Failing Units

[Twocubdad]

For some reason I have never been able to use the "Spin a New Thread" function, but this relates to the "No Leaders & No Help Coming" thread.

 

Is it me or do we seem to have a run of threads featuring failing units with ghost committees and COs, no volunteers (or drunk ones) and one or two people trying to do everything?

 

What has happened to the level of unit service in our councils? Where are the commissioners? The professionals are AWOL or -- as in AnnLaurel's pack -- seems to have caused many of the problems.

 

I understand that some units just last longer than others. Demographics of a CO or whole community change and Scouting just isn't supported any longer. Or the driving group of parents age out and don't get replaced. Or the CM and Popcorn Colonel get caught en flagrante indelicato.

 

But so many of these units seem to be set up for failure. How do DE's allow units to charter with committee member who are plainly only lending their name for the paperwork and have no intention of supporting the unit? Or COs who "are just letting the Scouts meet here Tuesday."

 

I bought a $12 subscription from a telephone solicitation last week. Before the order could be processed, they put a "verifier" on the phone who confirmed my information and that I really wanted the subscription. Why don't Councils require the director of Field Services to meet with a the unit key three and verify that the DE has made full disclosure as to the commitment they are making to a new unit.

 

AnnL's story about the guy given the boot as CM because of alcohol use only to be pushed back in as CC by the DE just floors me. Or the parent thread where there are 11 boys and only 1 WDL. SOMEBODY is on the charter.

 

And I feel bad for the folks who write in here asking for help. We give the rundown on the standard strategies and we get replies like, "what's a commissioner?" or "you mean we have full-time professionals to help us?"

 

These are not unit problems. These are structural problems mostly at the council level and above.

 

 

[moosetracker]

TwocubDad - the spinoff option is a link in the bottom right corner of each post. So if someone rights something in one thread you want to spin-off from, you use the spin-off link on their post.. Then remember to click on the "Which forum" dropdown, because it does not default into the forum the original post is at, and if you don't choose something, it gives you a wicked error.

 

Anyway.. The problem is definately two fold.. At the Council level - National only cares about quanity not quality, so they strick hard in evaluation with only looking at quanity and drive the DE's who may have started out wanting to do quality into slowly conforming to the quanity mentality. It is bad for the program, and will help to drive the quanity down in the long run..

 

The problem with the parents is that the kids that were brought up by parents to be self-centered and feel they are entitled.. Are now becoming the parents.. They do not want to give, they want to recieve, and feel they are entitled..

 

The weird thing is that although BSA is a youth oriented program trying to work fun for the kids in, it is based on core values like community service if the parents want to instill these good values in their kids, don't they believe that those values first and fore most come from them watching what their parents do?.. If their parents are not helping in the community, are not kind, or thoughtful etc.. But rather ditch our shirk anything that might force them to do anything for others, or is related to responsibility.. Then how much value do you think the program will have on the kids?..

 

Do what I say, not what I do??.. Yeah right.

[SeattlePioneer]

Interesting questions, Two Cub.

 

 

As a district membership chair, I confront failing units all too often. I see a variety of weaknesses which lead to failure, but not a simple or consistant pattern.

 

 

I worked to revive one pack that had the classic "Cubmaster who does Everything" syndrome. When he left, none of the remaining parents even had a pack roster.

 

It took about three years to revive that pack by gradually finding capable volunteers, and it continues to have a wide variety of capable adult volunteers. My main role there is another chronic pack weakness ----organizing consistant and effective recruiting nights in the spring and fall.

 

I find the failure to have effective recruiting efforts to be the most consistant thing that leads to failing packs. Perhaps that's why councils and District Executives place a lot of time and effort in plugging that weakness. But DEs can't solve that problem by themself if the OPack isn't also providing effective leadership.

 

Another source of weakness is changing demographics. The pack for which I'm Cubmaster now was down to one Cub Scout, although it had a long history and substantial base being chartered by an urban Catholic parish of substantial size. But many schools in the area are 10% white ---- if you aren't effective in recruiting hispanics and asians around here, you are going to be in trouble. That's one area I've tried to deal with without much success on my own or any aid from the council ---although I've been raising the issue as LOUDLY AS I CAN!

 

As far as Commissioners --- our district is under Commissionered and too many that we do have are ghost Commissioners who don't do much.

 

I used the need to get a new Committee Chair for rechartering as a lever to recruit an EFFECTIVE committee chair, but it's all too easy to reshuffle the ghost leaders of the past if someone wants to, which disguises a leadership problem rather than revealing it.

 

 

Unfortunately, I find that there are dozens of easy ways for a unit to fail, while it takes consistant good leadership to thrive.

 

I'll give an example of how I work to address just one of those issues:

 

 

One of the consistant problems faced by every Cub Scout Pack is the need to recruit, train and motivate new Tiger Cubs and Tiger Cub den leadership. Fail to do that and you have a big hole in your program which can pretty put the pack on the road to failure.

 

As district membership chair, I've made particular effort to sell units on doing SPRING RECRUITING, which a good many Cub Packs don't bother with.

