Failing Units

[Abel Magwitch]

THawk:

you seem to have have found that the previous SE obviously did not have to face any consequences for fraudulent membership in your council. In fact he has been promoted to be the SE of a much bigger council and most likely receiving more pay. Sounds like he has been rewarded handsomely for duping those in your council who gave to Scouting such as United Way and other beneficiaries who gave based on how many youth the council was supposedly serving. Kinda shines a different light on the new unusually trustworthy SE. I am sure he knew that the previous SE got a raise and promotion based on fraudulent membership numbers has he spoken up against his predecessor? Has he alerted national of the problem? Has he alerted the new bigger council of the kind of SE they are getting? I would be willing to be the answer is no.

 

Think about everyone who fell for an FOS pitch asking for hundreds of dollars in order to serve one Scout. You know those figures are based on executive salaries. I wonder if your council hired additional executives to be on the payroll based on the inflated membership. You know an SE can justify additional pros on the payroll based on the councils high membership.

 

I truly feel bad for the new council where this guy is gone. I am sure that nobody from the Executive board there was clued in on what this guy did in his previous council. Shame, truly a shame that cheating SEs get rewarded with promotions and raises.

 

F Scouter asks:

Why it is a problem to perpetuate a phony unit Well F Scouter, you were given some good reasons, the most important by far is that the unit is a hoax.

 

Here are some other reasons the council can use phantom units to solicit funds using the solicitation that the council serves x amount of youth. TAHawk mentioned 30%. Think of it this way F Scouter, the SE goes to United Way and tells them that the council is serving 25,000 youth. The United Way in turn gives the council $500,000 based on the 25,000 figure. But if SE tells the United Way that the council is serving 17,000 youth, United Way may only give the council $300,000. Those phantom paper units brought in an additional $200,000 from United Way. And when FOS is presented to your unit and the person soliciting from your parents tell them that it costs $250 per Scout, people may be compelled to give more money. But then again since this money mainly goes to pay executive salaries, the question then becomes do we really need this many paid professionals? Maybe there are enough to serve 25,000 youth. Problem is there is only 17,000. Maybe the FOS solicitor should state that it really only costs $150 per Scout.

 

So the council continues to pay their overstaffed executive corps and everything feels good. Execs are getting their pay checks, good ole boy volunteers get their awards to show off. But something has to lose to all this inflated membership...

 

So who loses out? Cuts are made in the program. It is the Scouts who lose. They lose because council cannot afford to hire enough summer camp staff. Council cannot afford to maintain the camp. Summer camp fees are going to rise. Sorry Scouts.

 

Phantom and paper units make things easier for the district officers including the DE's. There are less units to serve yet DEs can earn their criticals based on the high number of units he is supposed to be serving even though they do not exist. Commissioners have less units to visit yet can earn their Awards of Merit and Silver Beavers because they are doing such a fine job serving their distritc's units.

 

Get the point?

 

There are so many reasons F Scouter. Problem is that paper and phantom units only seem to serve the adult volunteers who are looking for another award as well as paid professionals who are trying to make their membership criticals. Got to get that quality district award so the SE can get his quality council award. And these awards = higher pay and promotions.

 

In the end it is the real Scouts who lose; their volunteer leaders lose; their parents lose. All those fees for a promised program and the council fails deliever because they say they have no money. Yet still pros get promoted and receive pay raises and volunteers receive their district and council awards for their noteworthy service, and districts and council are called QUALITY.

(This message has been edited by abel magwitch)

[SeattlePioneer]

For the first time since I was appointed District Membership Chair, I'm not aware that we have any Cub Scout packs in danger of failing. That's largely because many of those in danger of failing did fail, although I'm rescuing one and another is being revived by new parents that appear to be doing a good job.

 

No NEW basket cases, anyway.

[BadenP]

This topic has taken a swing towards the unreal. Eamonn's post highlighted some very real and serious problems in the BSA today and yet most volunteers are content to let a small select group in your council set all the policies and make all the determinations of how contributions will be used. That is a receipe for disaster and why so many councils are going under or shrinking in size.

 

SP if the Seattle council doesn't allow volunteers into the decision making process then it is time for a new SE. In fact in the mid nineties the former SE of Seattle was assigned to my old council, where I had been a DE, after being transferred for some mishandling of council funds for personal purposes. In less than two years at his new assignment that council went under as insolvent after 80 years of service. National protects their incompetent SE's much like the Catholic Church defends their bad priests and just keeps transferring to new locations. My point is if the volunteers/ COR's etc, are not being allowed to be actively involved in the decision making process you are just asking for trouble.

 

Case in point SP, your own council recently took possession of ALL scout huts and their property within their council borders and sold them all off for commercial development, to make up for severe budget shortfalls. These cabins had been built and maintained by volunteers in some cases for over 75 years, with the understanding that they were there for their use until perpetuity. Port Townsend and North Bend are two examples whose stories I followed very closely in this regard.

