Eagle94-A1

UNDERSTATEMENT! (emphasis). We also lose FOS support. The district chair who was yelled and cursed out at, well not only did he quit, he stopped contributing to FOS. Talked to other business leaders about this, and they dropped their FOS contributions. Today, the area that was my old district raises 10% of what I did 30 something years ago.

And those national volunteers who do have unit connections, and voice their objections get outvoted and eventually removed. I knew one national member working on the 2015 Cub Scout program. Although he crossed over to Scouts, he still had a lot of Cub Scout connections with his old pack. He asked for ideas, shared thoughts, etc. the 2015 Cub Program was a game changer. It was more active, required a lot more planning to coordinate things with the different dens, BUT it worked if you prepared. 2015 program got watered down in December 2016, and he was removed from the committee. In fact no one from the committee knew anything about the changes until after they were announced.

The quality of out professional leadership is garbage, they keep changing requirements and processes without any consideration for the volunteers, creating further problems and hassles for volunteers to deal with. Fixed it for you.

You got me.

No, it is an attitude issue. Sadly I have seen too many pros over the years who could give a flip about the program and volunteers, they just want FOS dollars and membership increases. Some of the reasons I have seen quality volunteers leave: being yelled and cursed out at by pros; having pros cancel your event ( which has been going on for decades) to push the new council event; asking council for help, and being ignored; running an event and being told you have to have a second event at the same site and time; running an event , creating your supply order well in advance, and finding out the week of that no supplies were ordered, then having the pros ticked off at you for going over budget purchasing those supplies; and I am sure I forgot a few.

I really do not care who is responsible. But if the data disappears and it needs to be manually recollected and inputted, that is a problem. And ithat is on National, not council, for creating a system that has no backup. It took over a year for me to collect records, transcribe the training codes for the council registrar, turn into council, and have them input the lost data into the system the first time. Thankfully I kept a copy of the records I turned into the council, so I was able to submit everything before the other districts, and it was done in 3 months. But it took my council almost 2 years to get the records straight.

I have been told mandatory training for position is a liability, especially since National keep changing what it courses need to be taken to be considered "trained." I was recently considered "untrained" because I had the old SM Fundamentals Course. For whatever reason, my SM Specific classes that I added myself to the rooster, for the reasons below, were not showing up. But the ITOLS class was. But the #1 problem is BSA's IT systems are unreliable. Not only have I encountered numerous errors on the scout side over the years, I have seen numerous errors on the adult side. Twice in a 5 year period, everyone in my district had their training records vanish. EVERY.SINGLE. PERSON. From the new Cub leader, to the veteran PTC Faculty member, their training records vanished. Even recently several MBs that I have been a MBC for decades were removed from my profile. And let's admit it, online sessions are horrible. It is very easy to stop paying attention. Plus there is no question and answer.

And training.

This is what happens when you have educators, not Scouters, creating program.

One of the reasons why they dropped Webelos from 5th grade to 4th & 5th grade circa 1989. Webelos was meant to be a transition, doing things more ont he order of Boy Scouts, and prepping them. When Webelos DLs no longer got separate training with an emphasis on transitioning from Cubs to Scouts, a lot was lost. Folks were not doing the 18-24 month Webelos properly, and it became a continuation of Cubs. And now that is the norm

Even moneymaker camps will get sold. We had a local Scout camp on the border of 2 additional councils. So folks from 3 councils used it. Heck one of those councils even held district events there because of proximity. Additionally it was about 15 minutes off the interstate, so units travelling would use it too. The small primitive camp made enough money to support itself, and subsidize some of the costs of the main camp. Someone decided to move as much infrastructure as possible to the main camp, sell it, and use the money to improve the main camp. Yeah, the main camp is still poorly run and only has 4 weeks of camp.

Disrespectful Pros has been the norm in my Scouting career. That has involved many years in 6 councils, and i cannot tell you the number of pros. Good ones leave because they also get abused and disrespected.

In my neck of the woods, the folks who know what to do at the district and council levels have been run off pros. Reason is they see the mistakes the council is making, and when they bring it to the pro's attention, the get ignored, yelled at, or cursed out. They either get removed by the pro, or quit out of frustration.

Not just units. Anyone remember when national made policy changes regarding Tiger Cubs and BB Guns, and didn't tell anyone teaching shooting sports directors at NCS? So folks were not aware of it until 6 months after it went into effect, after Cub Scout Day Camp and Resident Camp season. You would think any changes in Shooting Sports Range and Target Activities , the NCS Staff would be the first to find out and disseminate the info. The way National changes things, a staff couldn't keep up on a daily basis.

Sadly it is easier to keep up with social media postings on topics than do the above. Heck I have found out things before the pros find out. And I have been asked by my council to take down my reposts of national announcements because they ant to put their spin on it.