 

Secondly, I schedule Tiger Cub Den Leader training in June (June 9th this year) -------AFTER the bulk of spring recruiting is completed. I sell pack leaders on promoting this training, and the DE sends training announcements to Tiger Cub parents who turn in applications in the spring.

 

The Den Leader training is aimed at training any adult in how to make the new Tiger Cub Den work.

 

Secondly, I encourage participation in our Tiger Twilight Camp in July, and use that to help train new Tiger Cub parents in understanding what a quality Tiger Cub Program should look like and feel like.

 

The Tiger Cub Den Leader training provides a technical look at how to organize the Tiger Cub program, while the Tiger Twilight Camp provides a look at how the program should look and feel when those principles are applied.

 

The aim is to have Tiger Cub parents who are trained and experienced in making the program work READY TO GO in the fall.

 

Too often I find that it can be months before the new Tiger Cub program iss effectively launched, and too often it fails altogether. My program is a way to try to avoid that kind of problem.

[Eagle92]

Unfortunately pros are focused on numbers. Trust me there was a lot of stress on me to keep membership up when I was. Their job is to get a unit started and keep moving on. Some mid and upper management want you to do a good job, others just want you to rush the process to get the numbers. Unfortunately I had the latter.

 

There is a 12 step program that should be followed to successfully start a unit that will last. You take shortcuts, you WILL have problems. I admit I was pressured into starting 1 unit shortcutting the process to meet a goal, and it failed within a year. Of the others I started following the process, they either are still in existence 13 years, or folded 5 years after existence.

 

Additionally even if problems are seen by the DE, their is pressure to let the volunteers deal with the problem, even if there are few to no volunteers to help out. Trust me I was not AWOL with the one pack I cut corners on b/c A) it was based at my church and B) My club chartered the pack. I had my DFS on my case to leave the pack alone and let the volunteers deal with it when he found out how involved I was in trying to get it underway after it was chartered. Luckily I could say in all honesty that I was dealing with my club's "service project" whenever I was interrogated about that pack after that first "conversation."

 

As for commissioners, there is a need for them, and they are in short supply, esp. good ones. But I can tell you, creating and maintaining a Commissioner corps IS hard work. And most districts do not have enough.

 

 

 

[Scoutfish]

NUMBERS! NUMBERS! NUMBERS! Who cares if the pack is sub par and 90% of the chartered members are in name only? It looks good on paper for the council and the DE.

 

Luckily, our current DE took the place of a " NUMBERS!" DE

 

Ad for the spin off..I used to have problems too. The biggest problemn is you have to pick a forum ..even though you spun off an existing foirum. And do not use punctuatin marks in the title or it will give you an error and kick back!

[BadenP]

Twocub

The idea that it is always the DE's fault is a little short sighted and untrue in most cases. Yes there are those DE's that set up paper units, but at least when I was in the profession they were the minority and didn't last more than a year or two. Councils also play a similiar game to obtain more grant money called LFL units with large enrollments and usually only last 1-2 years before the interest dies out, the same goes for cub soccer and all the pilot programs which are created JUST to boost numbers and contributions fom UW and other organizations.

 

IMO,any pack, troop, or crew setup with a halfass effort by a DE or council and is not looked out for their first year is doomed to fail. The loss of each of those units should be required to be reported on the council annual report along with the reasons that led to each of their failures. Maybe holding the council accountable will force them to do a better job, and give National a better idea of what is truly happenning in the field.

[Scoutfish]

Ooops! Forgot the "What can you do for me?" parents.

 

You see them all te time: They show up and stand there, sit amongst their own little groupo, and do not talk to anybody except when something isn't going the way they personally think it should...meaning for them.

 

They will point out anything that is lacking - but only if it affects their own child.

 

But can they help? Can they voluntyeer to make it better or more enjoyable?

 

Oh hell no! They didn't join for that! Basically, they are selfish celf centered "ME, me, me " people!

[Abel Magwitch]

My district is full of unknown school units and very few traditional units. My district has no district commissioner, (haven't had one in over a year). The district chairman is unknown. Volunteers are not allowed to speak with him or email him personally. You must go through the DE or District Director and they will decide if your message will be delivered. To top this off, our district was again a quality district. I just found out that my Troop was a quality unit last year. Funny how that happened, we were never told. The District Director filled out our application for us, made up our goals and made us a quality unit without our knowledge. And so it goes with our small district with only 7 troops. Our pros do not care what so ever about the program or the kids. They are only concerned with making their membership quotas any way they can regardless if the actual district membership is so small.

[Twocubdad]

I'm not talking about out-and-out fraud -- those folks should be shown the door

 

I'm talking about giving short service to the minimum number of volunteers needed to start a unit by knowingly registering members with no intention of serving. DEs -- and if they're under too much pressure to meet production, then DFSs -- need to sit down with the full committee and make sure everyone is fully committed to the program. They need to have the same conversation with the COR and IH and make sure they understand they now own a Boy Scout unit, that they aren't just offering free meeting space. There are real responsibilites which go along with it.

