And about Erie Shores and Hiawathaland
Area 2 of the Central Region currently includes 11 councils in Michigan and northwestern Ohio. As reported on last week, the Boards of nine (9) of the eleven councils voted to move the integration recommendation on to the full voting membership. Here’s the update from the Area President regarding the other two – Hiawathaland (Marquette) and Erie Shores (Toledo):
Good morning,
We have had some inquiry related to the non-participating councils in the Crossroads Recommendation. We did not include the information in my previous announcement as the information was not available at that time. Marquette and Toledo have had Scouting alignments and kinships with different Areas in the past (Wisconsin and Ohio respectively).Marquette tabled the Crossroads Recommendation as they are currently exploring traditional merger options with Wisconsin. The Crossroads Recommendation remains on their table for future consideration as this situation develops.
Toledo choose not to send the Crossroads Recommendation onto a Council Meeting by rejecting it at the Executive Board level believing they can internally achieve the economies of scale necessary to reverse their sustainability issues and model their future operation after the Crossroads Recommendation.Both councils currently remain as part of Area 2 and the Area Leadership Team will be supportive as in the past in assisting them moving forward. Thanks for your interest and patience,
Craig A. Younkman
Area 2 President
My sense is that Hiawathaland will cease being a free-standing council within six months. Erie Shores will continue on for a time being.
From a collecting perspective, we’ll see how this evolves. The current plan is a ‘coordinating council’ with five or more ‘field service councils’. As an aside, the Region pointed out that they have chartered the coordinating council if and when needed and that this is the first new council to have been established since 1947.
on September 22nd, 2011 at 10:40 am
As a current executive board member for the Boy Scouts of America Great Sauk Trail Council and 2011 Huron Trails District Chair, I find the assertion cited assertion that our brother council in Toledo has “sustainability” issues condescending. As someone who’s spent a great deal of time analyzing the Area 2 Project Crossroads Recommendation (first at 70 pages, now up to 110), I find Crossroads recklessly lacking in details and accountability. I encourage your readers to actually read the Crossroads document, as well as my rebuttal, before casing any vote. Thank you for considering these thoughts. http://www.proteuspubs.com/scoutingdell/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/boy-scouts-area-project-crossroads-recommendation-case-against.pdf
on September 25th, 2011 at 3:58 pm
Mr. Younkman,
I am surprised and offended by your unsubstantiated claims about “sustainability issues” followed by a “tongue in cheek” statement of ongoing support from Area Leadership. May I remind you that in this public format, one would expect any disparaging remarks about colleagues’ financials and stability to be held at a minimum and that any claims that were indeed deemed “necessary” be heavily substantiated by tangible statistics and specific details as to what exactly is not “sustainable”. I’m concerned that uninformed readers from the areas you mentioned–read: those considering joining or making donations to Scouting or event those already in Scouting–may reconsider alternative choices for fear that BSA is willing to let Erie Shores and Hiawathaland completely collapse, leaving no units in those areas. (Surely, you do not mean to insinuate that in any way.) I believe we would not wish to inadvertantly or overtly harm to Councils simply because they did not “vote in” your Crossroads Recommendation.
on September 25th, 2011 at 5:28 pm
As an FYI, this is not Dr. Younkman’s blog.
on October 10th, 2011 at 1:26 pm
Del has some critiques worth considering but what is not addressed, I believe and I’m about to re-read, are:
-We can’t just say no because we have to do something because the status quo is a death march;
-The Area project is the best we can do at this time, albeit not enough but better than the status quo
-We need to fix/improve structure before we can get to improving program/better meeting customers’ needs
-Therefore we need to approve the Area project recommendations while working to improve upon them going forward.
Part of what is getting lost is this is not turning over GSTC to the Area but integrating more tightly with the other 8 councils. “They” are “us”.