Cburkhardt

With a national Financial Restructuring Ch. 11 Bankruptcy filing likely in our future, this posting will focus on structural changes that might be good for the national BSA organization. This posting will focus on corporate, governance, professional staffing, volunteer involvement (area, region and national committees and appointees), council oversight, public relations, insurance, financing and fundraising functions. If you want to discuss a program issue, please engage in the companion National Program Changes posting, which is now active. I ask that Supply Division and High Adventure Base issues be discussed as program issues on that posting. We will not discuss Bankruptcy proceedings or media accounts of it on these postings. If you wish to do so, there will surely there will be other postings to do that. With that said, let us set the table with the basic facts about the current national structure and how it actually functions. Volunteer Structure. The National Council provides an exclusive charter to Councils to offer Scouting in a geographic territory. It is comprised of National Council members elected locally to represent councils and other volunteers otherwise part of the national structure. The National Council elects a huge National Executive Board during each national annual meeting and that National Executive Board thereafter elects various officers. The officers comprise an “Executive Committee”. So many people want to be on the National Executive Board that there is a companion National Advisory Council, whose members are privy to all confidential information and are allowed to attend Executive Board meetings – they just do not get to vote. When the National Executive Board meets during its three regular meetings each year (twice in Dallas and once at each national annual meeting), it is in a room with over 100 members and many relevant staff. Prior to each National Executive Board meeting there are 2 or 3 days of pre-meetings by “national committees”. The more-important national committees are “Standing” committees and are dominated by Executive Board and Advisory Council members. The committees without “Standing” status are comprised of council, area and region scouters with a few Executive Board and Advisory Council members. Often the chair at the region level for a subject area will serve on the national committee for that subject area – but not always. In total, I guestimate there are about 500 volunteers formally involved in the various national committee/advisory council/executive board policy roles. Admission to membership on any of these is tightly controlled. It is very expensive and time-consuming to participate in any of these national roles. Turnover of Board and Advisory Council membership is very slow, with maybe 6-7 new people replacing people who have died or become otherwise unable to serve. Recently, membership was frozen and no new people being admitted. All national meetings are confidential, and only national volunteers are allowed to attend – and even then only meetings directly relevant to their appointment. The policies of the BSA generally originate in various national committees and are “reported up” to Standing committees for consideration. A few policies or actions are recommended to the Executive Board. After that, the smaller Executive Committee will usually decide the big issues in private. Some policy matters are discussed and voted upon during the National Executive Board meetings. These would more-typically be among the most potentially-controversial decisions that Executive Committee does not want to make alone. The four “regions” and their component multi-council “areas” are delegated full authority to implement national policy and programs, and are therefore a part of the national structure. They do not make policy – they implement it. This includes everything from enforcing compliance with national policy standards, reviewing membership and advancement appeals, organizing a few national program activities (like jamboree sub-camps and OA activities) and reviewing (and even revoking) council charters. When a merger of councils is arranged or mandated, it is the region volunteers and the few staff members who work with them who do it. The key region/area volunteers with influence are former council presidents. The remainder are experienced former council program people (commissioners, etc.). I will guesstimate there are probably upwards of 2,000 region/area Scouters. Professional Structure. There are credentialed professional Scouters who are assigned to staff every one of the above structures and volunteers. Most are former council Scout Executives. These consist of Area Directors, Region Directors (considered one of the “top jobs” among professionals), substantive department directors in the national service center, and ultimately the Chief Scout Executive and 4-6 Deputy and Assistant Chiefs (considered to be the very “top jobs”). There used to be region service centers – but these were sold-off and now staff in Irving, TX support all national professionals. Currently the top professional position (normally the Chief Scout Executive) is the “CEO” and is not currently filled by a credentialed professional Scouter. This is likely because of the skills needed during the course of the anticipated Ch. 11. Professional Scouters who are identified to move up the professional ranks alternate between national and local council positions. Issues. The national structure and the individuals associated with it who have made the policy decisions and led the national movement over the last thirty years are largely responsible for where we are now policy-wise. The national structure sets the vision, makes the decisions and tightly controls implementation and public relations. With few exceptions, the Executive Committee received advice, made the decisions in private and announced and implemented the policies through the national structure. Observations. More regular turnover on the Executive Board and Advisory Council and injecting additional transparency might upgrade consideration and implementation of important, existential matters. Some of the big decisions made – or not made – have variously had positive and catastrophic impacts on the BSA and its members. Several decision makers and board members have been in place for 20 or more years and many intend to continue serving for life. Possibilities. The Bankruptcy process will likely force significant change. The entire region/area volunteer and professional structure might be discontinued in lieu of direct management from the national service center and adoption of a greatly “deregulated” approach. A more-independent legal structure might be adopted, whereby councils would have charters but be far less regulated and directed by the National Council. For example, perhaps every council would offer not all BSA programs, and councils might be more on their own in terms of support services, like insurance, personnel and property development. The BSA national foundation might be spun-off as an independent organization so that future major donor contributions would be protected from lawsuits seeking to attach BSA assets. The national policy structure and process might be discontinued in lieu of a more-nimble approach. The current Executive Board/Advisory Council might be discontinued in lieu of a smaller and more transparent structure. Possibilities like these would dramatically reduce national financial overhead. What are your ideas for positive national structural changes that might be encouraged as the BSA goes through a financial reorganization? State support for your reasoning.

