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District and Council Operations
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Let me access advancement off of Mybsa.org from a home PC (where I work out of). I'm a DE and can't get information to my Advancement chairman without having to go through the registar.
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As we work to get more efficient and have technology help us, we need a report that supplies all the numbers for units for quality unit. IE, a report that tells us the total number of adults recruited, youth recruited, retention, and training % in one report. The quality unit tab on MYBSA is a good start but is not accurate and does not update enough information from Scoutnet.
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The commissioner tracking system is a good idea, but it really only goes half-way as to how effective it could be. Can we turn it into a one stop unit status reporting system that the commissioners can use in making their monthly reports? Here are a few things I would add:
Unit Status Update - we used the red, yellow, green system
Unit Status Comments - If a unit is red or yellow, what do they need help with?
Automatic Monthly Reminders - Send a reminder to all registered UC's each month to go in and update their status
District Commissioner Access - Ideally, each unit will have a UC, but in reality, they don't. When a unit does not have a UC, the DC or ADC often picks up the slack. They should have the ability to update the status of any unit under their care.
Now, some of this may be in existance, but since professionals don't have access to it, I'm only going off of what my DC tells me.
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It would be helpful to be able to print a report for a specific unit that lists every registered adult and the training courses they have completed.
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This idea came from a Director of Field Service that promoted 5 Executives/Directors in a period of six months. As far as he/we know there is no template for an executive leaving the position.
Will the CPD or the appropriate department put together a template for Council's/Manager's to use
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The organization of new units is one of the greatest legacies that a professional Scouter and/or a volunteer can give to a neighborhood or community. To do right, organizing a new unit is also a very challenging task to complete.
The BSA has an excellent method established for unit organization as outlined in the Membership Committee Guide book. Our process is built on a foundation of year-round unit organization including ongoing prospecting for chartering organizations and following the twelve step process. This is all excellent.
However, for many years, our recognition of unit organization for professionals has revolved around CSEWC/High Five on June 30th and Quality District/Council on December 31st. I believe that the pressure placed on professional Scouters to organize new units around these 2 deadlines has contributed to the problem of professionals doing most or all of the unit organization with little or no involvement by our volunteers. Professionals often feel compelled to do everything within their power to have new units organized by these two deadlines. This often results in taking shortcuts, not following the twelve steps, and not involving volunteers (feeling that it is easier to do themselves and don’t want to rely on volunteers to meet their deadlines which have a major impact on their performance reviews.) Plus, since volunteers are not evaluated based on their completion of new units by our two deadlines, they are not motivated to work with our professionals to meet the deadlines.
We should consider a different incentive and recognition of our professionals (and volunteers) for unit organization.
When a new professional organizes his or her first new unit following the process and certified by his/her staff leader, he or she should receive immediate recognition from the organization. Maybe a letter from the regional director or the chief, plus some other recognition. Then (like in the real estate and insurance business) have a level of “clubs”: the “Five Unit Club”, then the “Ten Unit Club”, “Twenty Unit Club” etc. and there should be significant recognition for professionals that achieve these levels of accomplishment in unit organization.
This would be a useful tool for a staff leader to coach his staff towards. The leader coaches the brand new D.E. towards organizing his/her first unit in order to be recognized. Then coaches toward the next 4 units in order to be further recognized etc. This would be a more long term approach to unit organization, would tie in well with our new SMART goals and the PDS system, and would complement the W.D. Boyce New Unit Organizer Award for volunteers.
All units that count towards the recognition should be certified by the staff leader to have included volunteers in the organization process and to have completed all of the necessary steps to help that unit have a solid start. (It should not recognize, however, instances when a professional is sometimes “handed” one or more new units as can sometimes happen in a LDS ward split, for example.)
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I would like to propose that we take the current Internet Advancement program, rebrand it, and make it required for units. This is how it would work:
The program would be announced/ launched at a Scouting event with large attendance, have a transiton year, and then become mandatory.
The rebranding could look like the this: The STAR system, the Standardized Transfer of Advancement Records.
Benefits to Council
1. More Accurate advancement records
2. More accurate unit rosters
3. Easier and faster Unit rechartering
4. Lower cost for entering data.
Benefits to Units
1. More Accurate advancement records
2. More accurate unit rosters
3. Easier and faster Unit rechartering
Again, this idea is a branding and relaunching of Internet advancement. In certain business terms, it is a Commercial Initiative designed to increase usage of the tool. There will work needed to be done to redo some of the training and potentially the screens, but the internal workings of the system would not need to change at all; Just the marketing of it.
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Make Scoutnet (and all other BSA Software) more accessible with Mac Computers. The amount of college students (and eventual graduates!) using Mac computers is growing rapidly!
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Help councils develop sideways/combined communication of goals between; Finance, Membership, Program, Training and Field teams. So that the managers, team leaders, advisors, and volunteers are communicating their plans prior to advertising and ececution. the military calls this Combind Arms: the use of Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines all working together to complete a mission.