 

Executives have to sign off on new units. It should be part of their responsibility to ensure that the units have the best chance to suceed. Chartering a unit with one foot in the grave and asking boys to commit to it can is unethical. As is chartering a weak unit then pretending "volunteer recruitment" is a unit function.

 

And if the pressure is for numbers, it's counter productive. District goals are based on growth over the previous year. So if you recruit a weak unit which fails, you have to recruit two units the following year. Makes no sense.

[Eagle92]

2Cub,

 

In my case, it was the DFS and SE who wanted me to short cut the process and get the numbers. They were the ones pressuring me to get units and members. They wanted the quick fix, and were not interested in the long haul. They were the ones that wanted to be #1 in the area and in their regional division. And I hate to say it, but unless the volunteers either A) were big FOS contributors, and B) were 100% pro council, they really didn't want to deal with the volunteers, sad to say. Let's just say that when it was announced they they were leaving, folks literally broke out champagne to celebrate those two occasions.

 

And you are correct it doesn't make sense b/c if a unit fails, you have to restart it, which may mean doing the entire start up process again, PLUS get more units and scouts. That was the situation I was in: cleaning up predecessors messes by restarting units AND being pushed to start new units. And don't try to explain the situation to the DFS as he will just state "It's your mess, you deal with it and I don't care how you do it!" And trust me, restarting some of the units WAS starting from scratch.

 

Now there is process that is suppose to clean up some of this mess. I' not a UC anymore, so I don't know how it is working. But I know I am not seeing all the problems that I have seen.

 

In reference as to why new units fold, one reason is that some leaders get second thoughts, move, etc and they were a vital part of the unit. One troop I know of is still struggling after about 4-5 years with leaders b/c the ASMs either move out the area or move on to Venturing. Hopefully that will change in the next few months.

 

In another instance, the unit was relying on a few people, that when they moved up or leave, it left a big vacuum, esp when the unit wasn't set up correctly to begin with. My pack is slowly getting it together.

 

The key as we all know is get folks involved. The more folks involved, the easier things are, the less work folks have to do, and their is a continuity in leadership even when folks leave.

[eaglescout1996]

Our Council Commissioner announced last night that our council is taking part in a pilot program which will evaluate changes to chartering new units (I think he mentioned 30 councils). From now on we will not charter a new unit unless it meets the following criteria: Chartered Organization is identified, a minimum of 10 youth to join the unit, a minimum of 5 adults to join the unit, an assigned experienced Unit Commissioner, Key three identified and on board (Unit Leader, CC, and COR). He also mentioned that the Unit Commissioner assignment would last through at least 2 recharter cycles before a new on would be assigned.

 

I jokingly asked my District Commissioner if anyone had informed the DE's. As everyone here knows, DE's charter units for the sake of chartering units (and their numerical goals). This new pilot is something we should have been doing years ago. My district dropped 3 units at recharter, which is sad, but at least we have other units out there that can serve the boys.

 

I think every council is dealing with the same issues: DE's charting units without the CO's total support and buy-in, Untrained leaders, and lack of Unit Service. I serve as an ADC and our district could easily use 10-12 more Unit Commissioners. The DC, other ADC, and I make a lot of unit visits because of our shortage. We just can't recruit UCs, we've tried everything, but no dice.

 

I might sound like I've drunk the Kool-aid, but good Unit Service is essenstial to the program, especially new units. What is sad is there are about 5 Scouters in my district who would make great UCs and whom we have approached, but they spend all their time with/on Wood Badge Staff. As I get a bit older and more experienced in Scouting as a Scouter, I have come to realize that there are way too many distractions for adults in the program. Why can't we focus great program and unit service first, and leave all the other "stuff" to a secondary focus.

[Twocubdad]

Amen to that!

[UCEagle72]

'96 --

 

I'll make a bold suggestion -- in our district, we have a number of UCs who are range instructors - and they spend a lot of time at camp all year long. So we have made sure they have only one unit to service.

 

In fact, when we recruit commissioners, we only ask them to serve one unit. And we keep it that way for at least a year. Then it is up to the UC to "ask" if they want an additional unit. Yup - we have no UCs serving more than two units (even if the CP has more).

 

It may take more time to get all your units covered when you take this approach -- but we seem to have UCs who don't feel "pressured" to see 4 or 5 units a month. And they can get a real relationship with their units.

 

This works for us ... of course, your mileage may vary.

[BadenP]

Twocub

 

Yeah there are those who start a unit with any warm body to fill the positions, the reason is that unit is on the books for one year even if it fails in the first 3 months. The SE's I worked for said basically thats okay just start another one next year to replace it. It makes the SE look good to National because of the numbers of new units each year, unfortunately that practice is still going on today.

 

In my time as a DE I first met with the IH of every CO that wanted to sponsor scouting before ever doing a recruitment night, and that should be the first order of business for every DE.

[eaglescout1996]

'72-

 

Thanks for the suggestion.

 

I was originaly recruited to be a UC in Central Florida Council about 7 years ago (in the old Canaveral District). I was just out of grad school, hadn't been really involved in Scouting for about 6 years and I was given 4 units. I really like your idea and hopefully it can work for us.