Good Council Executive Boards result from finding good people and recruiting them, not changing election or voting systems. Financial restructuring will provide an opportunity to recast ineffective boards. Start now to recruit and promote outstanding candidates. We have a representative republican for of government whereby we select people to represent us and repose in them the ability to make decisions and govern. It is an imperfect system but seems to work for our society. Having regular society-wide votes on policy matters would have an occasional advantage -- but for the most part that system of governance is really problematic. Our Council Executive Boards play a similar role. The COR's elect them and delegate the responsibility and authority to govern. If the EB gets entirely out of line, the CORs can effectively recall them at the next annual business meeting and install a replacement Board. That has happened several times. Before it gets to that point CORs and their similarly-minded volunteers can usually take effective action if they are factually accurate, thoughtful, economic in approach and persuasive. Many of the suggestions seem to be calculated to limit the influence of dominant SEs. The route to address this problem is to be direct and assure adequate COR representation on the nominating committee. I have been a nominating committee chair several times. The challenge in that position is … follow me here …. a lack of credible suggested new board members! After all of the disappointments expressed about voting systems, current boards and members, the complaining folks rarely had great people to suggest as new board members. The suggestions tended to include very upset people who were dug-in on a narrow issue (often a sub-issue about a camp facility or camp program), or others who had deep personal disagreements with certain staff or volunteer officers. These people disqualify themselves for failing to satisfy the basic qualification of board membership (see Parkman's many suggested criteria, above). To the issue of Bankruptcy and financial tightening -- This will provide wholesale opportunities to replace ineffective Board members. My belief is that if you want to be an effective part of recasting your local Council Executive Board, do a service for your Council and begin now to think of names of who would be effective members. Think about those Scouters who are the finest, selfless individuals. Think of business leaders who are well-regarded and know how to operate sophisticated enterprises. Think about a few people that are role models for our youth and ourselves -- whether they have Scouting experience or not. Think of principal economic leaders who are good-hearted, active in promoting civic life and capable of helping the BSA restore its financial health. When the annual meeting approaches, contact the nominating committee chair and ask to be on that committee. Or, ask to present a number of your candidate suggestions to the committee - live and in-person. Building a better Council Executive Board is not about figuring out how the election voting process can be recalculated to favor one type of voter or another. It is all about finding the very best people to serve Scouting recruiting them to our Boards.

