ParkMan

These are not the point of a UC. The whole purpose of a UC is to be a coach, mentor, and adviser to the unit leaders. That's where the value is in the role. You've got to focus on where your role brings value. A UC should be a pretty senior Scouter and comfortable putting paperwork, popcorn, and FOS into it's proper perspective. That said - as a UC you do have to have a broader view than just outdoor program. For example, you can have the most adventurous troop - but not doing any recruiting. You could have a great program, but have Scouts that cannot afford it. You can have a grea

Thanks @yknot Some follow up questions/comments. Can you share what you see here? Are COs ceasing to sponsor units? Thanks - this is the kind of info I was hoping to learn. Maybe it's just me - but I get the sense that there are two issues here: having enough volunteers having outdoor knowledgeable volunteers I believe both require focus from the BSA. In our district, those units who have weak programs and put out the "help wanted" sign seem to struggle. Strong units who recruit individuals do just fine. Similarly, I see strong programs with a tra

What kind of things would you suggest here? Generally though - I think the job of any level in Scouting is to make that level successful. A den leader's role is to make a den successful, a Scoutmaster a troop, a district advancement chair the district, etc. Now, it goes without saying, one of the best ways to achieve success in Scouting is to focus on the quality of the program. So, at a district level that does indeed mean that the district needs to have a concerted focus on having strong units. I think that's one of the challenges for a volunteer challenged district - how does a d

^ This ^ For all our griping about executive salaries, this is the key point. If the CSE could end the lawsuits, could turn membership around, could grow funding, clean up trouble councils, they'd be worth 1 or 2 million a year.

Ideally yes - the nominating committee would select people of proper experience to fullfill the responsibilities of the board. Taking a step back - we have to come to grips with a governing concept for the councils. Do council board function more like a non-profit board or perhaps something else? I believe that you treat them like a non-profit board. My prior recommendations are in that regard. If I sat on the national governance committee, my recommendation would be: The council board has a clear mandate to fulfill the mission of the council. That mission needs to be clea

Touché @Cburkhardt. I think you have several very good ideas there. I very much like the new unit formation team. My belief is that the district structure as defined by the BSA is largely fine. A district is in essence the group that builds Scouting in a community. In a rural area or suburban area this might be several communities. As the group that builds Scouting, I believe the core groups in a district are essentially correct: activities - a district needs a team that puts on community wide Scouting activities - Camporees, fun days, summer events, etc. memb

Usually a board has a nominating committee who makes recommendations. In the BSA, I would propose that every COR has a vote. A COR could choose to proxy that vote to someone. That's a slight change from now as I believe that existing board members also get a vote in the current BSA rules.

Fully agree here. I am sure that it is very helpful to have people of this type on the board. I think a lot of this comes back to board credibility. I get the sense that the credibility of council boards is at a low at this point in time. Further, I think the same can be said for Scouting professionals. Reductions in programming, increases in costs, mandates on rules have developed a rift between the unit volunteers and professionals/board. The BSA needs to be paying attention to credibility here. Stacking a board with lots of disconnected, successful, high-net worth people doesn't

I largely agree with you here. I generally dislike royalty myself. In clarifying the purpose and goals of the executive board, I think we'd find that there would be board committee that would develop board level knowledge in specific areas. I think those area would largely mirror what we see in district & council committees. You'd have: staff oversight strategy program finance & fundraising membership Generally, I think Scouting experience would be a benefit in these roles. For some it would be essential. For example, the strategy & progr

Ok - just curious. Did our National Commissioner say something about this? I looked online, but didn't see anything

It's certainly natural for national to want control over the SEs. National is trying to accomplish certain things and having SEs in councils who largely are in line has it's benefits. But, it's really not good for national. Stronger, independent SEs are ultimately going to deliver better results for national.

An executive board should be the group that understands the purpose of a council, translates the purpose into specific goals, determines high level policies, creates the high level structure, and selects key leaders. My understanding is that the executive board is analogous to a board of directors in a public company. Membership in the executive board should be dictated by who has the skills to do that work. Stacking it with a bunch of high level potentates who are disconnected from Scouting isn't helpful. You could have the CEO of a fortune 100 company in your council - but if he's jus

Our council camp is 90 minutes from here and in the middle of nowhere. Our council service center is 5 minutes off the highway and within a 30 minute drive of over a million people. I don't go that often - maybe once a quarter. But, it's nice that it's not at camp. I rarely talk to the office staff - doubt they even would know who I am if I was there anyways. But, I do like to stop by the Scout Shop when I need something. I'd hate if I had to do it all online. I hate online shopping.

