Are Districts Obsolete?

[Basementdweller]

Are they Obsolete???

 

what do they do that couldn't be completed more effiently at the council level?????

[Eagle92]

IMHO no. I'm in a geographically large council, but small population wise. If we had to do only council activities, we would be in trouble unless it was done at the local camp.

 

Give you an idea on size. Up until a year or so ago, it was a 4 hour trip from the NW corner to the SE corner fo the council. With the internet spur, it is 3:15.

 

One of my coworkers after a council banquet slept at the council office b/c he didn't want to drive home, getting in at about 1:30 or 2AM, only to wake up and be back on the road by 6AM to get to a meeting at the council office.

[SeattlePioneer]

Oh, my no.

 

Districts provide a LOT of services to units and are the place a lot of volunteers activities are organized.

 

 

[Basementdweller]

And those services would be???

[Jeffrey H]

If I did not have a District, then I would not have a Roundtable, and then I would not be able to "attend at least 4 roundtables for each year" of my registered position.

 

Joking aside and I will not go into details, but my District provides a good program to our Packs and Troops for our geographic area of our Council. This could not be done without our willing District volunteers with big hearts. We have a good bunch of folks and I highly respect them.

 

I suppose if a Council were small enough, then Districts would not be necessary, but my Council is large with a 3 hour drive from North to South.

[dkurtenbach]

There has to be an administrative interface between units/chartered organizations and the council for things like rechartering, activity registration, summer camp registration, and new member registration. More and more, these functions are being handled online through council or National systems. The last vestige of rechartering via the District Commissioner is turning in a signed paper printout of the recharter roster -- and I can't imagine that that will last long.

 

And there has to be a framework for recruiting and organizing volunteers to carry out functions such as training, fundraising, multi-unit activities, and unit service. There will always have to be some sort of heirarchical framework for doing that. If you don't do it geographically (districts), you have to come up with another system. Since you are dealing with organizing people, you are talking about meetings -- and so geographic proximity matters. That is, until technology makes it possible to hold face-to-face meetings with all the "attendees" in different locations. (Telephone conferences are good for many things, but face-to-face interaction is still important for some things.)

 

That said, I think there are some things about districts that are inherently inefficient, like the separation between Commissioner functions and District Committee functions. This is particularly true in districts where the "usual suspects" show up at both the District Commissioner's meeting and the District Committee meeting.

 

Dan Kurtenbach

Fairfax, VA

[SeattlePioneer]

>

 

 

Not in Basement's area.

[Basementdweller]

I register my boys for camp online.

 

I did my charter on line and turned it into the scout office.

 

I do my training on line.

 

No district training....we use neighboring districts.

 

I don't have a unit commisioner.

 

I am finished with roundtable for a while because the RTC didn't show we did intros and left no program.

 

We don't have district camporees

 

We don't have cub district functions.

 

The only district function that occurs is roundtable, and Fundraising, FOS.

[dkurtenbach]

Before the District Committee meeting last week, I was talking to a relatively new member, who said something along the lines of: "You know, we're legitimately checking off all the boxes and got 'Gold' [Journey to Excellence] last year. If we can do that with all this [colorful metaphor for "problem areas"] going on, what are the non-Gold districts like?"

 

Well, they're kinda like our district was two years ago, and four years ago, and seven years ago, and . . . well, you get the picture. District are just like units, in that the real key for them to work is having good people in the right jobs working together. All it takes is someone stepping down or moving away to send some functional area into a tailspin; and all it takes is some other talented person signing up to get things back flying right.

 

If another system could be devised that would be much more durable -- better able to continue functioning well when key people are lost -- I'd love to hear about it.

 

Dan Kurtenbach

Fairfax, VA

 

 

[Oak Tree]

Our district camporee is way better than the council camporee.

 

We do have a commissioner.

 

Our district organizes a lot of training.

 

Our roundtables are ok - but mostly for getting to know the other folks in the district. Council is too big for that.

 

The district Eagle boards work pretty well.

 

Do we need any of that? Probably not - I'm sure we could figure out options for those things, but for now, we do get some benefit out of the district structure.

[Basementdweller]

EBOR are handled at the unit level.

[Scoutfish]

Basement: Your district SUCKS!!!

 

Yes, We need districts. We have 4 districts that used to be 8 districts. Out of the 4 ( that used to be 8) only two districts put on camporees, Webelos(ree) weekends, and other events that are not council camping .

 

Our district has camp cards that suit our district and not the entire council. Our DE has been the longest serving DE in our council and we know each other by first name at RT's, and our co-district camporees.

 

This would not happen on the council level. I'd have to travel even farther to attend meetings, listen to more blah blah blah before getting to stuff I really need to hear, and the meetings would last about 4 times longer to boot.

 

The way I see it, it's kinda like the military:

 

The 4 star General does not meet with individual soldiers to convey the daily or monthly going ons.

 

He meets up with his officers ( DE's) who in turn command the lower ranking officers ( SM's/ CM's etc..) and they in turn give commands and orders to the soldiers ( scouts, other scouters, membership, etc,....

 

Okay, not a perfect analogy, but you get my drift.

[Eagle732]

"EBOR are handled at the unit level."

Not everywhere. District oversees EBORs here.

[desertrat77]

Districts aren't obsolete, but some do not provide good service (or any service). Also, district boundaries are sometimes drawn to please bean counters at HQ, while splitting neighborhoods off from natural or long term district lines.

[qwazse]

BD, your unit doing activities with another district is a good case for the relevance of districts. It gives clusters of units the opportunity to train together and to work towards common, yet diverse goals.

 

I'm basically in two districts. The Venturing District, which services all crews in our council. And the geographic district which services packs and troops in a reasonable geographical area.

 

The council-wide "district" helped me to get my unit to out from under some squabbles, and if my youth want to team up on an adventure, they are usually looking beyond geographical boundaries anyway. The down-side is that forums and stuff require distance communication, which we are all still learning how to do.

 

The geographic district is a convenient outlet for announcing my crew's service projects. The commish is happy to forward things along, and welcomes our youth to come make announcements. Since meetings are less than 20 minutes away, your evening isn't totally shot. The roundtables have pretty useful teaching sessions (we all take it in turn to present stuff on topics people request). The adults in our troop who go regularly seem to benefit from it.

 

So I don't see the district model going away anytime soon.