reference, the state of Connecticut is roughly 5,500 square miles....Rhode Island is roughly 1,200 square miles. So, all this time when I've said Kennebec Valley District is as large as those two states combined, I was really, close. Provided, about half our area is true wilderness.

 

Over those 6,747 square miles we have about 80 units providing service to about 2,000 youth, or 1 youth per 3 square miles. Talk about spread-out.

 

 

So...how big is your district? If it's not as big as ours, and folks complain it's too far to go to your roundtable, point to us. We have folks from the Canadian border town of Jackman travel 2+ hours each way every month to attend RT.

 

 

[Gold Winger]

Wow! Mine is maybe five miles by 7 miles and people complain about having to drive to the other end of the district for a meeting.

 

T

[eagle97_78]

I don't think that we should be truly worrying about how large our districts are, but we do need to worry about how many youth we serve. I have read the The message that Bob Maccuza(sp) gave at the Top Hands meeting a few months back and quoted someone for saying we in the Boy Scouts of America one reach 5,000, 000 youth, but we should be reaching 10,000,000 youth. I think we should be talking more about how we can reach thses 10 million you instead of comparing the size of our districts or councils.

[Oak Tree]

eagle97_78, you're free to start your own thread. I think that discussions on how to reach more Scouts are great. You can see a lot of those discussions already on the forum.

 

On the other hand, it's interesting to throw in some other items of interest from time to time.

 

My suburban district is fairly small. I'm guessing maybe 30 square miles. There are much larger districts in our council, with the largest being about 1700 square miles.

 

The council I grew up in had just one district of about 900 square miles.

 

I'm sure the geographic area is going to vary directly with the population density (or lack thereof). I'll bet Alaska has some districts that are bigger than Maine.

[Ohio_Scouter]

Hi moxieman,

 

Our district in Southwest Ohio is about 230 square miles in size and includes about 70 units (packs, troops, and crews).

[Gold Winger]

I find the discussion interesting. It aslo makes me realize that I've been luck to be able to get to a Natinal Scout Shop and the council offices in just a hop and a skip.

 

If it's a two hour drive to get there, you don't say, "Oh, I'll run there and pick up that missing patch this afternoon."

[Stosh]

If one's goal is to serve boys, distances shouldn't make any difference. My council has 3 districts: I live in one district, I'm a scoutmaster in another, and a venturing advisor in the third. Because of the unique dynamics of the venturing crew, I pull in youth from 3 different councils, and hold meetings throughout the 3 state area.

 

And in spite of all that, I'm just 2 miles from the scout office!! :^)

 

Stosh

[infoscouter]

Our district encompasses all of two counties - a total of 863 sq. miles. We have approximately 90 units. It's approximately 25 miles to either of our service centers, but happily, we have a free-standing National Scout shop in the district.

[eolesen]

East of the Mississippi is one thing... Out here in the southwest, large districts aren't unusual.

 

My district in southern Arizona comes in at over 7,800 square miles. We have 170 units and about 3,300 boys. The second largest district in our council comes in at 6,100 square miles and around 70 units.

[jethro]

Wow, we're really spoiled.

 

I'm not sure of the exact statistics of our district, but 30 to 50 square miles sounds about right. We're right next to the council headquarters and scout shop at one end of a 200+ mile long council. So while some folks have a drive of over 4 hours to HQ, it's only 15 minutes or so from two other councils. (And a long walk from my office! )

[Gold Winger]

"If one's goal is to serve boys, distances shouldn't make any difference."

 

Unfortunately, they do make a difference. At $3 a gallon, many will think twice about blowing $50 in gas just to go to a meeting.

 

However, this discussion wasn't started so that people could stomp their feet and preach about "serving boys." It was started as an interesting commentary about the various sizes of districts.

 

For my part, it never occrurred to me that there would be a district that is larger than Connecticut.

[moxieman]

For my part, it never occurred to me that there would be a district that is larger than Connecticut.

 

And that is partially why I started the thread. I was also curious to hear from others and to help them provide something to counter to those folks in their own district who gripe when they have to drive 15 minutes to an event.

 

Another reason was to get an idea of population densities. We don't have much population up this way and that's why our district is so big.

 

And we're not the largest district in Maine! That honor goes to our "neighbors" in North Star District, Aroostook County, Maine at 6,829 square miles, or as Mainahs call it, "The County". It also happens to be the largest county east of the Mississippi river.

 

In the past I have served as a scout leader in the southwest (South Plains Council, TX), in it's smallest district, Chapparel, a mere 1600 square miles if I recall correctly--one square-shaped West Texas county. Most of their other 4 districts had 4 or 5 similar sized counties lumped together in each of them...so roughly 6,400 to 8,000 square miles each, but out there it was mostly tumbleweeds and cotton. Most of those counties only have 3 to 6 towns in'em to begin with.

 

So again, to those of you in tiny, suburban districts, when your folks complain that 15 minutes is too long a drive to go to training, roundtable, or a scouting event, point to this thread and us up here in the Maine Wilderness. Tell'em that we would gladly swap traveling distances with'em at $3/gallon gasoline!

(This message has been edited by moxieman)

[ustbeeowl]

It's not the size that matters...

[ozemu]

lol, that was funny ustbeeowl.

 

one and a half hours drive from one end of my district to the other. Not sure about the distance in miles. about 100 miles maybe.

 

Nearest scout shop is in teh next state. 2 1/2 hours drive. We get everything by mail order. There is an outlet for uniforms an hour and a half away but mail order is more practicable. I won't talk about number. One - I don't know exactly, two it's notmuch

 

 

 

 

[SequoiaWDL]

This is the link to our Council map, our district (Golden West) is the tiny one in the middle. I don't understand how this Council got carved up this way, ancient population distribution patterns I guess. There are only 14 Boy Scout units, 5 or 6 are small LDS units, and 2x Cub Units, 1 Venturing Crew, and 1 Ship. The cool thing is the council office is about 2 miles from home.

 

http://www.seqbsa.org/districts.htm