Troop Culture vs Scouting Methods

[ramanous]

@InquisitiveScouter Tell me about your district and council. Number of troops, members, etc, roughly? How active is your district (events, etc)? Is the council membership grown, steady, declining? Are there other troops nearby?

[Eagle94-A1]

7 hours ago, Eagle1993 said:

I always wondered why we wouldn't look to either 20-30 year old ex scouts or 55+ year old aging scouters to fill District roles (basically avoiding parents of scout aged kids).  In my area, most District roles are filled by unit volunteers, burning them out or having them choose between helping their unit or helping the District.

20 year olds cannot  serve in the district role per National. And as a 21-24 year old district committee member, I can tell you from first hand experience some Scouters viewed me as "just a kid, " 'you do not know anything because..." no knots, no beds, no SM patch, ad nauseam.

 

7 hours ago, ramanous said:

I may have proposed the question wrong. If the units are complaining about lack of district support, yet all of the district committee members are from the units. In other words, they are complaining about the lack of support that is of their own doing. 

No, we are not complaining about lack of support from district committee members, we are complaining about the treatment by pros, which causes folks to not want to be involved at the district level at all. In my district's situation, the large majority of positions are vacant because no one wants to deal with the issues mentioned above.

 

On thing I forgot earlier Pros need to be TRUSTWORTHY, and. not lie abut why things are being done, or not being done. Best example I can give is the council being told one reason things are being done, and the unit and district volunteers a different reason why things are being done.

 

6 hours ago, ramanous said:

How are your district people selected? Who is nominating your members-at-large? Who is appointing members of your nominating committee? I speculate the most innocuous reason is due to limited social networks. More egregious reasons are egos, gatekeeping and controlling district resources.

Do you want how it is supposed to be done, how the Pros want it done, or how it is done in reality, at least in my experience with multiple councils?

The nominating committee is suppose to look at who is the best person for the job recruit them, and have the district committee vote EN BANC (emphasis) as a slate of officers. There are no choices for each position, and committee member selection can be rigged.

The Pros want a nominating committee who will put people in positions so that they will do exactly what the Pros want them to do with no questioning. When I was a DE, my SE told me point blank to only select folks who can follow directions, and not necessarily the best person for each job.

In reality it is whomever is willing to do the work gets the job, regardless if they are capable or not.