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cnimer

cnimer
Member since : Oct-21-2008 (Verified)
6 Ideas, 28 Comments, 91 Votes

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Ideas Posted

One thing I wish they would put more focus on is ProTalk. These audio training sessions I found very informative and helpful. I spend a great deal of time driving and would appreciate having a podcast of sorts especially for professionals to listen to. This could be as simple as someone reading me the prospeak articles, though it could be far more extensive.
I know up until around 1965 it was possible for an adult to earn the eagle rank. Out of the first nine eagles earned, at least one was an eagle scout. I know some of the arguments for and against allowing this. On the for side, greater parental involvement, parents can earn the rank alongside their son, especially good in first generation scouting. On the against side, less of a drive to achieve the rank as a youth since they can always earn it later on.

What I would suggest is an in-depth exploration of the pros and cons of recycling the concept of adult eagles, possible changes in requirements, different knot to signify difference, and so on. I for one am in favor of the idea or at least exploring it further.
This may be available, but I am not sure where to find it. I would like to see a form which could be shared with my advancement chair that cross-referenced each boy's birthdate with their current rank. This would then allow us to enter certain parameters such as, "list all boys who are 16 and hold a life rank."

This information would allow an advancement committee to contact the scoutmaster and make plans to ensure the boy is on track to be able to attain the eagle rank before he ages out with a certain amount of leeway. If this exists, someone please let me know how to create such a report, otherwise, it would be a nice addition to scoutnet which would help with advancement.
Moderator Comments
2/10/09
From: Gary Butler, Council Solutions Group Director

Probably more beneficial if tied into On-Line Advancement. I will pass on to Youth Development and Information Systems for consideration next time an enhancement is done.

2/10/09
From: Tom Ritchey, ISD
We omit the youth member date of birth on the Internet Advancement Web site for privacy reasons. We do display age on the Unit Roster that is in the online application, however.
28
I would like this to be a spot to share successful fundraising events. Most councils do Golf Tournaments and Recognition Dinners, some run Christmas tree lots and pumpkin patches. One council I know has an arrangement with six flags to run haunted houses in the amusement park. Please share what has worked in your council, why it worked, and how it worked as well as ideas for any new untried events.
Moderator Comments
11/25/08
From: Innovation

Good idea! We have moved this to the Best Practices area on this site.
33
I think this is a great idea and will be a source of tremendous growth as we learn from one another on such a grand scale. I love the video of the chief talking about this site, but I only know this exists because it was mentioned during my training. This needs to go out to every council as soon as possible.
Moderator Comments
7/29/09

From: Janice Downey, Innovation Coordinator

Thank you for your comments, we are so glad you like it. We hope you will tell your BSA friends. We have sent out communications about the site to the entire organization previously. But even new ideas take a while to become habit. We will continue to spread the word and we appreciate your help on that too.
I just got back from PDL-1 a week ago and one thing that I noticed during that training was that all but one of the thirty-one of us there did not have a well-organized, or fully manned district. Most of us were simply inheriting districts that had a chair for each committee if they were lucky. Most of them were not lucky.

I know one of the best ideas I took away from training was given off-handed talking about group recruiting events to fill district's swiftly. It had to do with having local organizations, such as service clubs, fraternal organizations, churches, and businesses take ownership so to speak of a committee. What I would like to do once district nominations are completed at the beginning of next year is to begin making presentations at these organizations telling of a specific committee need and asking for volunteers to fill that committee.

I have been able to find little more than a few paragraphs discussing a group recruiting event and would welcome any suggestions anyone has to enhance this concept and make it more effective. What has worked well for you in group recruiting?
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Comments Posted

cnimer 8 months ago
A lot of this already happens, especially in larger councils where they may start as a DE with a number of tasks, but they were hired due to one large need and that is often their primary emphasis, such as a DE hired to grow the hispanic scouting population by starting soccer in scouting.

One thing I like about the program is that no matter what your background is, you start on even footing, and where you go in the career depends on what you do well. Which is why you eventually become things like finance director or marketing director.

