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BSA must improve communication between departments! This is especially important with regards to volunteer/national office/website development communications. When massive website changes occur such as the change June 1st to user id’s, more should have been done to notify volunteers beforehand to prevent the overwhelming number of helpdesk requests for login assistance. The current MyScouting.org website is a complete contradiction to the Helpdesk mission statement “…delivering accurate and precise information in a timely manner…” The only portion of the statement that help desk associates consistently meet is the positive and professional attitude while servicing the enormous amount of incidents. These employees are amazing, working consistently with website, and server errors that prevent them from getting through these requests! Because of simple website errors and shortcomings, the number of service requests greatly outnumbers the responses provided by the helpdesk in any form of timely manner. I can only imagine the amount of money BSA could save by not having to hire as many Temp workers to tackle such an overwhelming number of requests!
Changes in technology should not be such an issue for a company with such a rich and long history. Mac OS computers and Firefox web browsers are targeted to the same audience as many of your MyScouting users. For a BSA website to be non compatible with IE 8, Firefox browsers or Mac computers is a disgrace and there is no excuse for it.
When basic links, such as “Reset Password” links fail to work, it can only look bad upon any company or organization. For many weeks, simply changing a username created an error message that told the user the change did not take place, however in actuality the change did occur, but that volunteer needed to call the help desk to find out. These simple errors and incompatibilities should be of the highest BSA priority in order to maintain the type of service that the millions of BSA volunteers have come to expect.
I believe a lot of our issues could be solved if we teach volunteers how to identify, recruit and train other volunteers. Part of the process should include recognition/incentives (I know that we have a recruiter patch already-but the following idea goes a little further). In our council, we are thinking about an experimental knot to provide recognition for volunteers that distinguish themselves in recruiting and to have a little fun in the process. Here's the idea:

The Scout Executive’s Recruiter’s Knot

The Scout Executive’s Recruiter’s Knot is awarded to Scouters that distinguish themselves in the area of recruiting and training new adult volunteers at the unit, district, and council level. The award consists of a figure of eight knot on a red background. The knot and border will be white, silver, or gold depending on the number of volunteers recruited.

Qualifications
A registered Scouter may earn the Scout Executive’s Recruiter’s Knot by identifying, recruiting, and training three or more adult volunteers over a 12 month period. New recruits must have been approved by the appropriate individual(s) prior to being recruited, must accept an assignment to a committee and agree to serve at least 12 consecutive months, and must complete training for their position.

Unit Level Volunteers All unit level volunteers must be approved by the unit committee and chartering organization.

District Level Volunteers Approved by the district nominating committee and district chairman or district commissioner.

Council Level Volunteers Approved by the committee chair and vice-president for committee members. In the case of board members, individuals must be approved by the council nominating committee and council key 3 and must be elected by the current board.

Award Levels

White Figure of Eight For recruiting, training, and engaging three volunteers in a 12 month period.

Silver Figure of Eight For recruiting, training, and engaging five volunteers in a 12 month period.

Gold Figure of Eight For recruiting, training, and engaging seven volunteers in a 12 month period.

Each knot award will also include a framed certificate.

The Scout Executive will review and approve all applications and personally present the award at an appropriate occasion.
We need to have some kind of message board, banner, or some kind of way; that we can communicate with the volunteers that have myscouting accounts. Not only would this cut down on some volunteer frustrations; but it might also cut down on the volume of phone calls and emails from volunteers having issues with their myscouting account. It needs to be something that can be updated fairly easily from our side. Then if we see a problem we can update the message quickly and communicate with a large volume of people at once.
We need to be able to see an individuals email address, when you search a person, much like you see, address and phone numbers
Across the US community volunteers read to school children the first week of March each year. Why not consider mobilizing BSA volunteers and staff to serve our schools? This would serve to strengthen school relationships, create a positive media presence, create awareness of scouting to students and serve young people with a gift of service.

The reading celebration takes place each year on or near March 2, the birthday of Dr. Seuss. (Many books are read not only Dr. Seuss works)Perhaps Scouting volunteers could read chapters or excerpts from the Jungle Book. For more information check http://www.nea.org/readacross/
Sail away with the BSA for an incredible week of training, fellowship and Scouting fun!! This adult experience is aimed at volunteers who want to incorporate Scouting into a mid-winter get-away. During our seven day cruise, you will enjoy three full days at sea - filled with a variety of training programs and activities to take home to your council. There will be plenty of opportunity for rest as well, with family-oriented entertainment and countless recreational activities. Our journey will take us to three international ports, where you will have opportunities to enjoy area attractions or participate in needed community service projects. There's also programs for youth onboard, so bring the family and join other Scouting volunteers like yourself for our first international High Seas Jamboree!!
Hi-

I am a big fan of making a plan, and I realize that we all have the opportunity to participate in the 2010 marketing plan contest, but I have found that it's really important, even without the contest, and not only for marketing.

I learned something called the R.O.P.E. technique. Research. Objectives. Planning. Evaluation. I think it's really important that we use this technique on all levels (marketing, event planning, strategic planning, everything.) If the idea is to spice-up round table, use R.O.P.E. If the idea is to host a new event, use R.O.P.E.

This technique is simple, and the return is positive and measurable.

Research is first because it is the most important step. We oftentimes think of idea and just "go with it," without ever verifying that it is a "good" or "smart" idea. So the action here is to research the idea. For example, before we do a big event, council-wide, we should poll our internal (and perhaps our external) audiences to see if the event is something they would be interested in attending, and paying money for. More often than not, we fail to do the simplest thing, and that is to just ask a question. Ask people what they want. Ask them why they joined Scouting, or why they didn't. Ask them why they donate, and why they donate the amount that they did. If you start off with the research, you have the knowledge to make a plan.

Objectives are important. After you do your research, you can select your objectives. If your goal is to increase fund raising revenue, then you can come up with a list of objectives as a means to do so. For example, objective 1: host a profitable event, objective 2: increase cash donations, objective 3: increase in-kind donations.

Planning. This is the "meat and potatoes" if you will. Planning means coming up with tactics to reach your objectives, and therefore your goal. For each objective, there should be several tactics to ensure that the objective is met. For example, take objective 2. If we want to increase cash donations, we need to use our research to decide our tactics. If the research told us that members donate $50 because they believe in the program and they want to give us a large amount of money, then we need to be sure we are communicating our benefits to members when we ask for money. That is one tactic. We would continue with more tactics, connecting them with research and solving our problems, on bit a time.

If the research tells us that non-members are not donating because they feel unfavorably about our organization, we must find out why they feel unfavorably and then work to communicate to non-members the positive things about our organization. Be sure that you write enough objectives and tactics to achieve or exceed your goal. This way you are setting yourself up for success.

If you follow your complete plan, and do not change the plan, you are guaranteed positive, measurable results. There is the chance that your results could turn our more or less favorably than you intended. That is what the final step is for.

Part of your plan is to set and stick to a time line.

Evaluation. When you decide your goal, decide your means for measuring whether or not the goal was achieved. If your goal was to increase fund raising revenue, your evaluation could be to "Count the amount of funds received this year and compare to number of funds received in previous years."

Simple enough. It works.