carebear3895

Counter prediction: council professional staffs will actually grow in numbers, or at minimum stay stagnant. 

The BSA will be a shell of itself after this over and done. What's the number #1 killer of units? Not meeting or no activities. Well, that' what is happening across the nation right now. I'm willing to bet that 1/4 of all Cub Scouts Packs will never meet again post-corona. 

The professionals will essentially be tasked with rebuilding the BSA. Frankly, and i know this sounds bad, a vast majority of volunteers do not care about growing membership. They don't have the time to dedicate starting units or growing numbers. I mean, that's one of the main job function of a DE.

What you will see is a massive selling of camps, especially if they aren't able to open their doors this summer. All the capital that would've gone to camps will now go into professional salaries. 

50 minutes ago, scotteg83 said:

In fact, there are other pictures on facebook that show them NOT wearing those, and wearing regular neckerchiefs with slides.  So they must have swapped them out for certain photo opportunities. 

The Scout Me In neckerchief is more of a PR item than any actual uniform piece. I have one I wear when I'm out and about doing community relation stuff. 

15 hours ago, RememberSchiff said:

Well at least they are wearing neckers and even a few correctly over the collar. 

The "Scout Me In" neckerchief is too thick to be worn with a standard slide. That's why the unofficial policy has been to use a Friendship knot.  

1 hour ago, Cburkhardt said:

But, the membership figures from the combined council show that the retention/growth challenge has been turned-around.  Scouting in Pathway is growing, and no longer from "purchased" membership strategies.

I'm still vary wary of your "restoring the village" program, but i am very glad you got rid of Scoutreach. If it has Volunteer oversight, RTV can be very good for the kids in Chicago.  

To PTAC's credit, things really got better after some folks in upper management "retired" or "transferred". Their traditional DE staff works their tails off. Wouldn't be surprised if some of the folks on that crew were able to turns things around in their Districts. 

19 minutes ago, NDW5332 said:

  It seemed after the merger, we were being introduced to new Council Key 3 every month at Roundtable.  This made it especially difficult to plan district events with input from Council, and again more hurt feelings.

I have friends that worked in PTAC. Man...the stories I head from the Professional side during the mergers were horrific. Not appropriate to share on a public forum. 

26 minutes ago, Cburkhardt said:

Chicagoland:  The Pathway, Three Fires, Rainbow and Northeast Illinois councils should consider combining into a single council to provide Scouting to the greater Chicagoland/NW Indiana geography.  There is an overall cultural and economic unity to Scouting in that area.  There is a long-standing spirit of cooperation among Scouters from these and the predecessor councils that existed there.  Districts could remain as-is, with economies of scale allowing a rennissance of membership growth --

My Question is what would that accomplish? All 4 of those councils are economically well-off. The only thing that would foresee happening is more properties being sold off. Like you said, and I agree, Scouters in that area already work well together. Why change things for the sake of change? 

That's why I suggested the Michigan Crossroads Council comparison. That I could see happening.  

Just a friendly reminder, Council Properties are always the first thing to go when mergers happen....

11 minutes ago, Cburkhardt said:

Chicagoland:  The Pathway, Three Fires, Rainbow and Northeast Illinois councils should consider combining into a single council to provide Scouting to the greater Chicagoland/NW Indiana geography.  There is an overall cultural and economic unity to Scouting in that area.  There is a long-standing spirit of cooperation among Scouters from these and predecessor councils.  Districts could remain as-is, with economies of scale allowing many more unit-serving executives.  The resulting council would have a single media market.  There are sufficient camping facilities just waiting to be centrally managed by professionals as a park system.  There are iconic Scout Reservation facilities capable of serving the entire metropolitan area.  This makes sense if the interests of our young people are our uppermost priority.     

Didn't pathway basically write the book on "how to NOT merge councils" 

In all seriousness, I'd like to see them pull a Michigan Crossroads. One large council that handles properties/program, and smaller Field Service councils that just focus on units and fundraising. 

18 hours ago, The Latin Scot said:

My concern is that strong, healthy councils may eventually be forced into adopting weaker neighbors that could hinder their continuing success. For example, my council (Orange County Council in CA) is actually doing pretty well - we are financially stable, we have strong and healthy volunteer numbers, a good reputation in our community, and all of our districts earned gold or silver in their JTE scores (save for one bronze district). Last year we served more than 17,000 youth, and almost 43,000 Scouts attended the various camps in our council last year. We have more than 10,000 adult leaders in our area, which encompasses less than 600 square miles of populated suburbs. We get strong support from our council, and since our geographical area is very small despite being densely populated, we get a lot of meaningful council support. We are having a lot of success. So is it worth it to the powers that be for us to adopt a weak, struggling council next door if it means we lose these supporting advantages and sacrifice the close sense of fellowship we feel with fellow Scouters in our area, just to stretch ourselves out to fix problems not of our making?

Didn't OCC come under a lot of fire a few years back because you guys added the $120 "filing fee" for Eagle Scout applications? 

