To be trusted?

[Eamonn]

Kinda think that I remember that at one time we could post polls where people could select an answer and then view how others had posted.

Not sure why it went the way it did?

Anyway!

Have been having a little ponder.

I guess that many are a little like myself.

We really do believe that the time and the cash we spend on doing our bit for Scouts and Scouting is worth while.

Most of us enjoy the time we spend with the youth members and with a lot of the other adults.

I do sometimes wonder how much do we really trust the organization?

Do we really trust National?

If not, why not?

Do we trust the Council and the pros who are there to serve us and the units we serve?

How about the District?

What do we feel about that?

I'm going to wait to see where this goes til I add my two cents.

Eamonn

[Tampa Turtle]

I trust the volunteer Scouters more. Fair or not I realize how much personal sweat equity they put into scouting while for many some of the "pros" I have met it seems like just a job.

 

I distrust national sometimes it seems so disconnected with what we do. I see more and more profiles of rich donors and less of life-long scouters, more very expensive scouting gear and almost no DIY gear projects. More and more corporate jargon--I get enough of that at work.

 

From the boys and parents I interact with I get the occasional attaboy; from national I get more changes and demands and new programming. Usually taking and not giving.

 

Council and District --I know the District guys but that changes on a regular basis, the council seems as much an impediment as a help.

 

It's not like I agree with the other Scouters I meet. Just like on this forum there is often a good argument to be made by doing something another way and good scouters can agree to disagree. But I feel National in particular is drifting more and more away from its roots and hurting "the brand" that it's top leaders make so much money from...

 

In the meantime I try to work the circle of influence that I can from within my Troop.

[momof2cubs]

I trust my pack, no question. I trust them to run a good program for my children, I trust them to use my money judiciously, and I trust them to do the right thing..even when ego is at stake. So I have no qualms about donating my time and money to the pack.

 

District? To a lesser extent. District is mainly run by volunteers, but I don't get involved in district business too much, so I don't know them very well. They do seem to run a good program and good events. The DE seems to be under a lot of pressure from above to make the numbers. I don't blame him specifically, but I wouldn't trust him to do the right thing by a unit if it meant that his numbers wouldn't look as good.

 

Council? Not at all.

 

National? Not at all. I love scouting and what it does for our youth, but lately BSA has become yet another non-profit that is WAY more concerned with making money, paying handsome salaries, and its image than running nice facilities and improving the scouting experience. I am no longer a FOS (money wise)

[KC9DDI]

many some of the "pros" I have met it seems like just a job.

 

Well... for them, it is just a job. It's their day job (that often spills over into nights and weekends.) As long as they're doing their job, I don't have a problem.

 

I guess I'm wondering what is meant by "trust" in this sense? There's plenty of Scouters, both volunteer and professional, who I don't consider to be trustworthy. But I don't think that the level of the program at which they operate (local, council, national...) affects their trustworthiness.

 

Do I agree with every decision made at a council or at a national level? No I don't. But I also don't "distrust" the volunteers and professionals at those levels - I don't feel like they're out to get me, or anything like that. I don't think there's any conspiracy working to destroy Scouting from the top down. So yes, I trust that they're doing what they feel they need to do. But sometimes I wish they'd think to do something else.

 

I know, both from personal experience and from reading horror stories on this forum, that there's a number of volunteer Scouters who have been seriously wronged by volunteers and professionals at the district level and higher. But I think that most districts and councils are generally filled with decent, hardworking people trying to do their best within the constraints they have to work with. But there seems to be this attitude that anyone who is involved with Scouting in an area other than a unit is automatically an incompetent, greedy fool whose sole mission is to disrupt your unit's program and extort you for money.

 

While I'm not denying that there's some incompetent, greedy fools sullying our program, I can't figure out why that stigma is getting applied so liberally. Say a district charges $5 for a camporee weekend - people are up in arms that the district isn't operating the program at a loss! Clearly the volunteers or the council should just be eating the cost, rather than charging a fair price to cover expenses. Or say the council office gets a fresh coat of paint - Scouters whine and moan that the council is wasting money - but don't the people the have to work in that building each day deserve a halfway modern, comfortable, maintained work environment?

