DE is retiring

Our DE has announced that he is retiring in a couple of months. After reading some other people's posts on this forum about what their DEs do and don't do, I have reached the conclusion that we were really lucky to have this guy. Perhaps it is because he wasn't a life-long BSA professional and came to us from the "real" world late in his career, or perhaps because he is actually from this area and knows it well, or perhaps because (I think) he got into this for a love of scouting (having been a scout, a parent of a scout, and a scouter first), but he has been a great supporter of scouting at the unit level and also of the notion that the district exists to support the units, not the other way around. I'll be sorry to see him go.

Two questions:

1) What would be a suitable way of acknowledging this man's service (he isn't having any fancy retirement dinner, etc. - a scout is thrifty after all), and

2) How can we best prepare whoever our new DE will be, or prepare ourselves for him/her? There is no word yet on who that will be, which leads me to think it is probably going to be a brand new person with no knowledge of the area and little experience in the job. The council already got one new and fairly inexperienced fellow last year - seems like a nice guy but there's a learning curve for him.

I'm coming at this both as a unit-level scouter and as district membership chair. Would appreciate your thoughts.

In our council, District Dinner time is approaching. I think that would be a good venue to honor your DE with a special award...maybe a James E West fellowship. Depending on his personality, a "roast" can be fun.

Maybe some kind of dvd card where scouts and scouters thank him and tell stories... and then play it at the above mentioned district dinner ...

Scott Robertson

http://insanescouter.org

Helping leaders one resource at a time....

thanks for your suggestions so far. Any advice on "training" our new DE?

spend time getting to know him.. find out what his likes, dislikes and experience are. Hope he really enjoys Scout type things and has a Scouting background. Be there to talk and answer questions. Just be positive and don't expect the new one to be the old one.

Previous one had a business degree and athletic background, but no Scouting, didn't like camping, was great at talking to the little boys and fundraising, but wasn't much interested in program. New one is Eagle Scout, loves hiking, mountain biking and recruits boys with his "cool toys". He really cares about the program and empathizes with volunteers. He was hired, because he went to council office to volunteer, and found there was a real need he could fill. He is not originally from the area, but works hard to learn.

Just remember that a Professional's goals are not the same as the volunteers. The DE will be rated by his supervisor primarily on money and membership (and new units). It's also his job to ensure that there are volunteers in place who can develop and deliver the program. I wouldn't expect the DE to spend a lot of time camping and hiking, or planning program...that's not his job.

Invite them to a meal and a campfire... We've got a great rapport with our DD and DE in part because we make sure they know where we're camping, when we're eating, and what's on the menu.

Lisabob,

Of course no two councils or districts are the same.

How things are done or have been done in the past in the district your in will play a big part in how you break in a new DE.

I feel really bad that I did a really bad job with the DE who joined us 3 years back and moved to another council back in July.

Some of the things I did wrong were.

I kept trying to make him into the DE that he replaced!!

I forgot that he was so very young. (This was his first real job.)

I allowed him not to communicate. That is when he didn't return phone calls or emails, I allowed myself to get upset and gave up! Where the right thing would have been to hound the living daylights out of him!!

I was overly fast to criticize him, his ideas and maybe things I didn't understand, some of which were none of my business and had nothing to do with Scouting or his job performance. (A stupid toe-ring comes to mind!!)

I forgot that he was a long way from home and didn't know anyone.

I think I expected him to come on board and hit the ground running, when the truth is that he was still learning to walk.

I was way too quick to dismiss his ideas and didn't allow him the time and space to develop things that he wanted to do.

When we found out that the DE was retiring we did ask the volunteers if they wanted to donate a few dollars, in fact we set a ten dollar limit on how much they could.

She really is into glass and crystal, so I bought a nice lump f glass from her favorite local glass works.

We had a covered dish supper as part of her last R/T meeting.

Her and I are still very close and we go out to dinner every now and then.

Eamonn.