Journey to Excellence??????? Why bother

[Basementdweller]

Eagle 92 mentions this program in the thread I spun this off for.....

 

Why bother to participate??? Is it about the patch on the uniform?????

 

We do all 13 points, budget, succesion, service, camping and outdoors.

 

 

I will not have national dictate my program too me. Like many here I find the Council and district programs are too expensive and horribly run. So we put on our own webelos woods for our pack and a neighboring pack with the help of the troop. We put on our own day camp at a local park.... District told me that our local day camp does not count.

 

I really don't care about quality unit.....I don't care what color the District thinks our pack is......I don't care what the district committee does.

 

I care about my scouts, they are having fun, it is affordable and their parents see the value in continuing it. Oh, and while they are having fun they might actually learn something.

[moosetracker]

Basement - from how you describe your council / district.. You are correct from your standpoint.

 

For anyone who has developed a program that surpasses their council / district, then if you run above the bar I say go for it. It is just a ribbon or patch or whatever..

 

Most units though if they don't utilize the council programs, they are probably not doing much at all, you can usually see the same groups have the shortage of adult leaders, and are barely scratching together the 5 scouts needed to recharter.. The advancement is not there, and the leaders they have are untrained..

 

Not all councils are like yours Basement. Most councils run a decent program, some even an excellent program and those units not attending any of it are not doing much of anything for their own program either.

 

A few here have issues similar to yours, but I would not say a majority do.. Others may have a decent council, but still run their units on a higher plain then the average troop.(This message has been edited by moosetracker)

[Eagle92]

Base,

 

I can sympathize from some of the things you describe in your council. But as Moose said, not every council is like that.

 

I personally like the J2E program better than the old Honor Unit and Quality unit programs. It gives you a set of goals that are based upon successful units, and is program oriented. I can tell you that I know of units that are struggling b/c they are not following these good practices. And to be honest, a good unit will have not problem meeting these goals.

[SeattlePioneer]

Hello Basement,

 

 

I echo moosetracker's sentiments.

 

And as I understand it, the unit makes the final decision on whether you've completed particular requirements. Personally I wouldn't hesitate a second to consider an element completed if my Cub pack had done it's own day camp or a Scout troop did it's own summer camp.

 

Just out of curiosity, what do you consider an unreasonable cost for day camp? My council charges $70 for a four day program, and those interested can typically get half that as a campership paid for by the council if they wish to make an application for it.

 

 

Personally I find the Journey to Excellence program worthwhile on both the unit and district level I work at. The Cub Pack I work with didn't meet the Quality Unit requirements last year --- this year I have a Committee Chair who is willing to work at them in a more formal way and we should be able to imoprove on enough of the metrics to qualify.

 

I see four steps to using the Journey to Excellence effectively:

 

 

1) Unit Leader and Committee Chair review the various requirements with the idea of understanding the program

 

2) Unit Leader and Committee Chair evaluate how the unit would have done last year by applying the JTE standards to last years performance

 

3) Unit Leader and Committee Chair identify which elements of JTE you want to improve on to meet the desired JTE standard

 

4) Unit Leader and Committee Chair share those needed improvements with the Unit Committee periodically during the year to determine if those new goals are being met.

 

So we have a ways to go on some of those standards. We have an excellent district program (that would have qualified on the JTE lasty year) to help us. So it's a useful program for us.

 

 

 

[BS-87]

Basementdweller - Your stance on J2E is characteristic of many very successful unit leaders.

 

Because you are 100% the Gold Standard, your experience is greatly needed to help other units achieve your level of success. Journey to Excellence breaks down the leading indicators of what it takes, step by step, to build and maintain a good unit infrastructure. This is sorely needed by most units out there. I sat down with my units and worked out actionable items for each requirement, as to how we'll achieve the Gold level, and it's almost like an epiphany for the leaders and committee to see what they feel to be the best kept secrets to running a good organization, not just scout unit.

 

Your opinion is understandable, just don't give your commissioners too hard a time about it.

[Basementdweller]

Day camp is $75 and requires a 60 mile a day round trip in rush hour cross town traffic.

 

The big van we drives get 8 miles to the gallon that means $30 per day in gas X 5 days that is $150. so our cost approaches $90 per scout.