 

In general, I don't really think "it's a matter of trust." I think it's more a matter of a bandwagon mentality that districts, councils and national aren't capable of making good decisions at all, ever. I think a lot of Scouters honestly expect to be getting something for nothing. But those who work at a district level and higher aren't any more capable to pull a quality program out of thin air than you are - some things just cost money, time and effort. And all three of those things are often in short supply.

 

Have you ever had a parent make an unreasonable complaint about the cost of an event, or the quality of an event within your troop or pack? Have you ever been frustrated trying to explain that you had to charge enough money to cover expenses, or that unforeseen circumstances developed causing the program to take a hit? It's the same deal when unit level volunteers confront district and council level volunteers.

[Tampa Turtle]

KD9,

 

I do not know how much of my feelings are based on facts or prejudice. I do think that when one goes up the food chain there is a sense of less and less input into the process. The communication does not seem to be two-way. When that happens it is very easy to get into an us vs them attitude.

[Basementdweller]

Eamon......Trust????

 

District

 

District leadership.....Yes I trust them to look after their own special interest, youth be damned

District Program........Yes I trust it will be sub par

District Executive......Yes I trust he is money and numbers drive

 

Now when you say trust the DE.....What exactly am I trusting him with??? I trust he will badger me about the FOS and getting my youth apps and money. I don't know what I would trust him with, the man does absolutely nothing for me. Same for the Unit commissioner.

 

Much the same could be said about council.

 

Troop and Pack

Parents NO.

Leadership Yes.

COR NO.

 

So Eamon....are we talking expectations???? Is district meeting our expectations NO. Is council meeting our expectations NO.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Tampa Turtle]

Troop and Pack Parents: Usually

[fred8033]

Trust? Not that simple to answer.

 

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PHYSICALLY PROTECTING YOUTH

**********************************************

yes - national

yes - council

yes - district

yes - troop, pack

yes - individual scouters

 

 

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MENTALLY AND EMOTIONALLY PROTECTING YOUTH

**********************************************

yes - national

yes - council

yes - district

yes - troop, pack

mixed - individual scouters. Some scouters who are stars in their troop I'd want thrown out of mine. Enough said.

 

 

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MONEY

**********************************************

no - national - FOS. Popcorn. Jamboree. Continuous fundraising

no - national - scout store prices. uniform quality.

yes - national - philmont, seabase, ntier

y&n - council.

yes - district

yes - troop, pack

yes - individual scouters

 

 

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PROGRAM AND ADVANCEMENT

**********************************************

yes - national

yes - council

no - district - Two years ago more concerned with protecting the quality of the eagle award then supporting every scout.

yes - district - For the last year or so

yes - our troop and pack

no - other troops Programs are too inconsistent accross units and I've seen just too many weird rules and practicies.

mixed - individual scouters. Some seem more concerned about "scouting" than the "scout".

 

 

**********************************************

District execs

**********************************************

Yes - I trust them. Depend on them??? ... I've yet to see a bad one. Some are more effective. All are supportive and helpful. All are underpaid. All are under big pressure. All are pulled in multiple directions at once. All face conflicting priorities. All deal with emotional situations and alot of hard headed people who think they know the program than they do. They are in a thankless job. God bless 'em.

 

(This message has been edited by fred8033)

[Venividi]

Differentiate trust from expecations and priorities. I trust each of us to act accoring to our priorities, the priorities of the group each individual works for (i.e., unit, district, council, national), and within the available resources (i.e., a district cannot put on a good district program if there are insufficient volunteers both willing and with the correct skills).

 

I am certain that we all have different expectations of each level that likely doesnt match with reality - I know of several people critical of district/council programs that have not contributed to making them "better", or whose definition of what constitutes a "good" program doesn't align with others view of "good".

[Beavah]

Yah, not sure I ever think of any of this as "trust", eh?

 

National publishes program materials. As a council or a unit, yeh either buy into 'em or yeh don't. Buyin' some of 'em doesn't mean buyin' all of 'em. Yeh can buy a Ford and be a loyal customer of Ford but still buy your tires from Goodyear and get your service work done by Joe's Mechanic Shop. Of course there are a few fellows who will wear Ford jackets and only use dealer service and genuine factory parts, but they're fairly rare.

 

Councils and districts provide program resources. Yeh either buy into 'em or yeh don't. Most units use a variety of program resources, eh? Training from Red Cross, training from council, training from LNT. Council campsites, private campsites, public campgrounds.

