Making the Council Committees Function 109 IV. GETTING RESULTS AT MEETINGS Prior to first meeting the executive and chairman of the committee may prepare a step by step analysis of the committee's task. Example of such analysis: 1 Where are present troops located? (a) Are they operating successfully? (b) What assistance have they been given? (c) What additional service might be given? 2. Where are additional troops now needed? (a) What institutions should be interested? (b) Who are the men best fitted to present the matter to them? (c) When should this be done? 3. What phase or phases or organization shall this committee consider at its next meeting? 4. Time and place of next meeting. 5. Adjournment. Results of such analysis: 1. Interest increased. 2. Courage of Committee Members multiplied. Sometimes it is wise also to have a calendar of dates showing when each step in a committee's program of work should be completed. The chief object is to bring home to the committee a definite idea of the responsibility for concrete achievement within definite time limits. An example of such a calendar will be found on page 384 of the Scout Executive's Handbook. Carefully plan details of meeting. Try to visualize the whole thing. If possible seat members of committee around table with chairman at head and secretary at his left hand. Have before each member a copy of the step by step analysis. Sometimes it is advisable to have this analysis of committee task written on a blackboard. It may be easier to focus attention on a blackboard than if each man is looking at his sheet of paper. Also, it is constantly before the group. The committee member cannot fold up the blackboard and put it in his pocket. Prior to the first meeting rehearse with committee chairman his opening statement. Be sure he can make clear to committee what is to be accomplished at that meeting. Try to have chairman on hand five or ten minutes before meeting is scheduled to begin, to discuss important questions. Begin on time. Have just enough formality to secure unconscious discipline. If there have been prior meetings have chairman briefly summarize proceedings of last meeting. Reading of minutes is tedious and may kill meeting at start. Immediately proceed to consideration of Number One of program. With program in hands of each member it is not difficult to confine discussion of subject at hand for the chairman can say, "Well Mr. Jones, the matter you were speaking of comes up under Number 5. We will get to it in a minute. Let's get rid of Number 1 first." The Chairman must combine tact with firmness however. It is well to let a man waste a little time rather than antagonize him by cutting him off too short. Nevertheless it should be remembered that aimless discussion is the bane of the average committee meeting. The program should help the chairman to hold the committee to its task. The Executive's ideal must be to make every committee meeting a real event, a gathering for discussion of a vital problem at which measureable progress can be made. Let no meeting break up without for a few minutes considering, "What is the next step?" If that is the last thing in the minds of the members before adjourning, there is less likelihood of a break in that continuity of interest and judgment which is so necessary to the success of committee work. If possible, fix the time and place of next meeting. VI. RECORD OF MEETINGS Following committee meetings the secretary should dictate minutes and have copy sent to the chairman. Digest of meeting should be sent to all absentees. In dictating minutes absentees may be listed first. This is to give them the undesirable prominence they deserve and also to serve as a reminder to the secretary to send them abstracts of the meeting. Furnish the chairman of the committee with a binder in which he may file carbon copies of the minutes of each meeting. Such a binder with stiff manilla cover costs little and will serve to emphasize the importance of the committee if the secretary will have lettered on it the name of the committee and the chairman. Such a binder will prove invaluable to the chairman in the handling of the committee and will accustom him to reading the minutes of the last meeting before coming to a question. Keep in the committee folder record of committee attendance, so that estimate can be made of work of each member. This will serve as a guide to future committee appointments. 1.. RECRUITING LEADERSHIP Volunteer Leadership The genius and the success of scouting has inhered in its volunteer leadership. Scouting has been an effort, fundamentally, to awaken the community (or the institution) to a consciousness of the needs of its own boys and to provide it with a tried program of activities through which its own best men should give companionship to its own boys. The immediate and seeming personal sacrifice which the leader must make constitutes in a measure a guaranty of the motive to such service, but it constitutes also a great problem. Everywhere analysts agree that boys stand ready but that the men to lead them are wanting. Difficulties in getting the best and busiest men, problems of training and holding these create a distinctive task in securing scout leaders. Basis of Methods of Enlisting Leaders There are certain general considerations which are pertinent: 1) Care in selection must be ceaselessly exercised. The plea that good men are busy and scarce hence an inferior man must be used is no excuse. Better wait than to get a man of inferior character. Do not hope to reform his personal habits after he has worked a while. Men of character for boy-companions can be created only by selection-they must be hand picked. While 'tis true the troop committee selects the scoutmaster, they must be given leadership in standards for that selection. PROSPECTIVE SCOUTLEADER QUESTIONNAIRE Lorne W. Barclay-Director, National Department Education Are you a member of any institution in which a troop could be started?. Address......... Official Head of institution?. Have you had experience in the woods?.. How much?. Have you had experience in camping?... How much?. Have you had experience with organized boys' work?. How much?. Have you had experience in a military organization?.. Have you had experience in seamanship?.. Have you had experience in first aid?. What is your hobby?.... Have you had experience in any special line of activity which would help in Scouting?.. Are you a high school graduate?. How did you become interested in Scouting?. Would you work among foreign boys?... .Are you a college graduate?. Would you work among under privileged boys?. Have you any choice as to where you would rather work with a troop?.. Will you be able to take a hike at least once a month?.. 2) Don't select a man because he has money or can build camp fires-but pick him because he has character and can help build boys. He can learn technical duties. 3) Definitize the tasks to be done and then seek the man to handle that definite job. This is sound insurance for his efficiency-for only as he knows what he is to do, can he hope to do it! This will further aid in the selection as it will indicate what kind of man is necessary for each job, thus reducing the chance of picking the wrong man. After setting up a definite and distinct task to be manned, then 4) Go after the biggest Men in the Community. Successful experience has shown that any man in the city can be secured to help if the right approach (Man or method) be made. Aim high-organize the getting of these men-they are more vital than money. Time and energy spent here are basic investments. The large turnover in scoutmasters bears mute but unmistakable testimony to poor methods of securing or selection. Often the function of the Executive here is solely to cooperate with the institution in selecting and signing its Scout Leaders. 5) How to land him? There is no one infallible method. (I) He must first see the vision of boy need. (c) Through a public address appeal, strik- (d) Through having helped inventory community boy conditions, or (e) Through some personal appeal from a close friend or groups of friends, or (f) Through correspondence-clever appeals have been made, etc. (II) Some one who challenges his respect must then put the job squarely up to him. Persistent following up with repetitions from other big men should be organized by the Institution and the Scout Executive and Council members if need be, until the man's consent is won. It may take years to land some men-but some men are worth it. Seek men who are worth it. (III) The use of existing agencies to secure the leadership for their own boys is the soundest scout policy. Indeed it is required that troop committees be selected by institutions, though the Executive may advise. It seems fair to urge that the selecting of the Scoutmaster by the Execu |