carebear3895

In my time, a Director of Field Service (sometimes called assistant scout executives) is in charge of all membership and finance within the council. They are the #2 guy under the SE. They don't handle much on the program side of things, but Program Directors traditionally report to them. Field Service Directors (aka Field Directors) are middle management types, who directly oversee Unit service executives (DEs and SDEs), with membership being their focus. I've heard of a field service executive, I don't know what they do tho Program Executives (I think their official title is Paraprofessionals), are either called like "cub scout specialists" are usually not full time staff, and I don't believe they hold BSA commissions. There is only one example I have ever heard of a Program Executive becoming a Program Director. Its very rare. Her promotion was very much looked down upon by other professionals, simply because she never "earned her stripes" as a DE. Program Director positions are highly desired.

This GSUSA argument really drives me up the wall. First of all, Girl Scouts has a serious program issue of their own that they turn a blind eye to, which is why their program is failing. The whole "we know what girls want because we are girls" is so stupid, and is setting them on a path for continued failure. Second of all, no body is forcing girls to "convert" or join Cubs Scouts. If a girl chooses BSA over GSUSA on her own will, I think that should highlight everything. Venturing has been around for 20 years, which actually is co-ed. Heck, even 2 of the 5 national youth officers are females! "Adequate programming"....give me a break.

While DE's are considered "Unit-serving Executives", I'm pretty sure it's well known program and how a troop runs is not a huge responsibility of our Jobs. It's good and bad the way BSA does promotions. It's nice knowing that 99% of the time, everybody in a SE or national role started out as a DE somewhere and worked their way up. The bad is that many SE's or national guys were DE literally decades ago. I have no problem saying many are out of touch with the program. The honest truth is you are promoted if you show great numbers. So DE's in huge councils where there is more TAY tend to show better numbers, tend to get promoted. The dudes in smaller rural councils, tend to get left behind. In the local councils, it's tough to find qualified people for Program Director and camping director positions. Why? Because the professional pipeline prepares literally nobody for that. Those are positions I believe should be direct hires, not promoted from DE's.

I have access to the facilitator training. Just went through the slides again to be sure and I didn't see anything in the instructor notes

*Cough* EXECUTIVE BOARD *Cough*

Get to wear nifty "Platinum" Shoulder loops

The only thing I've ever liked more about GSUSA over BSA is they allow all older youth members to cast executive board votes.

That's one thing the old yo1 YPT had over the new one IMO. As cheesy as they were, I liked that they included scouting specific scenarios such as a leader walking off with a scout, or the scout taking pictures by the showerhouse. Plus in the old one they reiterated Two-deep in almost every training module, which I think they only mentioned once in the new YPT2. Overall, I think YPT2 looks prettier and has more in depth information about Child Abuse in general, but I think its a less effective training tool for Leaders

Oh my god National is really doing this...........Stupid

Problem is.....even the current numbers are inflated.

Actually I think it is a possible solution. DE's are spread way to thin, and less volunteers are stepping up. I think DA's are a good thing, However, it's just a temporary band-aid to a much larger ideology issue coming from national. Until that's fixed, DE's are still going to hate their jobs/lives and leave.

Agreed, but I think they are vital for retention purposes. Anybody can plan a trip with their buddies, the awards and uniforming help make Venturing attractive

One of CSE Surbaughs' big pushes during his tenure was to basically stop young DE's from completely hating their jobs/life and leaving the profession by the dozens. He's been coming up with a few new initiatives to help out the professional folks, I believe this is one of them. The DA position is simply to relieve some of the stress faced by DE's, while helping them achieve the overall goals of the job.

Venture Crews are simply unsustainable. The trend I saw in my old council was that a lot of crews started up to go on a high adventure, but then crashed and burned after. I think the lack of council/national programing and "individuality" is killing it. Getting rid of the Venture promise, sign, and salute in favor of the BSA standard ones was the wrong move. The current award are seen as comical by current venturers. I think the old system of the brone/gold/silver was much better, just needed a little tweaking. TBH, the most successful crews were the ones the had the most Gung-Ho women in them. Scoutreach is good in theory, but oh my lord is it ever abused by Professionals for membership numbers. It's embarrassing

Learning for life kids are not called "Scouts". Like Exploring, they are considered "participants". L4L is such an oddball program. You'll find close to nothing about it on scouting.org, and probably have never seen a "classroom" (their equivalent of a troop, crew, etc.), but as you said, makes up quite a chunk of BSA membership. I would keep in mind that exploring is technically a program of Learning for life and thus that is reflected in membership.