In smaller councils where the professional staff is less than 10, it simply does not make since to have that degree of specialization.
cnimer 9 months ago
That definitely seems true from my perspective of the photo and logo repository. There is almost no real filing system employed.
cnimer 9 months ago
I love it. This is something we could easily incorporate in almost any council and really gets the planned giving ball rolling.
cnimer 9 months ago
That has been answered as well in the latest issue of "the commissioner", which every professional and commissioner should be encouraged to read. http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/14-975_08_FallWinter.pdf

The notice reads as follows,"Change in Position on Uniform of Commissioner Arrowhead Honor. Based on the new uniform design, it has been approved for the commissioner Arrowhead Honor emblem to be worn on the left sleeve of the commissioner’s uniform immediately below the council strip. This replaces the previous location of below the badge of office for commissioners.
cnimer 9 months ago
The inspection sheets and placement guides have been updated. You can find them at http://www.scoutstuff.org/BSASupply/Forms.aspx
cnimer 9 months ago
Nevermind, I found it, Left sleeve, immediately below council strip.
cnimer 9 months ago
The new inspection sheet still does not tell me where to put the arrowhead patch as far as I could tell.
cnimer 9 months ago
That is exactly the type of direction I would like them to take if it is at all possible.
cnimer 9 months ago
A somewhat similar thing is being planned right now with the National Hall of Leadership. This program allows each council to submit 12 stories to national and have 1 chosen to represent the extraordinary acts of service and leadership that occur in your council.
cnimer 9 months ago
What is the role of the advancement committee if it not to encourage advancement? I am not saying we hold their hand or force them to achieve their ranks. I am simply asking for a way for the advancement committee to be able to see where their focus should be.

Are you suggesting a boy learns more and grows more by failing due to losing track of time than he would have if he had had someone sit him down and help him set goals and make a plan to achieve them? I would rather a boy have that leadership opportunity and help him keep on track to achieve something he can be proud of his entire life than to say, "sorry you missed it by two months, hope you learned your lesson."
cnimer 11 months ago
Well, I do not know if National will do anything with this idea, but I had been thinking of doing something similar in my council. Thanks for the link!
cnimer 11 months ago
Thanks for the information caryl.lombardi. That is one thing that I think we could work on, making available these resources to everyone. There are a lot of items that national has available that are not bin items, and you only find out about through word of mouth. For example, at the all hands conference, the venturing division was giving out a venturing toolbox, that I have trouble keeping my hands on copies of because it is in such demand among my venturing volunteers, but it is not a bin item, and I have to make many calls to try to get some more.

What I would like to see is for the divisions at national to take inventory of these items they have come up with, and begin making them more readily available to the local councils. This is the first time I have heard of either of these videos, and the same is true for the rest of the professionals in my council
cnimer 1 year ago
I would have to agree with your volunteers on this. Roundtable is an essential part of the district. It allows you to deliver training on their specific needs, serves the less tech-savvy audience, gives a sense of district unity, and provides a valuable networking opportunity.

This is a great idea however, for new volunteers. It would allow them to quickly get up to speed without having to wait three months sometimes to get some of the more advanced trainings. Having it in the webinar format would still alow them to interact and share their experiences and have specific answers questioned. I am all for this idea.
cnimer 1 year ago
Wow. That is exactly the kind of thing that I am looking for. Thank you for the advice. Any other pointers anyone can give on how to make an event like this successful?
cnimer 1 year ago
Probably at first we would, at least until we could find server capacity to support email addresses for our entire membership, unless we wished to charge them a nominal fee.
cnimer 1 year ago
I would say probably not as it is too dangerous of an activity. It is the same reason why we do not endorse tackle football. It is just too easy to injure yourself, and out insurance cannot cover it.
cnimer 1 year ago
Honestly, I do not think this would be feasible if it were meant to serve as a real video game. The technology today is far too advanced to create it unless it was done by volunteer collaboration. We could easily do some pretty involved flash games online, but that is probably as far as we could go with video games.
cnimer 1 year ago
This may be an alright idea on a counil level. The problem lies in the tension such a system could create between the council and the units. Two things: Council should never set the goal for the units as this is a voluntary system that should not be micromanaged to that degree.