 

So I figure it's more like "am I getting a good value?". For $15 per person per year for program materials, I reckon National provides a good value for individuals and units. Scout Shop stuff includin' awards? About typical for a brand-name specialty store. Yeh can do better, quality-wise or cost-wise.

 

For council corporations, I'm not sure da national charter is a good value. Comes with too much regulation and not enough support, and da structural regulation gets in da way of creativity and quality of service.

 

For $0 down, fee-for-service, I reckon da district/council provides an OK value most of da time, but certainly there are councils where that's not the case. BSA summer camps tend to be cheap compared to da rest of the industry, both in $$ and in program quality. Training is similar. Individual unit support as well. We're sort of da low-cost, low-quality provider. If everything goes well, then yeh get a good deal, but there's also a fair chance of havin' a bad experience.

 

As a donor, is da BSA a good investment? At the national level, probably not. Way too much overhead and way too little in da way of modern professionalism. Councils? Some yes, some no, but overall I'd say structurally they're not a very good user of donor $ either. Plus yeh have to worry about whether any endowment gifts yeh give are just goin' to survive da next round of pressure for mergers/sales. Not that any of da folks involved are bad people, it's just that da way things are set up and the current "corporate culture" many places isn't very healthy from an effective-NFP sort of perspective. There are lots better places to donate money.

 

Can't see that "trust" comes into it anywhere, though.

 

Beavah

 

 

[Scoutfish]

I trust my leaders. Tey volunteer their time because at the minimum, they want something better for their kids. They want them to grow up being self reliant and being able to handle themselves.

 

At the most, they truely love working with and mentoring kids.

 

District ..well..I trust my DE. Not quite as much as my own leaders, but I trust him. Sure, his main goal is money and numbers, but I have seen him lean the other way when it really matters. And he still remembers alot of what meant something to him when he was a cub and boy scout.

 

Council: I trust a few, I am leary of a few, and alot of them I do not know enough to make an opinion.

 

National: It's not so much I don't trust them per se, but it's that natural reservation you have with people or organazations that you are not closely or regularly speaking to the people who are in that organazation.

[Basementdweller]

Trusting scout parents.....really????? I am betting that you haven't been stuck multiple times for hundreds of dollars during fund raisers by parents taking product and not turning in the money.

 

 

Fred.....I agree that the DE's jobs full of conflicting issues, numbers, quality, money and tradition. But my DE doesn't do anything for me that I am aware of.

[Tampa Turtle]

Parents-I said maybe.

 

Some are great and do yeo-mans work in supporting outing, fund raisers, and committee work. I think we are fortunate in having a good parent culture. I'd say 20-30% of parents.

 

Some are bad. We haven't had any out and out thieves. We have had some real PIA who are only concerned with their kids advancement at the expense of anything else, and don't help much either. A few of these may be leaving us soon anyway because they STILL are not getting enough. I'd say 10-15%.

 

The rest are somewhere in the middle.

 

 

[Eagledad]

I guess I approached my responsibilities different, I took the unit the direction I thought it should go. If the unit leaders were on board then all was great. If the didnt, they generally came on board or left. Same goes with District or council, if they helped me reach my goals, I trusted them. If they didnt then we generally carried on without them.

 

It wasnt often we clashed, my program vision was in the boundaries of the BSA vision and my methods werent very far off. And as I learned later, if you have a successful program, provided it isn't dangerous or too far off the reservation, they won't bug you.

 

If I clashed with anyone, it was National and their changes to the program. Specifically the Tiger program and the aged based Patrol method approach. After trying it their way, we just had to finally agree to disagree and our record is much better than theirs. I was also involved with new development of training. National has an interesting style in developing training.

 

But, once I got to look at the program from the opposite side, I started seeing things from a different perspective. Less experienced scouters tend to look at District Committee folks as experienced and somewhat skilled at their responsibility. Turns out that 7 out of 10 arent that experienced and I would say half dont have clue. But these are good hard working people with good hearts that want to help advance the program and holes need to be filled with some kind of peg. So I have a better understanding of the challenges of Council and the DE.

