FOS

[kahits]

Starting my third year with my son's troop, I have seen a trend with our district that is becoming too familiar. The DE I had for all 5 years with my son's pack, involved a very capable volunteer who ran our district FOS program, which resulted in his award of the Silver beaver and subsequent departure from the district and scouting, as I was coming into the troop. Since that time, the next, new DE (a 9 year professional) was given the task of running the FOS campaign, which he was quite good at. Unfortunately, there were other circumstances that resulted in him taking a promotion out of state. Enter a brand new DE candidate, with no prior experience other then his Eagle youth as a scout. With 4 months under his belt, and a new born daughter, he has confided in me that he may not make it past his 1st year, primarily because he can't deal with the weight of FOS, on top of everything else that he is required to do. My question... how does your district run their FOS campaign and how many put this burden squarely on the shoulders of the DE? This was not the way it used to be, and we don't need an endless string of DE's coming and going, because their responsibilities are beyond their ability to complete.

[Gold Winger]

It's been my observation that DEs are judged by their numbers. Retention, new units and most importantly MONEY. If a DE does a good job by the standards of BSA, you won't have him very long. Fortunately, the DC and District Committee are really supposed to be running the show and if they are doing their job, the DE can focus on raising money.

[bkale]

In the NCAC (Washington DC/Northern VA/MD) area council we use volunteers to be the FOS presenters and coordinators. We actually had a ASM from a Troop in our District come in and talk to our Pack last pack meeting.

 

I tend to agree that the DE may not have the time or energy to give FOS the attention that it takes.

[mt_goodrich]

Not sure how other councils are, but in the Longhorn Council and in my district in particular, it is a volunteer on the district level that handles FOS. In turn, that person recruits presenters.

 

Our FOS Chairperson teaches school by day and a wonder woman by night running our FOS campaign. As one of my Wood Badge ticket items, I got involved in FOS and it truly has been one of the greatest experiences I have had. I volunteered to make presentations and have done five. Cool thing is I was afraid of speaking in front of people, but this has helped me get past that.

[FScouter]

FOS is handled by the volunteer district finance committee. The Finance chair is responsible to staff the committee and carry out the FOS program. The volunteer district committee chair is responsible for appointing chairs for the volunteer program committee, volunteer membership committee, as well as the chair of the volunteer finance committee.

 

The district executive is responsible for coordinating the efforts of the volunteer district committee. The DE is no more responsible for FOS than for the district camporee. However, when the volunteer nominating committee and the volunteer district chairman fail to fill the volunteer district committee positions, the DE is still responsible to see that the functions of the unfilled volunteer positions are still carried out.

 

Doing the work himself doesn't really cut it.

[BadenP]

F Scouter

 

Most districts do not even have a finance committee and secondly the FOS is one of the three main duties a DE is assessed on, if they don't make their goal 2 years in a row they are usually terminated by the SE. So don't think for one minute the DE is not responsible for FOS, in the five years I was a DE I watched four of my fellow DE's get fired for not making goal, even though their districts thought they were great, the SE thought otherwise. What goes on in professional scouting behind the scenes would amaze most volunteers.

[FScouter]

The DE is ultimately responsible for ensuring that FOS is handled, just the same as he is responsible for ensuring that the camporee is held, and unit leaders are trained. It is not his task to personally visit each unit in the district, make the FOS presentations, and collect contributions and pledge cards. These tasks are completed by volunteers through the volunteer district committee. Similarly, the DE does not run the camporee and does not run training events. Volunteers carry out those tasks.

 

The DEs responsibility is to ensure that the tasks of the district are being handled, not to personally do them solo. If the DE fails to get the district committee properly staffed and functioning, then there is a good chance the district goals will not be met and the DE may be replaced.

[Eamonn]

FOS is a headache!

In our Council the past practice has been that the SE asks the District Chairman to come up with the District Goals.

We have 3 campaigns: District (members of the District Committee) Family and Community.

The District Chair meets with the finance committee and sets the goals, which are sent back to the SE. Who sends them back to the District Chair asking that they be enlarged!!

The District Chairman before me got so very upset over this that he had a fight with the the SE which resulted in him telling the SE where to go and with that he quit!!

When I took on the job, I tried to have the goals made smaller.

I tried every trick in the book.

I counted the number of empty shops in the District, got the latest unemployment numbers.

Found out what the average income was for people in the towns in the District.

Protested that our goal was out of whack with Districts bigger than us.

Needless to say it all fell on deaf ears!!

Then just o prove me wrong we went ahead and exceeded the darn goals.

My goal was to really build up the community campaign.

We were very fortunate in having a wonderful community campaign chairman.

The DE did work very closely with him, providing reports and helping organize the kick off luncheon.

I took care of doing the tail twisting for the District Campaign, this wasn't hard just a matter of handing out the cards and telling everyone that "Eamonn Expects Everyman To Do His Duty" or something like that.

This left the Family FOS.