Two simple examples are:
Training: At a woodbadge course, have Trails End popcorn as a snack. "training can help our finance goal"
At camp: Encourage youth to bring a friend with him or her that is not in scouting. Or encourage units to bring more than last year. Incentives! "Camp can not just retain youth, but recruit youth."
There are so many other ideas, but getting the staff and management to communicate ideas to the field staff or Field Directors and ask; How can we incorporate program, training, membership, and finance into all of our Council/District events, trainings, activities and camps?
We are all in this together and there still seems to be a division between these areas, at least in large councils and at the national level. Maybe it can integrated from the top down, via training manuals, resourses, personnel, and volunteer and professional job descriptions.
This could create the aha moment in our organization.
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As a registrar and an FOS clerk, why when entering in to a data base program such as Scoutnet or even the new Funding program in MYBSA is it that we have to use the mouse as much as we do? I thought with a data base program the idea was to enter data in and what is the best way to do that? Keep your fingers on the keyboard. When updating people, why do we need to click on the address tab, phone number tab, e-mail tab to update? Everything should be on one screen and at your fingertips to update as needed. These screens can be better used if they followed the applications, like they do when entering in any new registrant. Even entering new application could be fixed to solve the problem of having to use your mouse to select a program and then have to use your mouse again to put the cursor in the position field. If putting it all one screen leaves concern about the privacy tab you could easily grey out the SSN field for those you do not have that user roll. We should be able to see their registration without having to click on the registration tab. That is one of the most used functions and should be made easier to check if a person is registered. There has to be a better way for us to enter in and update applications then what is currently available. If we could better utilize the system in the long run it would help the professionals and volunteers with having the most accurate and up to date information. Why not let users customize their own keyboards with the function keys they use the most?
With the roll out of the new Fundraising program in MYBSA, I hope they can change it to be a friendlier data entry program then it is now. It is cumbersome and very slow to maneuver in. The Funding program was designed more for the professional in mind. I understand the need for the professionals to have the tools to do their job, but give us the tools to do our jobs too. Professionals can get the reports and information they need; we can enter data in with speed and accuracy that is required of the support staff.
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Many of the forms that are used on a regualr basis by district & council volunteers that are supplied by national are not user friendly according to today's times.
I.E. The Whitney M. Young national form is a fillable PDF document, but is not used very much.
However, the District Committee Work Plans that are to be filled out on a monthly basis by the committee members are not available on a fillable PDF document.
It is my suggestion that we work diligently to make sure that all documents are updated as the Whitney M. Young form has been to keep us current and connected with the volunteers.
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There are great resources and training put into the development, retention, and growth of our executive staff yet there is very little for local council support staff.
In every local council the support staff play a key role in the success of a council. Executives come and go but it seems that support staff have a much longer tenure in their position and interact with volunteers from all over. A high performing council has a strong executive staff and support staff. In larger council's the office manager who oversees the support staff may have the largest number of direct reports but has little or no BSA leadership or management training. Although you can send an office manager to FTSLO or PM this seems like success by accident and not by design.
Most executives do not have experience managing support staff until they become Scout Executive. How to effectively manage support staff, proper support staff flow chart, and best practices are currently no where in our Talent Management system.
Develop a training track for support staff that would include job skill development such as use of MS Outlook and Office, customer service, the role of district executives and basic district and council operations.
Something that would give local councils a way to improve and build a high performing support staff, including best practices from local councils. A tool for local councils to evaluate the structure of their support staff to evaluate effeciency, mode, and performance.
A first generation of this could be as simple as an on-line training video for support staff on basic district and council operations and customer service.
Training for FTSEO and Senior Leadership that talks about support staff managment and development. Right now we are not successful with half of our staff by design, we are perhaps successful by accident. A design for success with our support staff who are the backbone of our organization.
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Training Completed/Training Not Completed Reports Yes, if these reports had email addresses we could more easily contact people et cetera. In addition, this could be one way of getting email addresses into the council system without having our people manually entering in data, which consumes so much valuable time.
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I understand that there is an assessment tool for prospective council board members, to help match their talents with specific positions.
How about creating a tool designed to help volunteers find which district committee they would fit best in and enjoy working with. This might ease the process of filling the district committee and in return quickly get unit service up and running for all units.
-Jeremy Barnes
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Can national or the regions lend out 8-foot folding executive recruiting displays or retracting banner signs for use at career fairs? I was at a major university's career fair yesterday, and was really struck by the displays that most of the employers had. They did a great job of catching your eye and you could see the employer's booth from across the fieldhouse. These things aren't expensive overall-- less than $1000... But we in the local councils do executive recruiting so rarely that we wouldn't get much bang for our buck. I'd love to see an executive recruiting display kit that could be shared among councils.
I had 18 Eagle Scouts talk with me yesterday, 9 resumes, and 5 really serious candidates. I believe that we would be a much stronger movement if we had a more professional "Be an Executive Manager with the Boy Scouts of America" display.
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Is it possible to include in the District Totals Report the unit membership included from the prior year? It currently is included in the summary, it would beneficial to include it by unit.
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