Current District Guidelines are Good. I don't see many suggestions for District structural reforms but do see an emphasis on recruiting District volunteers and program/service implementation. That is good, because I believe simply following our current District operations guidelines is a great way to go. My belief is that District positions are hard to fill and retain because work at the District level is … work … hard work. People who accept a District responsibility and do not perform are immediately apparent to District colleagues. District expectations are clear, the responsibilities are achievable and success or failure are hard to hide. There is really not that much to "figure out". Contrast this to a good number of positions at the Council level. For instance, a District membership chair has actual duties to fulfill upon which the lifeblood of Scouting depends. Council membership chair on the other hand are often folks who can get away with talking and not doing. For some, the only thing they do is read depressing numbers, diagnose the reasons why the Council continues to lose membership and express hope that "somebody will do something about all of this in the Districts". So, we need people with tremendous work ethic and long-term dedication to be unit commissioners, roundtable commissioners, camporee chairs, membership chairs and finance folks. So, it is better building, retaining and professionally supporting the priority and volunteer prestige of a splendid group of women and men to comprise a District Committee and District Commissioner Staff that needs to be done. One built, let's keep these people associated with the committee by refreshing enthusiasm b rotating into different roles. Geographic Size. Councils can obtain great economies of scale through a good merger. Districts on the other hand do not. Keeping a location manageable is mandatory in Districts. It allows good friendships to form and is easier to serve professionally. I would make certain there is a very experienced DE in each and allocate salary money for each DE to have some type of assistant. 200 mile-wide Districts sound entirely unmanageable. Walk in Woods: I believe in Districts that are standard and comprehensive in operation and management. I do not agree with the kinds of teaming and other innovations you are referencing. At the Council level, those kinds of things are fine if they make operational sense. Districts should be operated in the standard manner. Sounds like there is an attempt to limit or reduce the number of DEs in the circumstance you are referencing -- he very opposite of what we need. Find Good Leaders. You hit it right Eagledad. Jus following the standard practice of finding good people and then not overloading them with three simultaneous responsibilities is a great start. Bankruptcy Implications. So to the big question, I restate that we should be quite willing to insist that Councils redeploy their professional, volunteer and financial capabilities to the districts when the unavoidable belt-tightening occurs. This is in contrast to the circumstance where less-competent and less-ambitious employees or volunteers at the Council level corral their internal political influence to survive at that level. Bankruptcy will allow us to downsize staff and in that process eliminate categories of jobs where unproductive and sometimes highly-salaried people have hidden themselves away. We can't sacrifice our capability in the field to keep unproductive "support" folks employed -- no matter how friendly they are and no matter how close they are the Council Past President of four terms ago. Maybe there is simply broad agreement that we are where we should be with the District structure and that it is a matter of emphasis, resources and restoring priority and prestige.

There is a separate District posting -- but it just has been silent as crickets. I have a hard time believing that there aren't a lot of great ideas about how to improve the districts that can be instituted during the time of change.

“All Hat and No Cattle”. There must be a large contingent of commenters on this blog that enjoy reading and talking about the “big council stuff” but not District Scouting closer at the more meaningful, granular level. Over 3,700 views and 140 great replies in 5 days on how to improve things at the Council level during the bankruptcy. But, not a single posting on how to upgrade things at the District level. As a Scoutmaster of a new 30-Scout Troop that receives solid support from our District, I wonder why there is such a difference. Maybe it has been too long since you helped form a unit, run a district camporee or recruited a new unit commissioner? Perhaps the BSA perfectly operates and provides support to our Districts?

“All Hat and No Cattle”. There must be a large contingent of commenters on this blog that enjoy reading and talking about the “big council stuff” but not District Scouting closer at the more meaningful, granular level. Over 3,700 views and 140 great replies in 5 days on how to improve things at the Council level during the bankruptcy. But, not a single posting on how to upgrade things at the District level. As a Scoutmaster of a new 30-Scout Troop that receives solid support from our District, I wonder why there is such a difference. Maybe it has been too long since you helped form a unit, run a district camporee or recruited a new unit commissioner? Perhaps the BSA perfectly operates and provides support to our Districts?

These are the high-asset people I have said we need more of on our council executive boards: "... highly-successful Eagle Scouts and others in the active phase of their careers who have some kind of connectivity to Scouting and who can be recruited to provide the leadership to the finance and fundraising needs of councils. They typically know a lot about management and could be helpful on strategy and personnel matters as well." Applying an upward limit test on a person's wealth in order to serve on a BSA board is not unlike applying a minimum net asset test to be a member of a BSA board. We certainly should not do either and I hope that is what you are suggesting. The thrust of my comment is simply that we lost the practice of recruiting local economic leaders to take a turn on our local council executive boards over the last 20 years and are seeing a negative effect both in terms of lowered financial prospects and the quality of decision making at the local level. We need a variety of positively-spirited people with different backgrounds. Highly-successful and economically influential people should be restored as part of our mix.