While the District Finance Chair coordinated this, it really was left to the District Committee. If someone was going to attend a B&G Banquet, he or she got to do the presentation, a lot of times the UC volunteered to do the presentation (Some UC's were asked not ever to do a presentation!!) The one person who was never asked or allowed to do a FOS presentation was the DE.

It just didn't seem right.

As the campaigns progressed the Key 3 tracked to see how things were going. If things didn't seem to be going well the DE along with the District Finance Chair and the District Chairman got on the phones and called anyone and everyone who had ever made a contribution, the DE did provide the list.

We must have done something right we only missed making Quality District one time out of ten years.

We have a new DE, new to the job, he started in January and our Community Chair stepped down. Our new Community Chair is the DE I had as DE when I was District Chair.

I strongly suggest that your DE looks for a really strong Community Chair and works with him to build up a strong community campaign.

District Goals are only money, they can be changed unlike membership which is set in stone.

If the goals are out of whack have someone find a good argument as to why they are out of whack. Hard facts backed up with numbers, not just "People can't afford it". It more than lightly isn't go to make any difference. SE's tend to be a hard headed bunch, but who knows you might catch him on a good day?

Eamonn.

 

[DugDirt]

A different direction ! -- As much as I support and love Scouting, I am tired of FOS at our Pack meeting every year.

 

We always have a good presenter and presentation and our little Pack of 25 boys in a mostly middle class area does pretty well in contributions, BUT I very much dislike that they come to the units to ask for $$$... These same people that are being guilted into pledging $$ are saying that they don't buy scout pants because they cost so much.(I don't think that's the real reason however)..

 

Why doesn't BSA go to civic goups and do a pitch and the civic groups can pledge the $ and get the recognition and satisfaction of being a "FOS"..

 

Go instead to the following meetings in each community:

Rotary, Kiwanis, Elks, Lions, Jaycees, Soroptimists, Knights of Columbus, Shriners, Masons, Junior Woman's Clubs, Moose, etc

 

AND then go to all the local businesses and pitch the FOS thing .. The contbutors can get a special sign/sticker for their door /window and maybe get recognition in a Council flyer sent to all Scouting families showing who supports Scouting..

 

Is this a bad idea? It will take more effort of course than guilting a trapped crowd into writing a pledge after they spend lots of $ and time (the Leaders) on Scouting already.

 

It woudl have the extra benefit of really getting teh community groups and businesses aware of and helping Scouting..

 

I would rather have an FOSP (Friends of Scout Pants) presentation next year and get every one to give $30 (our average pledge) and we'll use it to buy their son Scout pants.

[Eamonn]

DugDirt

Hi and Welcome.

What you post is already being done -That's what the community Campaign does!!

Ea.

[Gold Winger]

What I don't care for is the way that they direct FOS pitches at Scouters who are already giving so much time and energy.

 

As a district committee member, I got a letter saying "we expect each member of the committee to give $300." What? If I had $300 extra, I'd use it to buy snow tires.

 

At roundtable this year, the presenter passed out the envelopes and said "I want everyone to turn in an envelope before you leave tonight" then walked around the room with the box of "goodies," collecting the envelope and handing out the appropriate gift. I tore my envelope in half, handed it to him and left the meeting.

 

When I got the district committee letter, I was on district committee and the troop committee and like many of us I was stretching myself thin. I once counted and I had scouting things on an average of 17 days a month. Troop meetings, committee meetings, round table, campouts, camporees, training (district training staff) and probably more. Of course there was all the time on the phone and email outside of those meetings, not to mention (okay, I'll mention it) gas and mileage. I did it all because I enjoyed it but to then hand me a letter telling me that I was expected to pony up $300 just galled me.

 

I wasn't just offended for myself. I was offended for the other members of the committee who were putting in the same or more time than I. At round table I felt that it was a similar situation.

 

[scoutingagain]

I have to admit I'm skeptical of the staffing levels needed at the National and Council levels. I'd love to have an independent review done on the National organization, Councils and staffing by someone like Jack Welch.

 

I don't doubt there is a need for administrative staff, but in a shrinking organization, the beauracracy tends to take on a self fulfilling life of it's own.

 

SA

[Gold Winger]

I've been in only two councils but I'd say that neither was over staffed. Understaffed is more like it.

[Oak Tree]

"Some UC's were asked not ever to do a presentation!!"

 

Been there. Every year our district commissioner tries to force his way into doing the FOS presentation for us. Every year we politely tell him that we've got it covered (repeatedly), while behind the scenes we look at each other and talk about how we never ever want him to do a presentation for us.

[GMitch]

Just out of curiosity, how much do your units raise each year during FOS? I have done it in two different units the past two years, and both of them ended up with a little more than $2600. I'm just trying to find out if that is low, high, or average for a unit. I think this year we could have done better, but I assigned two fellows to help. One ended up in the hospital with serious diabetes complications, and the other didn't follow instructions very well. I told the IH that next year I prefer to do it alone, as the help wasn't very helpful.