Cburkhardt

Friends: My intention with this posting is to discuss what potential council combinations might make sense to be implemented proximate in time to the bankruptcy. I am focused on operations and program — building in the last 6 weeks of discussion. Such combinations would most likely take place after the financial issues become clear. I provided the Chicagoland example for discussion purposes because I am familiar with Scouting in that geography. I hope someone very familiar with the bankruptcy process and the case itself can start a posting to educate us all on timing and other techn

Walk in Woods: Those further out districts might be better in other councils. There is no particular reason why the combining councils need to come-in as-is.

What Carebear3895 is talking about is the discontinuance of Scoutreach in Pathway and its replacement with a home-grown approach called "Restoring the Village". The quick way to describe it is that volunteers from the Black fraternity alumni associations are now running the most-difficult urban units as volunteers with specialized pro assistance. No more paid Scoutmasters and no-fee kids. These people are actual Scouts and Scouters. Sorry to hear some of the pros had a rough time there, but it was a complete re-organization from scratch that was done within 2 years. NDW5332's comments

Sorry folks, the "quote" function does not seem to be working properly with my software and re-posted some lengthy text. Parkman: The second paragraph of your post is precisely what will be happening in the struggling councils. The loss in membership and resulting financial problems will be too much to handle. And, there will be scant resources to bail out failing councils. Seems like a better way is to combine or divvy-up portions of those councils rather that have a cascading series of crises that we will need to react to. I believe the financial impacts will become apparent very s

Carebear3895: It is all about restoring membership growth and health to our program in those geographies, and re-targeting resources to the program and district/unit operations. They can do those things better when together in a metropolitan-scale entity. It is not change for the sake of change. Your comments focus on the potential of property sales. I have no idea regarding whether the properties of the combined entity would be right-sized and of sufficient maintenance and quality. When Pathway was combined, three properties were sold after a comprehensive evaluation of a summer of

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 --

Parkman: Why don’t you suggest a sequence of events and the timing that would go with it? What we need to grapple with is that the bankruptcy court is going to force a short schedule. The bankruptcy process will essentially strip national operations to the bare essentials over the next 6 months. During that time our weakest councils will struggle financially and programmatically. I am aware that up to 20% could be at a structural standstill or in default. The suggestions for a broad grassroots re-envisioning of Scouting at the local level has an appeal, but I do not yet underst

Mds3d: I do not suggest an immediate timeline. But, it is not going to take more than a year or so to understand where the BSA is. There is no advantage to delay discussions until then. My sense is that with fewer and more-targeted services being performed at the council level, getting to the central office is not going to be as important as before. Small satellite scout shops where DEs might also have work spaces is where we might be headed. Area boundaries are not drawn for volunteer convenience, as these are purely configured for national supervisory convenience. With the

Carebear3895: Hard to reply, as you provide no reasoning or specifics to support your opinions.

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 ma

Combinations of councils will be happening, and soon. During that process Some Scouters will observe and others will take action to advocate where the local going-forward priorities and resources should be. Being part of the process will advantage the person wanting to take action.

I'm dropping the top-down/bottom-up language, which distracts and adds nothing to our discussions. Mergers and combinations rarely, if ever, bubble-up from district Scouters -- and certainly not unit Scouters. Merger suggestions originate from area/region/national volunteers and are dealt-with (often resisted) by council Scouters. The best results happen when active Scouters who see the big picture and have our Scouts best interest uppermost are active in those discussions. The information and informed views shared these past four weeks is precisely what is needed during those discus

Desertrat77: In bankruptcy you do not normally follow written or unwritten long-term employment promises or practices. Weak performers are outplaced. It would be great to go through every employee and make a stay/go decision before the structural decisions are made. However, I anticipate that the practical implementation of new structures is going to take place fairly quickly and on a rolling basis. There is not really going to be time to conduct the kind of review process you envision. I think your priorities can still be achieved -- but yes, people will need to make and implement those

RememberSchiff: Keeping the districts as-is, re-prioritizing cash into better DE salaries and working conditions, spinning off the camp ownership/maintenance/endowment functions into third party foundations, reducing above-district expense and administrative tangles all sound like the great bottom-up ideas discussed these past four weeks. But, they need top-down implementation if they are going to happen. Things need to be advocated-for because otherwise things …. will …. just …. slide.