So, when I was thinking about this, that was my first thought too. No-one really cares where you attend programming. But, the more I thought about it I realized that this is really just the case because of our monopoly system. Say that Atlanta charges the $60 a year per scout national allows. Denver charges $5. Atlanta may be using some of those funds to really fund program. Is it then really equitable to partake in Atlanta's programming? Today, joining that other council isn't a choice and so the odd unit out of council the attends is just a bonus for headcount. But, if that beca

Hah! Yeah, count me in for that one. That's one way to drive up COR involvement!

Free market competition for units. I'm trying to understand how this would work. A unit based in Atlanta could join a council based in Denver because they preferred the service and the camps. It's an absurd distance - but it makes the what if clearer to me. What that would mean: CSP for the Atlanta troop would be from Denver Awards & uniforms could still be bought from the local Atlanta scout shop. It's just money to the store. Advancement reports have to be done through Denver Camporees would be in Denver Roundtables would be in Denver adul

@Eagle94-A1 In the spirits of @Cburkhardt's topic. Some comments in regards to your last post. I think you may be in the worst council in the country. For councils to survive the upcoming re-org, they are going to have to rely even more on volunteers. Between district and council volunteers, we probably have 200 people volunteering in significant ways in our council. Add in key units and the number is probably 500 volunteers in major roles. I believe there are just over 20 professionals. No way those 20 people could run an entire council. SImilarly, in our key un

This topic is a good example of the problems that councils have to come to grips with. It is not clear who a councils "customers" are and who they need to demonstrate value to. A councils customers are different from it's governance structure. National, Council boards, CORs they provide the guidance in how services as delivered, but they are not the customers. For a long time, a council's customers were donors. The council needed to demonstrate they were doing work to make Scouting prosper in the community so that more donations could be collected and fund the council for another year

I think you treat this at face value. We are here to serve the Scouts. If a Scout calls you up and says he'd like to visit your troop and even join, you tell him the time and place and welcome him. While I understand the feeling that you should tell the other Scoutmaster, I would suggest that you do not. This is not a situation where you actively pursued the Scout. As such, a change of troop is hard enough. If you tell the Scoutmaster, that may result in added pressure on the Scout. This is the Scout's journey and it's the Scouts choice who to tell and when. Now, after the Scou

I suspect that FOS days are numbered. National set a rule that a council can charge for a service fee at $60 per scout. Coming out of the re-org, I am sure many councils will assess this. For councils it will be critically important that they can justify this fee to families. For the sake of discussion, let's agree that a council exists to support the units and the scouts. What value & services do you see that your council brings for this money? What value & services do you think that your council should bring for this money? Coming out of the re-org it seems ve

But honestly - the pros shouldn't do the work. "We" pay for professionals to help us develop the Scouting program at the district/council level. The most economical way to leverage that money is not for them to turn into paid "volunteers". That's a very cost inefficient way to do things. Say the average DE makes $36,000 a year (that's a guess). That then results in approx. $18 a hour for their time. Is it worth $18 an hour for DEs to run around doing volunteer work? No, it is not. It is however worth $18 an hour for them to be doing "force multiplier" work - recruiting new volunteers,

Sorry to jump in on another comment here - but I find this one another good example of the council/unit volunteer interaction. For years, FOS donations were described as optional. There was a clear understanding that individuals and units did not have to contribute to pay the council bills. Family FOS contributions were just that - contributions they you felt so inclined to make. Council fundraising people would love for everyone to give - but it was never the expectation. So, if a unit chose not to participate, that was their prerogative. Again - would the council prefer it - yes, m

Yeah - I think this stuff is strange. What are they trying to prevent a flood of JTE gold district patches on the black market.

I assume that if you go to the local Scout Shop and ask them to order it, they could. If you then have an issue, you could walk over to the office and get them to vouch for it.

Hi @Cburkhardt, Thanks for the kind words. I very much appreciate that you initiated this conversation and other thought provoking discussions like this one on the forum. While there are other places online to discuss Scouting, the format of the forum provides us all the ability to have some deeper conversations and weigh topics like this. My apologies if I seemed to pounce a bit on this topic - it was not my intent. One of the things I worry about is the trend towards minimizing the role of volunteers. As a result, I grow concerned when I hear discussions of increased profession