Re: changing the requirements!!!
Settummanque, the blackeagle (waltoml@WKUVX1.WKU.EDU)
Thu, 29 Dec 1994 23:52:25 CST
Kevin S Woods <kswoods@CHRISTA.UNH.EDU> writes:
>Susan, My first question would be...WHERE ARE ALL THE PROFESSIONAL
>SCOUTERS that are paid to oversee a Troop and Pack?
Professional Scouters are NOT paid to "oversee a Troop and Pack",
Kevin. One or two professionals cannot be everywhere all of the time,
even though they try as hard as they can. They are MANAGERS of the
District's program.
We *volunteers* oversee the Troops and Packs, in particular that
District's Commissioner and Chair. That Commissioner *should be told*
and he or she *should share that information with his or her
professional counterpart*.
>Why is the district, much less the council, much less national allowing
>this to happen?
We don't know, Kevin. It's probably because nobody has TOLD them (the
Unit Commissioner don't want to say anything because he or she is
trying to "run their son through Scouting"). National can't do
anything about it until the local Council tells someone there about
it.
So, its down to that professional and his or her volunteer counterpart
in that Council to act.
>I recently spoke to a DE here in N.H. and asked if anyone in council
>monitored things like this net. I think it is a terrific way for the
>PROFESSIONALS to learn what is really going on in the streets.
It is and it isn't. The BSA has sent out notices to their
professional cadre informing them that although this "electronic
Scouting" may be a great innovation and a great way to get new
programs ideas, that *professionals* do this on their *own time*,
without using Council or National resources, and DO NOT UNDER ANY
CIRCUMSTANCES SPEAK FOR THE BSA OR THE LOCAL COUNCIL OR REGION WHERE
THEY ARE EMPLOYED. Period.
I have advised those professionals whom contact me to first inform
their boss (bosses) that they are SUBSCRIBED and READ this list, and
if they choose to post a response, that they add a CLEAR DISCLAIMER
stating that "the opinions expressed here are ONLY of myself, and may
not be advice rendered by the Takeany Council or the BSA. If asked
nicely, I will attempt to share with you the source of my responses;
but please understand that I do this with NO CONNECTION WHATSOEVER to
my local Council or the Boy Scouts of America (or Girl Scouts of the
USA).
Some Council Scout Executives have even went further and have forbade
their professional staff members from using any electronic forum to
discuss Scouting or to respond to any inquiries as a *professional
Scouter*. A couple has even been very extreme, and have forbade their
staffs from conducting ANY Scouting business electronically.
At the same time, the BSA *does have* email capabilities between the
local Council and the National office but are VERY CAUTIOUSLY going
about this electronic jump. They are concerned, as all businesses are
concerned, about the flow of information going from them to the
"public" and the release of inappropriate and in some cases, damaging
information to Scouters and to the public. There are several BSA
committees which are using national gateways like Prodigy, America
Online and CompuServe in which to conduct *some* committee work, but
not much. There are others on the National level that have been
working hard over the past few years to create electronic versions of
our publications and handbooks so that Scouters can access that
information from their PCs or Macs. Finally, there are some National
and Regional Scouters that are attempting to "scoot" the BSA toward
some sort of "national forum" whereby BSA national and local Council
leaders, volunteers and professionals, can talk with each other about
issues like this.
It is a VERY SLOW process.
This all sounds good. Now, let's talk about the *down side* to this.
If I as a District Commissioner saw this posting, and had the
capability of contacting the District Commissioner in Susan's
District, forwarding the posting to her District, no telling what
would happen next. We would all become a "national tattletell forum"
whereby each new instance of a incident can end up revoking a charter
or removing a member or leader "just because they read it on "BSA-L" "
without verification or some sort of "investigation" at the local
Council level, which DEFINATELY needs to happen in this case.
As many professional Scouters tell me off-line, Scouts-L is an
excelent forum for discussing PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS, and some of
them use *our real instances* in training new and experienced
Commissioners and others in their Councils. However, when asked if
the BSA should have something like this, the answer always comes back
"Nope. It would get mired down in politics and the discussions would
move from program and membership concerns to numbers, units and
finance concerns, which don't thrill anyone except some Field
Directors and perhaps one or two volunteers that know the correlation
between high TAY and high membership numbers."
*placing on former ParaPro hat*
(TAY is "total available youth", the density of the youth population
in a given District or part of a District. It is used to gauge how
many units and how many members can be "garnered" from a District or
community. You won't find this anywhere except among professionals
and some senior volunteers.)
>Some
>scouters tell me that the pros are only interested in numbers because
>numbers mean dollars.
Not always. Numbers mean an increase in the level of program that
must be offered, which mandates that you need more money to do those
programs, and which also means you need more adults to manage that
increase in programs. We professionals look at ALL THREE areas
equally, because an increase in one area means that you need to
increase or consider increasing the other two areas. For instance, if
the local Council received a grant for the creation of "vocational
education programs in two of the eight Districts", this means that new
units must be created to do those things. This also means that you
need more adults to manage those new units, to train the leaders of
the new units, and to provide programing opportunities for those new
units.
Yes, it would also mean that I as that District's Executive or
Director, would get a LITTLE more in my paycheck each month, depending
on my performance, in order to *attempt to conpensate me* for the
additional work I must do and the additional days away from my new
wife.
Any professional will tell you, however, Kevin, that the *attempt* is
not a good one, and NOBODY is getting rich as a BSA professional.
That little increase would just about cover a new uniform, a night on
the town once a month (I would need it, since the other 29 days are
spent doing something connected with the Council or my District), and
would take care of the additional car and food expenses incurred with
this increase of 10 or 20 new units.
*taking former Paraprofesional's hat off*
Settummanque!
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