Scouting, Volume 68, Number 5, October 1980 Page: 22
82 p. : ill. ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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BY GEORGE
LAYCOCK
Dayton, Ohio's
Miami Valley
Council is solving
community
problems and
bringing more
boys and leaders
into the Scouting
program. And
they 're doing it
with the active
support of the
United Way.
When They Say UNITED Way,
They Mean It
Scout Executive Harold Spanier (left) confers with UW counterpart, Joe! O. Davis.
THIS YEAR IN Dayton, Ohio, the Miami
Valley Scout Council is holding up a
mirror, a big mirror expected to reflect the
image of the Scouting program there, soft
spots and all. The whole process began
with a list of hard questions that Scouting
volunteers and professionals in this west-
ern Ohio council began asking. Scout
Executive Harry Spanier ticks them off:
"What is Scouting doing for the inner city?
How is Scouting addressing itself to the
single-parent family? What is being done
about the decline in volunteerism? What
are we doing to reach the handicapped?"
They also wanted to know about the
community attitude toward Scouting in
and around Dayton, because in that
answer lies the clue to funding, youth
enrollment, and volunteer recruitment.
These were not questions quickly or easily
answered. Leaders in the council discussed
the kind of investigation that would yield
the needed information.
As a result, they organized into seven
baseline task forces, each one assigned to
study its own segment of the council pro-
gram including financing, membership,
low income areas, and organization.
Working with these study groups is a
steering committee chaired by John Dale,
president of the Miami Valley Council.
Dale, who fits his Scout work into a
busy schedule as senior vice-president of
the Third National Bank in Dayton, was
one who wanted to know why Scouting is
not growing faster in Dayton. If they could
pin down the reasons, they might give
22
their program better direction. This is
especially important to the future of the
council because the United Way funds the
Miami Valley Council on the basis of
enrollment. "How can you go back and
ask for more money,"' says Dale, "if you
are not bringing more Scouts into the
program?"
Scout Executive Spanier expects com-
pletion of the study late this year. The
result will be what he calls his "five-year
management plan. This will give us direc-
tion. Without it," he adds, "we could be
just spinning our wheels."
Up to this point in their self-examina-
tion. the Scouts could handle their own
project. But Dale and others decided in
conferences with Spanier that this would
be the ideal time to extend the study to
include an in-house look at the efficiency
of the council's operation. "We realized,"
says Dale, "that a large part of our costs go
to program personnel. I'm not against this,
but we need to know that we are getting all
we can for the dollar. Industry does this
kind of study. Why wouldn't it work for
the Scouts?"
Furthermore, there was a feeling that
they should bring an outside group in to
study the operation and at this point they
realized that doing this would cost. They
took their idea to the United Way. "We
asked them," says Spanier, "if they would
be interested in helping us take an in-
house look at how we do business."
In Dayton, the United Way and the
Miami Valley Council work closely in
October 1980 Scouting
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Boy Scouts of America. Scouting, Volume 68, Number 5, October 1980, periodical, October 1980; Irving, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth353641/m1/22/: accessed April 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Boy Scouts of America National Scouting Museum.