Council Commissioner Mike Lewis
Comments for September-October 2011
The year 2011 has already been a journey of significance for our Council and all the volunteers who serve our youth. We have embarked on the new ‘Journey to Excellence’ and most units and districts have been looking at the new program and working to make an impact with this measurement tool. Our commissioner corps is vital to assisting and ensuring that the units embrace the Journey to Excellence program within the units. Now is the time to make sure we are in fact assisting the units in the program. If we wait any further to work with the units, it will be too late to have any effect on the results for this years results and only the unit will suffer. September is the critical month to review the status of the program with the unit and make sure that the activities are properly entered into the BSA systems so the unit gets full credit for their activities and accomplishments. Of importance to review is advancement, camping, and service hour entries. As a commissioner it is also important to make sure our unit visits are recorded in the Unit Visit Tracking System. UVTS is a direct feed of information for measurements at the District and Council levels. The goal is 6 visits per unit per year. Where are you in recording your visits? If you can’t make the entries, or don’t have the computer access, your must get with your District Commissioner so the entries can be made so we all get the appropriate credit in the system. As of the last review of UVTS, we have had only 60 units recorded for 157 visits this year and only 7 units that have the goal of 6 visits completed and recorded. I know our commissioners are out there working with the units. Please help us close the gap on the Journey to Excellence process and measurements.
Fall is a very important time for our units and Council, especially for our Cub Scout Packs. Fall recruitment helps the Packs ensure that returning Cub Scouts are in fact back in the Dens, and that we have gained new Tiger Cubs. Because the vast majority of our Boy Scouts come from the Cub Scout ranks, good fall recruiting keeps the programs strong now and in the future. Commissioners in the Packs can assist in the planning and execution of an effective fall effort to keep the Packs strong and active. Part of the Pack effort must also be to make sure the Pack leadership is properly trained and that any new leaders are also trained. Completing the training prior to the early meetings with the youth also ensures that the program and meetings will be effective, which has a direct impact on the retention of the youth. A good, active program will retain energized and excited boys. The entire training program for our Cub Scout program is available at MyScouting.org. Help the Packs focus this fall for the start of another great year.
So how was the summer program in your units? Did the youth attend a summer camp / day camp? How many of the unit youth did attend? If not, why not? Commissioners can assist the unit leadership in evaluating the effectiveness of the summer program. Now is actually a good time for the evaluation, and then follow that with planning for the summer of 2012. If there were opportunities missed, work with the unit leadership to get them on the calendar for next year now. If we wait, we will forget. If there were problems this year, we have to assist in solving them before next year, especially if there is a planned change in unit leadership. Remember, Scouting is all about ‘outing’ for the youth.
As we move into this last one third of the calendar year, we also need to think about the Commissioner corps and help recruit new commissioners. We have units that could use assistance, but in several Districts we don’t have enough commissioners for all of our units. Or we are asking some commissioners to cover too many units to truly be effective. You know individuals who have been associated with Scouting in the past who could be very effective commissioners. Talk with them. Give the names to your District Commissioner who can assist in recruiting them to serve our youth. We can provide the necessary training to make the job easier and allow them to help our units and youth.
To close, let me say thank you to you, our commissioners and all of our volunteers. Without you, Scouting would not be what it is today. We would not have youth joining our values-based program and we could not sustain our units in the long term. Each of you, working with our professional staff, make a difference and a great team for Scouting.
Thank You.
Sincerely yours in Scouting,
Michael Lewis
Council Commissioner