I am not a promoter of royalty and am not a highest-asset person myself. But, as a former council president of a large metropolitan area and as the administrative VP of a small council I am personally aware that many local council Executive Boards have lost their connectivity to high-asset and high-influence individuals who can provide the finance and fundraising expertise Parkman references -- as well as very significant contributions from themselves and friends. These are not lofty nose-in-the air prigs -- who should be avoided. Rather, these are more-typically highly-successful Eagle Scouts and others in the active phase of their careers who have some kind of connectivity to Scouting and who can be recruited to provide the leadership to the finance and fundraising needs of councils. They typically know a lot about management and could be helpful on strategy and personnel matters as well. We have an excessive number of folks who have permanently "graduated" to Executive Board membership status where they participate and contribute minimally. Councils are increasingly starved for finances, and product sales and FOS are not replacing the previous large dollar contributions from the folks I am referencing. It just cannot hurt to have a reasonable representation of the leadership of the larger economic entities from your territory on your Executive Board. I don't intend to be harsh or inappropriate, but the BSA is headed toward financial tough times and we need to identify and recruit these kinds of people.

Budgetary belt-tightening in councils over the next couple of years should lead to reemphasis on the centrality of district operations. Here are my suggestions: · The staff of district executives should be prioritized in number and salary. Our finest credentialed executive staff members should be deployed into field service and a reasonable part of the Scout Executive’s evaluation should depend upon whether the council has a top-flight staff with the results to match. Every council-paid staff position unrelated to directly supporting units or essential to program operations should be very closely considered for downsizing or elimination. Development professionals should be given clear-eyed evaluations. If they raise appropriate multiples of their salaries and are producing a funding flow competitive with the local market, they should be retained. A period of financial reorganization or a Ch. 11 bankruptcy will provide the BSA one-time extra flexibility to outplace habitual under-performers who have accumu · Districts should have a full volunteer District Committee with equally-full subcommittees. We should limit the practice of assigning multiple tasks to volunteers, such as a commissioner who is simultaneously a training chairman. The bulk of these volunteers should expect to stay active at the district level and not move to a council level. We should build the prestige of these positions and have people move-around within district assignments – rather than lose this top talent to less impactful and episodically busy council assignments. For example, I believe that it would be better to have district training chairs rotate the responsibilities to convene idea-sharing opportunities and even conduct what are now regarded as “council training events”. The same concept could be applied to the other substantive responsibilities of districts. · District and Unit Commissioners should likewise be increased numerically and the presence of “upper level” commissioners kept at a bare minimum to perform only those functions that cannot be executed at the district level. Council-wide camporees might sound great from a PR standpoint – but they can wipe out the more-important accessibility and localized nature of district camporees. · Carefully evaluate the current positions of a District and trim those functions that are not essential to establishing, maintaining and building units. People are most satisfied when they are engaged in the “productive” side of above-unit volunteer roles. We should rely on larger numbers of commissioners and district subcommittee members to do the business of scouting locally and not have excessive one-off officerships. · Re-orient the priority of District Committee meeting to building units. The Commissioners and Membership chairs should report at a very granular level about how individual units are doing and seek – right on the spot – the assistance needed. · A 3- or 4-person group of volunteer “unit formers” within the district membership sub-committee or commissioner staff should be tasked to form a few new units each year, perhaps with the expectation that 2/3 will survive for the long run. My late father led this in the Chicago south suburbs years ago and I did it myself in a central Illinois council in the 1980’s. I got on BeAScout.org and found a bunch of these units still in existence. We somehow transitioned unit formation work to professionals in the 90’s. Let us face it; even the better new DEs do not have a clue about how to access the local influencers and leadership to form units at the right places with the right support. We need to take back that responsibility and run with it. Side story: 10 years after I moved away from that Central Illinois council I got a call from the then-Council President telling me to come back to their annual recognition dinner to receive the Silver Beaver. It was because they had calculated that over 2,000 youth had experienced Scouting that decade because of the units our 5-person committee formed over a three-year effort. 10 of those units are still going after 30 years. This is where the productive action is in a council – a district membership group that knows how to form new units and a solid district commissioner staff that knows how to service them. Yes -- making sure a lot of young people are actually experiencing Scouting in units is what districts are all about.

