Quick March update

PR / Marketing

Camp Sayre has quickly become the center point for Scouting in New England. With over 15,000 campers per year + the home to multiple swim teams and recently featured in the Boston Sunday Globe. Our 100 acres boasts great and exciting programs year round for boys, girls, families, school groups and corporations! Check out last weeks Sunday Globe Feature. (South and West)

Development

Special thanks to some recent very generous donors!

·         Amica Insurance $35,000

·         Yawkey Foundation $25,000 to help support and grow the Urban Youth Scout Reach Program

·         Steve Barnes pledged $100,000 to our overall Camp Sayre initiative which supports capital projects and urban youth.

·         Also, thanks to our new partner NVBots for their Science donation of a 3D printer!

Program

Scouting's Outdoor Adventure on the River (S.O.A.R.) is back and being planned For October 2016! Check out the video from the last Guinness book record breaking S.O.A.R. event!

Merit Badge at Harvard University continues to grow (standing room only!) and provide GREAT program for Scouts across New England!

Merger with Boston Minuteman and Yankee Clipper BSA

As the merger date (June 30, 2015) approaches it becomes clear that our emphasis on transparency and "over communication," as well as the focus on developing a merger that Helps Scouting Thrive in Every Community has made a significant impact. Typically, mergers are filled with fear and failure. Ours certainly had those elements at the beginning but I believe it is being rapidly replaced with optimism and enthusiasm. More details to follow….

Listening Sessions "Complete"

Chapter One: The Listening Sessions 

What can be done to help Scouting thrive in your community? 

If you didn't have a chance to attend one of the 8 listening sessions help over the past 6 weeks - that's OK there is still plenty of time to participate in building a Scouting organization designed to help Scouting thrive in all our communities. During the listening session we gathered thousands of ideas from hundreds of people (about 450). We then asked everyone to categorize and prioritize the ideas. The activity was fun, and helped create lots of vibrant conversations. The categories ranged from marketing, the fundraising, to customer service, technology, and of course camp, and just about everything in between.

 

Throughout the exercise we encouraged everyone "not to worry" if your idea doesn't seem to resonate with the folks in the room, it's larger exercise and your idea (or priority) will find it's way into "Chapter 2.

Chapter Two: The Committee Work

An example of how this feedback is used and where your idea goes from here

Prior to the listening sessions we took the liberty to create seven primary committees. Those committees are called the joint strategic committees. The categories we came up with in the listening sessions will fall into those seven joint strategic committees. (check out the collaborative web page for additional details) As an example during several sessions the category of "online," or "technology" or "systems" were created. The folks who attended those sessions believed technology and internal communication solutions would "help Scouting thrive in our communities." We have reviewed every single post it note and created a sub category under customer service. It falls under customer service because the majority of the "Technology" post it notes have a customer service component to them. 

The Systems subcommittee will receive all those post-it notes as well as the annual costs from both councils for technology, and any post camp and/or post program evaluations that mention technology. They will also be encouraged to do research into alternative software solutions. 

 

Online / Technology / Systems envelope with post it notes highlighted

The natural outcome of all this categorizing and prioritizing is discovering an ultimate a "winner." As if by focusing on the ultimate winner we could solve all Scouting's issues. But common sense (and all the dialogue throughout every session) showcases that looking for the one solution, won't really solve anything. Because all these items are so interconnected. If we could wave a magic wand and tomorrow solve all our customer service problems would Scouting then thrive in all our communities? Of course NOT. Without the adequate funding wouldn't those customer service solutions be short lived? How can we say we solve customer service problems if our facilities are falling apart? If we don't solve our governance short comings won't we just make the same mistakes again? 

It's clear that each category is directly connected to each other category. That's why our collective strategy is so critical to this process.

How we build our collective strategy
We'll stay with systems and customer service as our running example. Customer service turned out to be the second highest priority. (a close second to youth experience / program)  Admittedly, it's a pretty broad category and there are a lot of ways to fix and improve our customer service. However, customer service through technology is clearly important one. So, in April the systems committee will propose recommendations in coordination with the joint customer service committee to the merger oversight committee.Those solutions will likely impact other aspects of the plan, cost of technology, expertise, hardware upgrades, marketing etc. The Merger oversight committee will work with all related committees to reconcile proposals and draft the final plan.

In early May those recommendations will come back to the Scouting community through a series of open forum meetings. During that time the proposed answers will be placed in a timeline. The timeline will allow for all or most ideas to be realized, the only variable is when.   

Chapter Three: The Collective Plan to help Scouting thrive. 

Final adjustments may be made at that time, and in June the entire Scouting community will be our collective aware of how we choose to answer the question "What can be done to help Scouting thrive in your community?"   

How you can help Click here and Enter you name, e-mail and choose which committee you interests you. Each co-chair and sub committee will need participants. We are going to keep all committees to about 8 (a patrol and manageable size). The committee chairs will be looking for people with specific skills for certain committee - to stick with our example - a few IT and web based professionals will be needed for the Systems Committee. If your first choice committee is full, you'll be free to contact others and the committees will work together to take you up on your willingness to help. Lastly, this process is designed to give voice to as many volunteers as possible. the Joint Committee Chairs will discourage any one Scouter from serving on multiple committees.