Eagle94-A1

My understanding was that it was allowed for LDS units.

I once sat on the Vigil Committee in my role as chapter adviser. I remember one outstanding "youth" ( in quotation marks as he was a youth in the OA, and ASM with his troop) with about an 1.5" pile of nominations for him. Needless to say he got Vigil. On question, does the person nominating serve as Vigil sponsor? I ask because I have seen it where the nominee is the sponsor, presenting him as a candidate at the Vigil Call Out. 2/3 people I nominated I sponsored. the 3rd I let his dad sponsor him.

@ParkMan , Our DFS required DEs to camp at camporeed. Heck one guy just got out of the hospital and on light duties was told he better be at camporee or start looking for a new job. As for picking up supplies, yes that was an expected duty by the DFS. I vividly remember driving two hours round trip to drop off bb guns because the DFS was furious that I told someone they could pick them up whenever they could. I could go on, but I don't have the time. As you can see, different councils have different expectations.

SO.VERY.TRUE. A fellow pro told me the divorce rate is extremely high. One coworker was on wife #3 when I started, and was in the process of going through a divorce with her when I left. Another DE's wife stayed with him long enough to complete law school, and then filed for divorce as soon as she passed the bar. My own wife knew what she was getting into as we dated while I was a DE. She didn't realize the full physical, mental, and emotional stress the job causes until we got married and she moved in with me. After 6 weeks of marriage, she gave me an ultimatum: her or the job. And she could not understand why I continued to volunteer after I left, until our oldest got involved. She can handle the unit level, but anything on the district and council, forget about it.

Best wedding gift I got came from the volunteers: no calls between 10pm and 7am.

Director of Field Service. In some councils with more than 1 Field Director, they use a DFS. He is the #2 person in a council after the Scout Exec.

HOW COULD I FORGET ABOUT THE DOCUMENTATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I worked at one camp that was nearly shut down due to GI bug. Long story short, we had the council physician and others come in do a second health inspection. They could not find anything, and then checked the medical logs. They detesrmined that one troop had some sick that infected everyone at the camp. I found out 6 months later at Christmas it was my cousin's son who was sick and infected everyone. She sent him to camp anyway because they paid for it and they were not going to lose any money, 😠

I do not know about National, but it was the attitude my DFS had. I had a new, struggling unit that my church started. I didn't have an active commissioner corps to help them, so I did it myself. My DFS found out, and told me to stop.Would not hear of the reasons why I was helping: no commissioner, my church's pack, my men's club asked me to help, etc. Ditto with me going to OA meetings and events. Told me " You don't have time to play Indian." Here's the irony of that situation, me attending the Ordeal, doing cheerful service in the rain, and working with the ceremony team thoroughly impressed the Scouters from my district in attendance. That created a lot of good will, and broke some barriers. And it did it with not only the Arrowmen, but all the Scouters as word got around that "We have ourselves a REAL DE!"

I don't remember who it is, but someone on here did their entry level professional training at Schiff Scout Reservation back when national HQ was in NJ. Yep seeing the national HQ and CSE's office were big things for me too. What was coincidental was one of my council's camporee chiefs sent a letter and rope for the CSE tie into a square so that it could be awarded as a prize. The letter and rope were on his desk. I was told new DEs now have to do a lot of online modules prior to attending, and that the course is only a week now. We also go through DEs and have major vacancies. I was a DE 22 years ago. My immediate replacement lasted approx. 3 months. He didn't make it to PDL1. His replacement lasted about 2 years, had a nervous breakdown with the stress of the job, and left. There was no replacement for about a year. Since 2004, have had 2 dedicated DEs. The rest were either DE's having us as an additional district or DDs/FDs covering the vacant territory. We currently have not had a full time dedicated DE since 2010

Back in the day, Professional Development Level (PDL) 1 had to be done at the 3-4 month mark for 2 weeks. And some DEs didn't make it to that mark. At my PDL-1, one person had her resignation letter already typed and prepared to be submitted after she returned. As CareBear said the reason she was quitting was a lousy manager,and she felt she deserved a vacation putting up with the lousy manager. 12 to 16 months after PDL-1, was PDL-2 for a week. I know of 2 DEs compatriots went to it, the rest either quit or had it cancelled on them. Do not know of any coworkers going to PDL-3. We also went through 9 DEs and 2 midlevel managers in the 19 months I was a pro.

I was camp health officer for day camp and here are my thoughts. 1) Take the online training. 2) Make sure you have a copy of the Council Physician's Standing Orders. If the council won't give you a copy of them, WALK AWAY! Good friend of mine walked away as Day Camp Health officer because the council would not give him a copy because they said it only applied to summer camp, when it it now part of the NCAP standards. 3) Keep some gatorade or other electrolyte drink in the frig. As others have said, dehydration is common. IN fact at my day camp it was the #1 illness. 4) Follow those Standing Orders and your certification/licensing protocols TO THE LETTER! You don't want to put your career in jeopardy. 5) Make sure you are easily accessible in an emergency. We had one health officer on loan from the US Navy. Long story short, he would take off and go off roading in the primitive camp of teh reservation in the HMMWV. Nobody knew where he went off to, until he walked back to the main camp after after flipping the HMMWV

You forgot #4: Volunteer is replaced in their position by someone who will do the professional's will (Not only have I seen this, I was even encouraged to do this when I was a DE to have more compliant members of the district committee) #5: Pro, specifically SE, finds some reason revoke volunteers membership ( seen that happen twice, and it almost happened a third , all because the volunteers he did stand up to the professionals) As Desert pointed out, chairman have been usually figureheads who do the professional's bidding. Heck I was even told to look for malleable people of influence and affluence by my SE back when I was a DE. Personally I would rather have a loyal opposition who had the best interests of the Scouts as their #1 concern. I know when I was DE, there were indeed challenging meetings with disagreements. But everyone respected each other since we all shared #1 goal.

I am very glad to hear your council does things like it is suppose to do. Sadly not every SE does that. I can tell you in my some councils I have been in, pros will ignore volunteers in charge of activities, make additional demands, and even overruling volunteers who are in charge of events to the point that they take over. It has gotten to the point the point that some longtime volunteers no longer have anything to do with the council because of the professionals.

One parent was so made that the son was enlisting in the USAF that not only did they refuse to write the letter, but also kicked him out of the house. He was delayed entry, and spent his senior year living with the SM and his family. It was a mess.

As a former professional, and a district/council level volunteer in several councils...