In the 60s and before the Executive Boards of councils always had a good number of wealthy individuals who typically were the owners or managers of the most significant commercial entities within the council's territory. Typically this comprised 30-40% of boards membership. These individuals raised large sums of money that was used to build and maintain many of the facilities we have today. They also were the captains of influence within the area and arranged for assistance from other relevant charity organizations, government entities and military organizations. The BSA Boards in those days were (admittedly) elite institutions -- including some of the individuals referred to as "potentates". The remainder of the boards typically included accountants, lawyers, mid-to-small business owner/operators and a small selection of program Scouters who had worked their way up through the volunteer ranks to the council board. When a person of influence with a Scouting background moved into an area, that person often looked to see if he could get on the local BSA executive board -- because that was where he could serve the community meaningfully and gain personal influence through association at the same time. Board meetings were business affairs and did not obsess over program details -- because that was the purview of the districts and their program-related leadership groups, a deference to those folks was the typical approach. Today we are not what we once were with regard to the influence of some of our council executive boards. Instead of having a predominance of the influencers and financially connected individuals in a community, we have a larger representation of program-oriented volunteers who sometimes view being on the board a right and a means through which to "defend" a priority. Some of these people do not donate to FOS and a few are even "anti-council". Part of this was caused when the BSA adopted Don't Ask Don't Tell in the 90's. It does not really matter what you think about that issue and is not relevant to this discussion. But, the effect was that a lot of senior government and corporate people left our council executive boards when their constituents, customers or stockholders demanded it. Those people were often not replaced with people of similar influence. We have too many board members who are not net-contributors of influence or finances to our council executive boards and this leads to deformed decision-making. Fortunately, we are now recovering from the days when service on our boards was viewed in certain quarters as a potentially-toxic affiliation for a community leader. Parkman has it right. My way of saying the same thing is that we need a balance of Executive Board members who are community influence and financial leaders and understand enough about Scouting to gather significant contributions and apply their influence -- and other Board members who are primarily Scouting-oriented, but can evaluate the larger issues by prioritizing what is best overall for the youth. We have too many of the latter and not enough of the former.

On Friday let’s talk about Council Executive Boards. I have been on three, including 3 years as president of one of the 20 largest councils and VP for several years of a very small council. My view is that we should have smaller Executive boards of truly national or state class distinguished personalities who focus on fundraising and relationships — and leave program and operations to a larger Operating board. The chair of the Operating board would report to the Executive board on the big issues only for policy guidance. The operating board would include the district chairs and most of the chairs of council committees, plus a smattering of others. We have too many program people on the Executive boards now, and that prevents progress. I am also thinking that the boards should be accountable to the unit key three members and not just the CORs, giving the units 2/3 of the formal influence. That way things will become more unit and district focused.

Let's try to keep the focus on what you believe a council should do and what functions can properly be eliminated or reduced during the coming time of financial tightening.

Examples for elimination. Current program functions not directly serving unit or district operations might be eliminated as council responsibilities and either discontinued or spun-off to exterior volunteer organizations that could be licensed to raise their own funds and conduct program. This would include OA, Wood Badge, council-wide service projects, council product sales and events of every description other than district Camporees. Those exterior groups would not be subsidized with funds or staff assistance. Council fund raising operations might be eliminated, because council budgets and operations would be constrained by camp fees, annual program fees and potential subsidies from previous endowments. Council support services might be entirely eliminated. There would be no more council events (Eagle Scout or Silver Beaver recognition dinners, OAlodge banquets) or service projects to promote or coordinate. Council service centers might be sold, because they would no longer be needed and there would be insufficient funding to operate them. Scout shops stocking unit supporting items operated by national could find a modest strip mall space and DEs and their managers could operate out of their homes or modest surroundings.

Let’s bring a tight focus on today’s discussion. How people and organizations choose to spend money almost always expresses their actual values and priorities. National financial reorganization and the related financial tightening that will intensify at councils will cause such values and priorities to come forth directly. A theme coming through regularly is that many do not believe councils are sufficiently responsive or accountable to their volunteers. Those volunteers are represented by CORs — according to the governance model. Another theme is that the COR role is either absent or otherwise ineffective as a means to create responsiveness or cause accountability. The current financial behavior trend seems to be lessened support by units and members of the council structure. $30/year is viewed as unacceptable by many, even though is is minimal compared to the cost of even a single school activity or modest event. This, in an environment where families spend thousands on other youth activities not having nearly the same lifelong positive impacts of Scouting. This demonstrates a fundamental dissstisfaction with or rejection of the nature of councils with some commenters. I ask commenters to state what current services provided locally they believe are either unnecessary or inappropriate. Also, are there any essential services you believe are required to be provided locally? Finally, would you fund those services? My view is that a program fee should be collected to fund field-based executive services, district volunteer operations, essential unit operations training and maintenance of a summer camp operated to serve a large geographic territory.