 

Scout units fail for two reasons uncommitted leaders and councils that offer little to no support. Every unit needs to make sure every volunteer is fully trained with a high quality training program. Every unit needs to make sure their COR goes to every council executive board meeting and votes to protect the scouting program and properties in their council. Not allowing an overambitious SE ,looking to make a name for himself and be promoted to National, to jeopardize the financial stability of the council, or create his own pet projects that the council can not afford. Anything less is a receipe for disaster as history has shown.(This message has been edited by BadenP)

[Abel Magwitch]

BP, I have truly learned from your candid posts as a former pro who has had an inside view on how things are run at the top. I totally agree with your post above.

 

One part of your post caught my attention:

 

"Eamonn's post highlighted some very real and serious problems in the BSA today and yet most volunteers are content to let a small select group in your council set all the policies and make all the determinations of how contributions will be used."

 

Content volunteers. I have found in my council that the majority of volunteers are rather new to the program and are very inpressionable. They fall for the rhetoric of the pros and believe that the pros are in charge and that they as volunteers really have no say. Ignorance is bliss. Don't tell volunteers that the organization is theirs. It reminds me of the Pixar movie "a bug's life" when one of the villian's cohorts didn't understand why they must attack the ant colony because one ant stood up to them. "it's only one ant". then the villan grasshopper hit his cohort with one piece of grain. Then he opened the grain bottle and buried the cohort as an example of what happens when the whole ant colony figures things out. How many volunteers have been asked to leave when they questioned a council policy?

 

Our pros make sure that there is no real contact with COR's. they don't tell them that there is some training they should take. Training, if effective, has a way of openening eyes. In my council, a brand new female Cub Scouter was encouraged to take wood badge. The next year, she was in charge of it.

 

There are old timers in the council who are still active at the boy level. They are outspoken when their boys don't get service. The pros don't like them and steer clear of them. Some have been told off by the pros.

 

There are the other old timers who hang around Scouting and are given positions as district and council officers. They are no longer active on the boy level. They are well treated by the pros and rewarded for just being yes men. You see them standing up at the council dinner receiving another award yet they have not been involved at the boy level for years.

 

Our executive staff is well trained in manipulating the volunteers on the council and district level.(This message has been edited by abel magwitch)

[jtswestark]

Wow Abel, those are some pretty stark accusations. I must be lucky that in all the years of Scouting I've never witnessed those kinds of attitudes from the pros. I hope your experiences are the exception and mine aren't.

[Abel Magwitch]

Jtswestark, I have said in my other posts that I know that there are good council's out there where units are served and Scouting thrives. I know that there are good professionals out there doing a fine job. But I do stand behind what I have posted as what is happening in my council. The professional turnover rate in my council is off the charts as new DE's realize that they do not want to be part of the shenanigans. I remember one guy who lasted three months. He called after he had resigned to say he could not stand how the executive staff manipulated the volunteers.

[TAHAWK]

Our two best DE's -- no -- our two excellent DE's have left in the last three months only, they say, because the new jobs paid much more for much shorter hours that allowed them to be husbands and fathers. The gain they and their respective families enjoyed was at a loss to Scouting here.

 

Turnover is predictable when so many take the job as a last resort, intending to move on ASAP. That also has a very Darwinian impact on the quality of paid Scouters as a group.

 

Of our last four SE's (thirty-four years), two were involuntarily separated and one I described above. Not too inspiring.

 

The current SE surely had some explanation for a 30% year-over-year membership drop, and, based on his frank comments to groups of Scouters, I suspect he reported the truth as he saw it. He did not decide what happened to his predecessor, so attributing the "soft landing" of that predecessor to any act or omission of his seems quite unfair.

 

I second the comments made about good DE's. I have known several. One is a friend of twenty-eight years. They all quit or transferred out of this area.

 

I have personal experience in the results that can follow an attempt to suggest even modest change. Years in exile followed, or so "they" probably viewed it. Fortunately, Scouting is what happens in troops - like the troop I work with. One smile by a Scout who just got his first fire-by-friction certainly trumps any number of council committee meetings or fund-raining receptions. Not sure the powers that be get that part.

 

There are positive stories out there. Unfortunately, beyond the unit level, I have mostly had to read about them. The exception would be NYLT - a joy.

[jtswestark]

Don't forget the OA Tahawk; I've seen great things happen there too, especially from boys from weak units.

[desertrat77]

Two of the four councils I've been in match Abel's observations to a "T"

[TAHAWK]

Our Lodge cancelled both Spring and Fall events in 2010 and has perhaps twenty active youth members - according to the Lodge Advisor. It has never been strong or a significant factor in our council. It did not meet for about twenty-five years after it was chartered - so low number and short, sad history.

 

The new Lodge Advisor is a fine person with a good heart and may change things against all odds.

 

When it became too easy to get in, I think it lost something - being "special."

 

 

[jtswestark]

Good to hear a new advisor is on his way; you all hosted a nice conclave a couple years ago.