And to be fair, a 100 level council like OCC is mainly suburban/metro population with a lot of money. When you have a 100 level with a lot of poorer rural communities outside of the big metro, those districts and smaller units tend to be forgotten. I hear that's how its like with the Greater St. Louis Area Council. 

5 minutes ago, carebear3895 said:

Look at this bigshot, being able to keep DE's for almost a year. What's the secret to your retention?   

The sad thing is i'm only half joking. The national average is 6 months 

2 hours ago, TAHAWK said:

  They last an average of eleven months, mostly resigning.   

Look at this bigshot, being able to keep DE's for almost a year. What's the secret to your retention?   

13 hours ago, MattR said:

Another idea: What would it look like if the DE's could do what they thought was right, what they hired in to do, rather than chase numbers? I've met really great people that were destroyed by the get-money-or-die directives.

Scouting would be a stronger, larger program. 

16 hours ago, ParkMan said:

What about no DEs to work with units?

No offense to our DE friends - but just a hypthetical.  What would it look like if just about all unit support was done by volunteers?  Pros were there just for the really unusual or serious issues like YPT.

This is actually the ideal scenario. "Volunteer yourself out of the job" is a saying I've heard multiple times. 

8 minutes ago, David CO said:

I think we agree on this.  There should be a better way.  The victims of the past should have been given justice many years ago.  They weren't.  The executive board and the employees were (and still are) more concerned with keeping their secrets and hiding their complicity than with giving justice to the victims.  

 

You're the one who keeps calling on Charter Organizations to have complete control. If that's the case, then they need to foot the bill for Victim Compensation. Somewhere, a long time ago, those adults were approved to be leaders by a Charter 

6 minutes ago, David CO said:

 (and still are) .  

 

This is a complete joke and insulting. Please, enough with your disdain of Professionals.  

7 hours ago, David CO said:

That's because we can't.  If we had the power to do that, it would have been done years ago, and BSA would not be in the mess it is in today.  The executive board and the employees are going to try to hang on right to the end.  They won't give up their control of BSA until the lights go out.

 

again.....your do realize the bankruptcy is about sexual abuse cases, right? 

48 minutes ago, Jameson76 said:

Where and why exactly are they flying "a lot"?  You have to be controlling of expenses.  Running a business 101

well, the ScoutingU staff flies all over the country for advance Pro training and at least once a month to the Summit for Pro Basic training (which is a horrible, horrible waste of money and resources). It would suck to try and have a family (or even a personal life) if you work for ScoutingU. 

All 4 regions have their staffs based in Dallas, so they leave periodically to be in their regions and visit councils. I think Area Directors are based in Dallas too, but to be honest with you, I have no idea what they do. 

1 minute ago, desertrat77 said:

As for Summit, I'm on board with the suggestion someone (sorry I forgot who) made earlier:  National should have to relocate all of their headquarters and personnel to the Summit.  Sell everything in Irving TX, pack the UHaul, and start driving NE.  If Summit is indeed as special as advertised, it should be a positive move.

Not out of the realm of possibility. The professional training center already moved there.  

The only thing that would prevent that is the lack of a major airport close by. National employees do a lot of flying. 

1 minute ago, desertrat77 said:

I concur.  @carebear3895, thanks for all you do, every day, for scouting.  I too appreciate your perspective and good humor.  As PACAN said, we're guessing what goes on in the pro and exec community.  The professional tiers above DE seem closed to almost everyone but a chosen few.

 

I appreciate it, thank you. I'm actually pretty candid like this out in the field too. I find being open with Volunteers and being able to poke fun at myself as a Professional is a great way to build relationships. Like you, I hate the "need to know" culture in the BSA

51 minutes ago, MattR said:

and given that we have scout executives on this forum,

PROMOTION!!!!  

38 minutes ago, David CO said:

I suppose that is one of the issues the bankruptcy court will determine.  Good luck with that argument.  From a unit prospective, I can't see much of a separation between council and national.   I think the bankruptcy court will see that too.

 

no. I'm sorry, but at this point you are making things up to help your argument. Councils are their own independent 501c3s. That is a fact. 

I'm really not trying to be a jerk, but your "unit perspective" doesn't matter when it comes to this. National and councils are completely legally and financially separate  from one another. National has done a very good job at making that clear in all the bankruptcy publications. 

This needs to be said:

LOCAL COUNCILS ARE LEGALLY AND FINANCIALLY INDEPENDENT FROM THE NATIONAL COUNCIL. 

The Chapter 11 financial restructuring will not affect your local scouting experience. 

34 minutes ago, David CO said:

A scout is trustworthy, but a scout executive is not.  That is why BSA is in bankruptcy. 

or you know.....the sexual abuse cases. Which is literally in the bankruptcy filing document.

21 minutes ago, David CO said:

Does anyone actually believe this is a program/activity fee?  It is a legal fee.  It is a bankruptcy fee.  This money isn't going to go for programs and activities.  This is a classic example of BSA's dishonesty.

Except that it's not. A program fee is strictly a council fee, none of that goes to the National Council. Program fee's usually come when FOS starts to dry up. Got to keep the lights on somehow. 

Please, stop pushing hysteria and false information. A Scout is trustworthy, sir.