I appreciate everyone’s cool-headed approach on these posts. That approach is going to be needed as we step through these next couple of years. This will be a time when we will need to provide guidance to some of these difficult personalities, like the DE Eagle 94-A1 mentions. This is going to work out, but things will indeed need to function differently.

Freeloaders, continued. To make this discussion even more interesting, I need to share that the council in question is generally known to have one of the best professional and volunteer operations around and a council scout reservation with multiple camps that is always included on those lists in Scouting magazine that is in the top ten. So, the unit leaders really don’t have the typical reasons discussed above to be non-participants and non-supporters. The reality is that this council will turn to an annual program fee, which it has announced it is studying. I think almost all of our families can afford this. We are overly-apologetic about our unit membership and activity fees. A fully-loaded annual cost for a Scout in a Troop is about $1K, and about $300 for a cub. That is everything including even summer camp. Families are spending huge multiples of that for sports programming, dance/ballet and especially those travel teams for athletics and school. Annual spend for some of these things easily exceed $5 - 10K per year. Scouting is dirt cheap in comparison. Given that flood of youth activity spending, the comparatively small amounts we need to collect are modest. A council program fee — if used wisely — is a very justified strategy.

On the issue of freeloader units. My earlier comment was prompted by the large number of units that attend camp out of council, don’t participate in district or council activities, don’t assist the council or district financially (through FOS, product sales or otherwise) and don’t assist by participating in activities or training events. Annual council program fees might motivate leaders of these units to derive value for their payments and participate as citizens of their councils. Maybe FOS and other opportunities for units and parents to support councils financially were presented as optional during earlier times, but things have evolved to the point where we need to reset that understanding. While the initial round of financial reorganization might be focused on national, at least 20% of our councils cannot survive in the coming few years without a new funding model. Non- participation needs to become a thing of the past. Program fees in lieu of these other funding devices are more equitable and efficient.

When we formed our girl Troop we met with four different potential COs and chose the one we thought was most interested and capable. Was a great move because the Episcopal Paris we chose was really interested in working with us. I am not suggesting anyone change their CO, but want you to know there are a lot of churches that want a credible youth program and will be delighted to support your unit.

I believe the chartered organization model works as-is and would be hard to improve. In our case the Troop Committee chairman is the current head of the church board. Our COR is the immediate past board chair. Our Troop Chaplain is the church minister. The CO gave us $3K without solicitation and hosted our annual fundraising coffee between their early and late services. We raised $7K. We don’t always agree with them, but we go along with their measured preferences. Our scouts do numerous service projects for the church. The local bishop knows all about us. If you have a poor or non-existent relationship with your CO you can change that by involving them in Troop decision making and governance— which is supposed to be their job. We are a successful Troop in good part because of their support and our recognizing their value and taking their advice. The GSUSA model would have you entirely reporting to a professional who can dictate your terms of volunteer service and remove you at will — because the “contract” you sign effectively includes employment terms.This can become pretty arbitrary from what I have read.

Scoutldr: I like Council annual program fees. Councils can use the bankruptcy filing as a cause to re-evaluate their financing models. I personally am Scoutmaster of a new Troop that decided to fully-load member dues with the full cost of operations and not do any product sales. We have an annual coffee event where we raise money to (1) subsidize the participation of Scouts from under-resourced families who cannot pay the full dues and activity fees, (2) make a contribution to our local Council to make-up for not participating in council-run product sales and (3) purchase equipment. This year we made $7,000. This year we will have our first FOS presentation (I did not want to do it until the parents experience the program). The council appreciated that we are doing things a bit differently and I encourage them to look at their financing model. FOS, council-shared product sales and attendance at the council camp (we have huge numbers of Troops going out-of-council despite the local facility being among the very top facilities nationwide) are down -- causing them to evaluate having an annual program fee. I think the program fee approach is good. It spreads the burden of financing more equitably and informs participants of the services the district and council provide. We have a large number of long-term and well-funded units that are simply free-loaders. Councils do not run on air -- so the program fee might be a rational way to go.

Parkman: These are all very good ideas that would support an effort to re-establish strong district operations, which is where a lot of the volunteer “ownership” of Scouting can take place.

