Scout Unit Leadership Structure

BSA Scout Troops, Packs, Crews and Teams are currently administered by separate committees under a chartering organization. (Chartering Organizations are the entity that 'owns' the unit such as a Church, Civic Organization or similar group). Scout Units, even under the same chartered organization, are required to have separate administrative infrastructure. I think that this tends to make Units into islands that makes sharing resources difficult.

The United Kingdom's (Great Britain) Scout Association has a much different structure that bears some examination. (Don't plotz on me and scroll down to the comments yet! I am not making a blanket endorsement of the UK Scout Program. Doubtless they have their shortcomings and difficulties.)

UK Scouting is administered as groups of different sections (Beaver, Cub and Scout) rather than fragmented into separate units. Scout Groups are administered by a Group Scout Leader who oversees the leadership of the various sections.  Group Scout Leaders and Section Leaders must maintain appropriate level of training for their role.

I think that the UK group Scouting structure has some advantages. Units assembled into a group can readily share expertise, equipment and resources. A more formalized leadership structure may initially seem restrictive but it has a much greater potential to assure program continuity.

 BSA Unit leaders have no formal oversight other than the Committee Chairperson and Chartered Organization Representative. These three roles have no compulsory training requirements so volunteers may take them on with little or no understanding of the job. Much of the time the relationship between these three roles misunderstood and mismanaged for years. As there is no oversight their is no authority empowered to resolve disputes within a Unit. Many units are significantly weakened by squabbling leaders.

Adopting a 'group' model is gaining support on the BSA Innovation Engine (note that presently only Scouting Professionals can actively participate in the Innovation Engine).

Comments

[Nick Wood]

I think the Group system of organising sections has many great advantages, but then I'm bound to say that as I'm a Group Scout Leader (GSL)!
Apart from the obvious advantages of only having to have one Executive Committee, one meeting place and one overall 'pot' for funds for our Beavers, Cubs, & Scouts, the advantage I like the most is the continuity for the young people.
They join Beavers at age 6 and carry on with the Group until they leave Scouts aged 14. Even when they join an Explorer Unit, which is District run, most still keep their ties with the Group as its 'their' Group.
The Scout Leaders go on Cub camps and vice versa. The Cubs then get to know the Scout Leaders long before they finish Cubs and so they are not confronted by a lot of new adults who they do not know. It also means that parents get to know the other Leaders in the Group long before their children move sections.
There is also the support each section's Leaders can give to the other Leaders. This does not just mean camps, but meeting nights and activities as well. I have run meetings for all three sections as GSL when the section Leaders haven't been able to run their own meetings for example.
The other advantage is that the Beavers go to the Group's Cub Pack and the Cub's go to the Scout Troop. This means that if you have a strong programme and good Leaders in each section, there is little need to recruit externally.
Of course for all this to work properly you need to have a good programme, the right number of Leaders in each section and a GSL to oversee the Group. Each section must operate as part of Group and not totally individually within the Group and it is the GSL's job to ensure this happens.

I understand many other Scout Associations use the Group system (for example Canada) and from my perspective it works well.

[CA Scouter]

Hello Clarke,

Trying not to plotz.

Interesting post. It fleshes out a real alternative to our current reality. Given that Scouting started in the UK, this system may be more compatible with B.-P.'s goals. However, I have a number of comments:

1. Everytime I read about Scouting in the UK, I read that there is a waiting list for youth wanting to join, because there are not enough adult leaders. This connects to my comment in the earlier post, where I said that your proposal would make it difficult to get enough leaders.

2. Not all of the US looks like your neighborhood. As I mentioned in my earlier posts, in our Northern Cal. area, we have a crazy quilt of troops and packs. Most are not lined up in a simple structure. I'm not sure how we'd get from here to there, without forcing units to close or consolidate.

3. Maybe our real problem is the chartered org. In my area, I don't think I know of any units that are really effectively "owned" by their COs (except maybe the Latter Day Saints, but in our area their units never seem to reach critical mass). Moving away from COs would probably move us toward the UK model.

[Clarke Green]

1. A group approach would require fewer volunteers, not more. What you were referring to earlier was required training. If we take training to people via the group and the internet instead of requiring people to come to the training I don't think we'd have a compliance problem.

2.This would be an optional way to manage things in addition to the present system.

3. Every BSA unit, no matter who the chartered org., is owned by the chartered org. The final authority in the any unit is always the head of the CO through the CO rep. The BSA can deny charters or the enrollment of volunteers for cause but they can't otherwise overrule the decision of the CO.
My proposal does not move us away from chartered organizations, it just allows a CO to use the group structure.

[CA Scouter]

Hello Clarke,
There was no mention of COs in your description of the UK program. Are there COs in the UK system?

[Nick Wood]

Kind of! But not in the way yours work.
Our Groups can be sponsored by a church or a school for example (my Group is church sponsored), but the Group is not 'owned' by the sponsor. It is more like a partnership with the sponsor providing facilities, like a meeting place, and the Group does things for the sponsor like church fairs.

However, a Group does not have to be sponsored and it can exist without one.

As to the lack of adult volunteers this isn't down necessarily to having to do training it's because people don't want to! A bit of a cynical reply but it is true. I'm crying out for members for my Group's executive and I have approached a number of parents in different ways and there is always a reason why they cannot commit. These roles do not take up a lot of time and effort (a couple of hours every 2 months or so - honest!) but no one is interested.

However, we've found when we can get someone to volunteer, they are always a great asset to the Group!

[Rob]

I'm sort of wondering, as a new committee chair, whether we ought to at least have a "key 6" (or "key 5") meeting with our associated pack.

[Phil T]

I am currently the COR for both the local cub scout pack and for the BS Troop (becoming Scoutmaster in 2 weeks). We are chartered by an Elks lodge, which has kept it's hands off the unit activities but we have begun to assist in the Lodge's charitable and community work. Having held the COR position for about 6 years and previously the committee chair position as well as Den/Webelos leader. I agree that having some ability to merge the unit management role with a single committee between the units would streamline some of the issues we had with a lack of trained adult leaders. Especially those we lose at the CS level when there children age up. I find that those adults that wish to stay active even at the committee level don't go back to the Cub Level. So the unit which needs the most adult interaction continually loses out on trained adults...this is a drain. A single committee structure would encourage cross unit knowledge transfer rather than isolation.