WOOD BADGE TICKET FOR DISTRICT CHAIRMAN

[tpharris 10]

I am developing my ticket for Wood Badge and am two weeks into my new position as District Chairman. I am a 25+ year Scouter and would have no problem with a traditional goal of making or fixing something that would have a specific and measurable impact on our youth.

 

Unfortunately looking at the tasks of the District Chairman as outlined in the new Highlights for the District Chairman pamphlet that came with the job it appears to be a job about relationships with people.

 

Diverse people in and outside of Scouting, volunteers and professional Scouters alike.

All very worthy and challenging responsibilities, but not real detail specific (herding cats).

 

I am looking for others Scouters that may have had experiences as District Chairman that may help me gain some insight and assist in focusing my direction as I develop my S.M.A.R.T. ticket.

 

Thanks Tom

 

[Eamonn 61]

Hi Tom,

Welcome to the forum.

For some of my sins I spent 3 years as a District Chairman.

As the District Chairman you can have a big impact on the District you serve.

This impact will come from your vision.

 

The final item on the Agenda when I was Chair. Was Pride and Soft Spots.

My big soft spots were.

Lack of participation by the COR's.

Marketing.

Selecting and having the right person for the right job on the District Committee.

An on going problem was effective communication.

When I took the job out of the four Districts in the Council we were the smallest.

My Vision was to stop being the smallest. (This isn't rocket science) Of course ensuring that we made Quality District was up there, but I didn't claim ownership of that one!

My mission was to bring more youth members into the District.

To do this I needed a strong Membership Committee. Starting new units, recruiting more youth and helping units that were having problems with recruiting was step one.

But just if not more important was retaining the Scout we had.

This meant ensuring that we offered Training's that were worth while and were offered when people could attend.

Marketing came in, by letting the community know who we are, what we do and when we do it. ( I fell into the trap of thinking that everyone knew about Scouts and what they did! I was really surprised at how many people didn't -Sure they had heard of Boy Scouts and helping little old Ladies across the road, but they had no idea what we did -When you think we meet in the basement and camp in the woods -It's not really that surprising!!)

I used the catch phrase "More Happy Smiling Faces"

Everything we did came back to membership. When I asked community groups for money (FOS) I talked about bringing more kids into Scouting.

I invited all the FOS Chairs to dinner at Summer camp and gave them a tour of the camp.

I knew that talking to our old time Scouter's about membership was akin to swearing in church!! I never used the word "Membership" just more happy smiling faces.

Making this or something like it into a Ticket.

Take a long hard look at your District (the District you serve!!)

Look at what works and what doesn't.

From there you will find your Vision. (Ask your WB SM if you can have a copy of the presentation - Look at why they planted the acorns.)

Now look at what needs to be done to bring or give life to your vision. Remember a Vision without action is just a dream. This will become your mission.

All you need now is the goals.

In my case I knew I needed the best people I could get to do the job. We hadn't used a nominating committee. So we formed one (Goal one)

We kinda just expected COR's to attend the District meeting. I moaned and groaned when they didn't. So I called all the CO's and mentioned that their rep wasn't at the meetings and sent post cards each and every month to the COR. I contacted the Relationships Division and where they had material for specific organizations I asked if they would send me the material which I then forwarded to the CO asking if they would pass it on to the COR. Once I had them at the meeting I came on strong about how nice it would be to see more happy smiling faces from their organization. (goal two)

We formed a District marketing committee. They took photos or forwarded information to the local media. (Goal three)

The District covered three School Districts. We recruited all three School Superintendents to sit on the membership committee. They really helped a lot with boy talks and school sign up nights (goal four)

We recruited the head of a African -American Church to help start units in Baptist Churches (Sadly the Council took him and put him on the Executive Board)

I could go on but I think you should get the idea.

Please don't tell anyone but the big secret to writing the ticket is having your vision in place, then your mission. After that it's a piece of cake.

Eamonn.

 

[Lisabob 13]

Hi Tom,

 

I can't tell you what your vision could or should be. But I can say that having a DC with a clear sense of where s/he wants to take the district is crucial. As a district membership committee person, I have served with DCs who did, and who didn't, have a clue. In the latter case it felt as though there was almost no point in doing much because it would just be a loose thread, never woven into a bigger effort or supported by other parts of the district committee. Very frustrating. Right now we have a DC with vision and the positive effect on all the district committees is apparent.

 

A couple of specifics that I've noticed as perpetual issues around here - maybe these apply for you, maybe not.

 

1) UC corps. If only we had a solid UC group then the work of various district committees would be so much easier in terms of disseminating and collecting information, and in terms of providing service to units as well as getting units on board with district programs/vision. Unfortunately our UC corp is weak to non-existent most of the time, though there are some exceptions.

 

2) Data/information. Being on the membership committee, this is a big one for me but I continually find that we know next to nothing about most of our units and what data we have is generally outdated and inaccurate. Tough to do much to improve things when you don't have any serious benchmarks or reliable information about what's working and what isn't, or even what's been tried and what hasn't.

 

3) Communications. Our district, in all its aspects, is notorious for springing things late in the game. This goes from program to membership campaigns to service/support issues. And it doesn't work. If we communicated our plans (to support the units) more effectively then units just might buy into those plans.

 

4) Having a comprehensive vision that everyone buys into. Oops we're back to where we started. But really, without this, each part of the committee is just going off in their own direction and not understanding how they impact each other or can build on each other's efforts. For example, we've been talking about doing a better job of spring tiger recruiting in our area and we keep coming back to two things. First, we need the UCs to help packs understand how and why to do this, and then to encourage packs to hold at least one or two summer events to make it worth while for the new boys to join now. Second, we want a district program element so that boys who join as tigers on June 1st have some kind of district-wide event to attend in early summer, in order to get them fired up. In our case, that's Cub Day Camp, but the folks running that need to know we're promoting it to new Tigers, fresh out of kindergarten, and be sure to have Tiger-appropriate activities in place for these little guys.

 

Eamonn - I'm going to spin a thread over in "council relations" that I hope you'll get a chance to read. I want to know how you managed to recruit those superintendents!

 

 

 

 

[John-in-KC 311]

WOW!!! What an opportunity to put a long-term stamp of influence on your District.

 

You have the opportunity to set a vision as well as establish processes and procedures that will enshrine your vision. You have a chance to impact all 3 Scouting programs and strengthen your adult volunteer pool!

 

I would suggest two activities:

 

- Just as Venturing folks are supposed to do an interest inventory of teens, may I suggest an interest inventory amongst Scouters. I'd tap into 3 separate pools: Chartered Partners (IH and COR), committed volunteers (Commissioners and District Committee folk) and Program Officers (CM, SM, Adv). Give them a chance to be open-ended. Use their feedback (it's a gift ) to validate or modify your vision.

 

I'd also sit down with the other two of your Key 3. See how your proposed vision checks with theirs.

 

Welcome to the forums, may we see you regularly in the coming months and years.

 

YIS

John

A Good Old Owl Too...

[tpharris 10]

Thanks to all!!!

 

I really appreciate you taking time to make such indepth postings. There is some real "meat" in those words. I will need to take my time going through to pull out and digest the many good points.

 

I have always looked for people who had previous experiance in any new endevor I faced. It looks like I came to the right place to do just that.

 

Thanks again to each one of you.

 

Tom

[Eamonn 61]

Tom,

You are more than welcome.

Good Luck with both the Ticket and with the new position.

Eamonn.