Quick Reactions: Thawk: Your SE eliminated FOS? Wow, looks like he should be on his way somewhere else. How can that be regarded as putting the council on a sustainable pathway? Done correctly, FOS is pure profit. Matt R: Looks like you might address some of those items through a merger if the council is weak. Your thoughts are consistent with a need to redeploy more professionals back to the field. We need fewer SEs of higher quality and a bunch more DEs of highest quality. Soon will be the time to press that agenda even if a merger is not involved in your locality. Everything will be easier to get on the table. Walk in Woods: National has already been withdrawing charters, dismissing boards and creating new councils when merger cooperation is lacking in catastrophic situations. This has included large, iconic councils. I personally believe that is the way to go. “Mergers of equals” is a fool’s errand and the resulting council takes years to normalize. Make the decisions, pick the best people and move forward with strong leadership. Parkman: Your postings show you have a very mature approach and the experience to go with it. These postings here are ultimately exercises in identifying issues and potential solutions and I apologize for what might seem like less-thoughtful suggestions. Having just celebrated my first anniversary as Scoutmaster to a large all-girl Troop (and after 30 previous years as a council/national Scouter) I’ve learned new lessons and could not agree with you more that execution of program and operations at the local (district, I believe) level is the key determinate of our future success. Let’s hope changes that will come to BSA staffing will favor those priorities. Qwazse and Jamison: I am looking forward to what you are going to say when we get to National on the supply division. That is something I have never really focused on but as a “new unit leader” this last year I certainly see where things might better-support units.

Councils will be impacted. While they are not yet thought to be part of the expected national Ch. 11 filing, they are named litigants in the pending tort cases and the other litigants are out to strip council assets. Depending on the degree of exposure of certain councils, they might find themselves participating in a Ch. 11-like activity. Also, there will be a significant impact on local councils even if they are not directly a party to a Ch. 11. When we get to discussing potential national changes we will probably be considering wholesale discontinuation of a portion of what goes on nationally. That would change the council operation in itself. This will be an overall time of change. Let's see if some of those can be positive.

Quick clarification on this posting: My overall thrust is that the filing of the Financial Reorganization in itself will establish an era of significant change within the BSA. It will be plain easier to institute major enhancements and yes, entire eliminations of functions as a result of the financial deformities that will come with it. Unless properly managed, the downside could be continued influence of the least effective personnel who have the political capital to maintain their circumstances or the defense of outdated properties or practices simply because a "survivor" professional or volunteer is in charge. There may be some exceptions, but I do not think the kind of things we will discuss will be expressly written-into the various reorganization plans.

How can the coming Financial Reorganization Bankruptcy improve things at the council level? This is the first of a series of postings focused on how we can make positive changes during the course of a financial reorganization bankruptcy under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy code. We will not focus on the details of bankruptcy, inside scoops or re-argue why or how the BSA got to this point. I encourage anyone who wants to focus on those issues to start a different posting. Rather, in this posting we will assume a filing will occur in the reasonable future and discuss positive changes that might more-easily take place during a time when significant change will unavoidably occur. This posting focuses on councils. Future posts (about every other week) will focus on districts, the national organization and then program. Here are my suggestions on how we can improve things at the council level during the financial reorganization. Council Staffing. Let’s re-deploy many of our best credentialed Scout Executives from council-service assignments to the districts. People on this blog know all the reasons for this, but I believe it to be critical to our turning the corner on membership. We need our most-experienced people out there right now as we are forming-up the new girl units and seeking to grow the size of all units. This is also the time for us to allow those employees who do not perform to depart our employ. Bankruptcy reorganization allows us to do that more easily. Volunteers. Let’s similarly re-deploy our finest council-level volunteers to the districts and make those entities more-robust (will discuss in detail in the next posting). Let’s get the Council executive boards back to where they were in the earlier history of Scouting – when we included the leading business, financial, industry, social and religious leaders in localities on policy-making and fund-raising entities. Too many council executive boards have become groups of program volunteers focused on micro-managing the program functions of professionals. Camp Properties. Let’s put camps into larger property-holding trusts on a multi-council basis. We have too many properties with now-prohibitive maintenance backlogs. Our weaker councils are not good at property management – we need to downsize our holdings and put the resulting cash into fewer properties that can become fully-used and “pristine”. Bankruptcy will give us the chance to overcome those hard-core objections that often prevent councils from doing anything meaningful with their properties. Council Combinations. 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. What do you think we should change during the financial reorganization bankruptcy at the council level? State your idea and provide at least a few lines of explanation and justification. Let’s leave the bitter stuff and the obvious disadvantages of bankruptcy out of this and concentrate on how we can create some positives.