Information, Observation, and Inspiration for Scouters
October’s here. Across the great deciduous forests of the north, the leaves are changing and crisp camping weather is here. Sunsets are earlier too, leaving less time to set up camp in daylight and more things for committee chairs to think about as the month progresses.
The big one that comes around this time of the year for most units is charter renewal. Continue reading “Committee chair timeline: October”
Committee chairs have a lot of people who either report to them or who they serve in one way or another. The Scoutmaster or Cubmaster, the various coordinators on the committee, the chartered organization representative and the unit commissioner all require open channels of communication with the committee chair in order for everything to work smoothly. This includes parents of Scouts as well.
You should therefore strive to be accessible and available to listen to, learn from, and offer assistance to pretty much everyone who has anything to do with your troop or pack.
But how can you do this? Continue reading “Your “open door” policy”
We’ve all been there, I’m sure. We’ve worked for, or with, someone who quite figuratively can’t see the forest for the trees. Someone who fusses over every small detail of a project, process or workplace and who directs even the most minute function, whether it’s something he or she knows about or not.
Micromanaging, as it’s come to be known, is the bane of corporate existence. Articles and entire books have been written about the phenomenon and what to do about it. It has even spawned a wildly popular comic strip, Dilbert, in which a typical engineer is tormented daily by his boss with inane orders, processes and obstacles to getting any work done.
Unfortunately, Scouting isn’t exempt from the micromanagers. Continue reading “Micromanaging: a bad idea”
In February, we posted an article titled Signing Day in which we explored the high-profile world of high school athletes committing to play sports in college and how the “race to the top” ends up costing parents, families and youth dearly, often to grave disappointment. A few months later, Bryan Wendell of Scouting Magazine blogged about the phenomenon as well.
More continues to be written about the youth sports craze and how parents can best manage their children’s, and their own, experience and expectations. Continue reading “More on “sports parents” and Scouting”
Cub Scout packs are making plans to get their programs going for the next year of fun and excitement. Join Scouting nights are getting scheduled and all the recruiting materials are being updated. But Scouting’s raw material is membership, for without the boys we don’t have a movement!
A pivotal committee function at this time of year is the membership coordinator, whose job is to register all of our new Scouts and re-register the returning boys for another year of fun. Often, though, we find that this important job is either being done by other committee members or by a new parent without a good understanding of the process. The responsibility for unit membership really is a separate task which calls for a dedicated individual to handle it.
When a new parent steps into the role, there’s usually a lot to learn about the membership process, and when it’s a parent new to Scouting they have to learn a little of everything! Continue reading “What Cub Scout membership coordinators need to know”