It is a great idea however to offer incentives of an increased commission on everything over their historical best year in sales. So if the most they have ever sold is $25,000 at 35% commission, then this year when they sell $35,000, they will get 35% on the first $25,000 and will get 50% on the extra $10,000. This will encourage units to push themselves more each year, without any feeling of getting punished for not achieving a goal set for them by council.
cnimer 1 year ago
Wow. I am really not sure how feasible this is on a large scale project like boy's life and scouting, but if it is, this is one of the best ideas I have seen yet. Local councils spend a fortune on local mailings just to keep parents informed. If they were able to send a one page PDF to national monthly and have it distributed within or with Boy's Life magazine, they would reach at least fifty percent of their families at a large savings in mailing costs.

This would also encourage local councils to increase subscription rates as there is a very real benefit to them in getting circulation up.
cnimer 1 year ago
You probably would not do it based on the area code, but rather have a welcome message asking them to enter their zip code which would automatically redirect their call to the local council. We don't do much advertising on a national level, but if parents moving around had something like 1-800-Scouting in their head, it would be no problem to transfer their son to a new troop.
cnimer 1 year ago
One possible solution if you really need to learn a language, or at least be able to understand someone, it may be a good idea for either council or national to purchase licenses for rosetta stone or "tell me more". You could even seek to set this as one of your critical achievements.

Just devoting half an hour a day to language study will not make you fluent, but it will give you the background and confidence you need to engage in conversations with those who know the language you wish to learn; Which can definitely lead to fluency.
cnimer 1 year ago
I appreciate the word of caution on that, and I definitely agree that you should always do a one on one approach with essential positions, such as operating committee chairs. The challenge though is in helping them fill their committees with quality people. A lot of us are operating in districts where the entire committee is maybe a dozen people and need a real boost.

What I am really looking for though is some advice of what has worked well in some other councils as far as doing these recruiting events in such a way that you still find quality people.
cnimer 1 year ago
I agree with both of these comments. Changing the acronyms probably would not be acceptable, but we should be careful how we phrase things so as not to confuse or intimidate potential volunteers. I recently had a training on grant writing come through my council and one of the documents they included was a regular person's translation booklet for scouting terms. When grant writing, or presenting, we should do our best to eliminate these terms altogether if possible or at least reduce their occurence.
cnimer 1 year ago
I do agree with this to a degree, at least the kidergartner part. With the Webelos though, it is a matter of significantly changing the requirements to help them begin taking on a leadership role to prepare them for boy scouts, maybe requiring them to serve for three months as a denner in one of the younger groups, or perhaps planning their own program to a degree.
cnimer 1 year ago
I am not sure if anyone knows about this, but on youtube as well as google, there are specific sections and offerings exclusively for nonprofits, allowing you to add a donate now button as well as many other benefits.
cnimer 1 year ago
I do agree that they should offer more big and tall sizes of scouting uniforms to accomodate some of our staff and volunteers. Another thing that I have yet to find the answer to is on the new uniforms, where do you put the commissioner arrowhead honor? There simply is no place for it, at least in its traditional location.
cnimer 1 year ago
I like the idea, but I think it would probably run counter to the guide for safe scouting if it was a general martial arts badge. The three exceptions in the guide for safe scouting I believe are Aikido, Judo, and Tai Chi. This is probably because they are a defensive martial art which would not cause a boost in our insurance costs. To make this merit badge work, there would need to be several requirements in regard to safety.
cnimer 1 year ago
I am not sure if this site supports document sharing, but if not it might be possible to have someone set up a group on a document sharing site like scribd.com where everyone can submit their best looking flyers and brochures so everyone can benefit.