Desertrat77: I think that we should base mergers and combinations on what makes best sense for the Scouts in that geographic territory. Poor performance metrics of a council (as opposed to individual professional performance reviews) are objective and can't be fudged. They are really good measures of what is going on. I'd put the needs of the Scouts in the geography above the pool of professionals. When a charter is withdrawn from a council, all is on the table. No volunteer or professional has a claim to any particular position. A larger council needs only one SE and will always need a

Qwazse: The casual thoughts are entertaining, but let's have your actual position and analysis. Otherwise we can't really react to your views. VOA officer positions are examples of program positions that can easily be maintained -- simply re-configured within the resulting districts/councils/areas/regions. Districts can, for the most part, remain as-is. As for areas, recall my earlier prediction that the current regional and area structures probably will not continue as-is. Perhaps we will have a fewer number of much-larger areas and no regions at all. Long-timers will remember that w

Dkurtenback: The comments on these postings have been replete with thoughts about the need to have more unit-level personnel and an apparent need to trim council services and personnel -- some believe to the bone. It makes sense to consider mergers or other forms of combinations under such circumstances to reallocate resources to support district operations and units. This can make particular sense when a council has been proved over a sustained number of years to be dysfunctional -- and we have some of those. Latin: I understand. But think of how your council's expertise could be sp

"Let’s go ahead and merge our remaining weak councils during bankruptcy into larger, solid organizations. The combination of factors councils are experiencing is reducing their cash flow, so a good number of them probably cannot survive financially as-is. We should be perfectly willing to ask current council leaders to explain with specificity why they might be losing membership or cannot break even. Folks, organizational sustainability is what a financial reorganization bankruptcy is all about." This was one of my recommendations in my original post on improving council structures dur

Dear Friends, This posting is about positive national structural changes that might be opportune to implement as a result of the national bankruptcy. The thoughts being shared about Councils and DEs would get the better attention on the council and district postings and keep this posting focused on the national scene. I will certainly have some thoughts in reply to the idea that Scouting can continue as a quality and credible entity without a strong cadre of DEs out there. When focused on the right things, these are our most valuable pros. In the field, promoting our program and people an

Do you know if this was local to the Southern Region or did similar changes happen in other regions? Answer: I do not know if this is going one in other regions. There is a big meeting in Dallas today during which a number of decisions and announcements will b e made. The first hearing on the case takes place today as well. So, we should learn of some additional developments on the national scene very soon.

T2Eagle: Are they comparing the diocese to the national conference of Catholic bishops? The diocese-conference link would be weak in comparison to the council-national link.

Southern Region Downsizes Staff. Retirements of the Region Director and 4 of the 8 Area Directors were announced today. The remaining 4 Area Directors will now serve 2 Areas each.

What a day, and what a couple of years it is going to be as we go through this. By the way, thanks everyone for contributing to my recent postings. Hope we came up with some good initiatives and tactics to use as we go forward. Tort lawyers in the US are among the best advocates in the world. The people arrayed against the BSA are very good and their obligation is to take the BSA down and take every penny, including selling the very last basketry merit badge stool kit in the warehouse. The technique to do this is to first take a run at killing the BSA outright. This would be attempted

Why did I make these postings over the last month? I'm a long-time volunteer who spent about 30+ years in council and national roles up until a few years back. I knew that the BSA would file a Chapter 11 because it had to -- once the statutes of limitations were eliminated -- allowing a flood of lawsuits and now the bankruptcy claims. I dearly love what the BSA achieves and hope that when we come out of Ch. 11 we will be able to thrive. My insistence on positivity in the posts I focus is because I can see what we will face over the next couple of years -- a potentially-toxic stew