 

I also had a better respect for the challenges of the District leaders and the DE when I started working with horrible unit leaders. Some dont care at all for the scouts, they only took the job to be in charge of something in their life. But district is left with the choice bad leadership or no unit for scouts to join. Its a tough choice. And while we are passionate about our own unit programs and respect other styles less, once you sit in a position where you can see success based on producing excited happy scouts, you start to look at the heart of each program and its leaders instead of the program style. Some scouts just flourish in an Eagle Mill. Is that really so bad? The bible says humility is required for wisdom. I understand that now.

 

Same goes with council. Ive been here long enough to work under a bad council leadership and good council leadership. Its a huge difference. Then there is walking in the shoes of National. We tend to think of National as one entity, but the reality is that National is lots of little entities working independently. Some are good and some arent. I will say that while I do respect the challenges of running a national size program with national size struggles. And while I may or may not agree with the direction they are taking, I do respect that paid professionals have a different motivation than volunteers. Survival is human and I dont think that is wrong from their perspective. But, I just dont feel there is really good vision or organization leadership from the top. So trust, I dont know.

 

Its true what they say about walking a mile in someone elses shoes. After doing it as long as I have, I can honestly say I like this scouting stuff and I respect a lot more folks now than I did when I started. Whether you are paid or not, working in a volunteer organization is hard at all levels.

 

Barry

[Eamonn]

Soon after posting this I thought that Trust was maybe not the best word.

Here in SW-PA the way the child abuse scandal was and has been managed by Penn State is both big news and very close to home.

Maybe trusting people to do what is right and the expectation of them doing what is right for others goes beyond simple trust?

 

My feeling is that the more local things are, the easier it is not only to trust but also to get past things and be able to forgive others short comings.

I trust my wife and my son. I can get past the things I know that they will either not do or will do a poor job of. I'm also close enough to be able to forgive them and keep starting or restarting anew.

This is the way it is in almost every unit I've been associated with. - I have got to know the other people in the unit and am able to find ways of working with them, even if at times they drive me nuts.

While it can be painful there have been times when the best thing for the unit has been for me to call it a day or have them leave the unit.

Serving at the District level?

Again this for me was local enough that I was able to either enjoy working alongside the people who were also serving, distance myself from the people whom I for whatever reason thought were not trustworthy, quit. So I wasn't part of something that I thought just didn't seem or feel right. Or later on while serving as District Commissioner and then District Chair. Remove, so they were no longer a problem.

While I think that I always knew? As a member of the District Key 3, I was very much being used to push and endorse things that came from above. (Above being the stuff that the DE was tasked with getting done.)

There were times when it became clear that some of this was just wrong.

There were things that I wanted no part of and had to fight to prevent from happening.

When this happened I lost faith in the people who were trying to push it and I no longer trusted them.

At the Council level, I found that there are some really wonderful and very talented volunteers who do an outstanding job.

But ...

I have had the misfortune to work with a few professionals who were either very incompetent or who had set their sights on being promoted that they were willing to cast any ethical thinking aside.

While it might be easy to forgive these guys as individuals? The fact that they were rewarded for being as they were by National, only makes me question "What's going on?" Again making me lose trust in them that are supposed to be serving us.

Also at the Council level, I really don't think that many of the people who serve on Council Executive Boards know enough about grass roots Scouting to be of any real use.

I question why? A lot of them are there.

I served on the Area Committee for a while.

I'm no spring chicken! But I was the youngest member of that committee. Most of the members hadn't been around a real live kid in a very long time and seemed to not know what was happening in the real world. The meetings were about reports that dealt with membership and finances.

While of course membership and finances are both very important, the committee seemed more about threatening Councils who weren't meeting or living up to expectations than trying to provide any real help or support that might help them.

My dealings with our National Office have all been from afar.

I had one friend who up until the reorganization a little while back worked there.

It seems to me that there is a culture of "Blame the brass" in place. Very few people seem willing to stand up and state what they are doing is a good idea or good for the organization.

I'm also very disappointed and astonished that the two SE's that were fired by the Council I serve were rewarded for being fired by being given jobs in the National Office! -This makes me wonder and lose trust in the type of people that work there?

 

Of course I'm willing to state that my feelings have been influenced by my own personal dealings at different levels and there is a very good chance that I'm maybe not being fair?

For the most part I'm far more willing to trust any volunteer than a professional.

I honestly believe that when it comes down to doing what is right and what is in the best interest of a Scout, volunteers will step up to the plate a lot faster and a lot more willingly than a pro.

Ea.