 

Remember who I serve.....that is a bunch of money to most of them.(This message has been edited by Basementdweller)

[desertrat77]

As a UC, I'm not looking forward to selling this program to my units.

 

At the end of the day, it's another "program"--meaning paperwork, committee work, and meetings, dreamed up by a team of MBAs.

 

Unit level leaders already have enough of this. I think something a little more dynamic would be helpful.

 

Seems like a rehash of Total Quality Management, where, truly, the journey (tedium) never ended.

[Eagle92]

I'll be honest, I am very envious of units that are meeting J2E requirements. When I first read the BS ones and see how my troop wouod compare, we would have aced Gold. Only requirements that would have concerned me are teh Webelos to Scout transition, as we did not have a feeder pack for a long time and usually got "retreads" recruiting by word of mouth. heck I was a retread, transferring form another troop. Also teh NYLT requirement would have b/c the council went 6 years without a BA22/JLTC course, so no one would have attended.

 

But looking at my pack, we have a ways to go.

 

In ref to CSDC, does your council have camperships? My council does have 1 campership fund that anyone can use. The other two are limited to eagle Scouts Only and Boy Scouts Only.

[nolesrule]

Yeah, JTE doesn't really do much for units that are doing great, but it really does help newer or struggling units focus on improvement through a series of defined goals. Some of the goals are more useful than others, but overall, I see it as more useful compared to what we used to have.

 

The worst thing about the Centennial system was units setting their goals so low as to know they could easily hit them to get the award, rather than seriously working to grow/improve the unit.

[Basementdweller]

pretty easy.

 

1. the only boys who didn't advance were the ones that dropped. with that we were 90%

2. We retain 90% of our youth...only lost 4 webs this year to sports

3. We nearly doubled the size or our pack

4. We hike monthly and family camp twice a year, plus our conservation projects

5. 100% of our leadership is completely trained. we have two leaders baloo and owl trained

6. Resident camp webs go out of council and the cubs we do our own thing

7. We do earth day weekend, three projects total, then a local creek clean up and park

work day

8. Succession plan for 2011-12 was done in january

9. We transition 75% of our webelos into the troop.....way up from previous years

I took this real personal, my goal was to crossover 10 boys and it ended up only being

7, a personal failure.

10. Budget for 2011-12 was done in January

11. Committee meets monthly year round

12. Annual assessment form?????????? no clue

 

[jhankins]

JTE isn't just about meeting the standards, it's about maintaining a standard. Sure your pack doubled in size, but what about the future years? Is it healthy to double the size of the pack every year? Probably not. JTE is also meant to help you focus on maintaining the overall health of your program year after year, and this first year is your baseline.

[DLister]

Basementdweller - the Annual Assessment is the JTE scorecard. You get points just for filling it out.

[SeattlePioneer]

Hello Basement,

 

 

Congratulations on a superior program!

 

As I noted earlier, I was told by our DE that units filled out their own JTE assessment at the ernd of the year. If that's true your pack's daycamp program shopuld certainly be counted towards a top notch JTE score.

 

 

You've earned it and then some!

[jhankins]

The JTE forms are filled out with the assistance of your Unit Commissioner, so their signature goes on the approval of the form. I know BasementDweller's UC shouldn't be involved based on past run-ins, but that's the usual process.

[Scoutfish]

Meeting a minimum number of scouts going to council camps would be our only hinderance in any of the 3 levels of JTE.

 

Some of us go. Some go every chance they get, but the cost is prohibitive.

 

If I wasn't volunteering at our resident camp next month, I'd not take my son. The cost would be $75 for him, and $35 for me. Plus it 9is a hair over 2 hours away, so I also have to take at least half a day at work and he'd have only half a day at school. On it own, the half days are not so bad, but with cost of camp, plus Fri night food, gas, $$ spend on t shirts and other junk...

 

We also have our pack campouts around the same time as council camps. Scouts are $15 each( also covers awards, patches and misc materials) and parents and siblings are $10 each.

 

So we are looking at $110.00 for my son and I at council camp versus $25.00 at a pack campout and it's more relaxing and laid back even and closer knit.