Show me the value!!

[Eamonn 61]

Looking over the lists of the top 3 services that Councils offer, I'm sorry to say that I'm not very impressed.

Maybe I was wrong only asking for the top 3?

I keep hearing that it costs the Council X amount of dollars to provide the services that they provide.

Our Council seems to devote more space in the Council Newsletter to popcorn sales and FOS, than just about anything. We use the $125.00 per Scout as the number.

The Ship has 28 Sea Scouts. I fail to see that we receive $3,500 worth of services.

I'm thankful that so far we have not come up with the "Council Tax" on activities, that it seem some Councils have.

While cutting costs can be a hard pill to swallow, I really do think the time has come for us to look at the what bang we are getting for our buck.

While it might very well be costing $125.00 to keep a youth in the program, or should I say we might be spending that amount. The big questions are:

Can we afford it?

Are we getting value for money?

In our Council about 25% of our budget goes toward salaries.

Five years ago our then SE wanted to promote our DE to become the Learning For Life Executive. At that time the Field Director looked after LFL. (3 Part time workers) She turned it down.

The SE didn't like or get on with the Assistant Scout Exec. He tried to remove him. The argument being that a Council our size didn't need an assistant. The Board agreed, but kept the assistant as the program director, at the same salary. The field director moved on and we hired a new one, he landed himself in hot water and was never seen again. The position was never filled, it still has never been filled and due to lack of funds more than lightly never will be filled.

This year the Scout Exec. moved on in July, his replacement didn't come on board till November. The Board moved at a slow pace to try and save a few bucks.

Over the five year span, we have managed to:

Not have a LFL Director.

Cut the Assistant SE position.

Not replace the Field Director.

Strange thing is that no one seems to see any changes.

We could go from 4 Districts down to only 2 or maybe 3.

I don't know why we pay for the lease on the cars for the Program Director and the SE?

If we were to offer a better wage we could cut the people who work in the Service Center, down by 50%.

I do think that the time has come for us to look at the real cost per youth member. Come up with a number we can live with and stick with that number.

Of course as membership grows the number gets bigger and if the membership goes down the number goes down.

Eamonn.