Roundtable Commissioners

Roundtable Commissioners

These important Scouters are an invaluable arm of the unit service team. They create action events called "roundtables" to present methods, skills, and ideas to help unit personnel provide interesting, funfilled, and purposeful programs.

Roundtable commissioners are generally good planners, able recruiters, and capable performers. They must be good "program" people. They are congenial and enthusiastic motivators who can put their program skills into action.

Their job starts with long-range planning, using such aids as Roundtable Planning Guides, Cub Scout Leader and Boy Scout Leader Program Notebooks, and council and district calendars. Finding and recruiting people as presenters at roundtable sessions demands a special talent, while conducting monthly meetings requires leadership ability.

The annual roundtable planning meeting is where council and district personnel map out the schedule of long-range programs upon which the year's roundtable activities are based. From such plans stem detailed monthly district roundtable programs.

Key roundtable personnel meet at least quarterly to appraise progress, learn up-to-date information on coming activities, and exchange successful experiences. At least one administrative commissioner from each district attends these meetings so that roundtable promotional needs can be determined and relayed to the entire district commissioner staff.

How well roundtables are attended depends largely on two factors: the quality of the roundtable program and the promotional efforts of unit commissioners and others. If the roundtable program is the "best show in town," word gets around and Scouters attend in good numbers. However, a quality roundtable promotion does not always bring out many who are desperately in need of help. Leaders who are overburdened with problems and discouraged because of lack of progress are usually unaware of the assistance available through roundtables. It is in these cases that unit commissioners, confident that the roundtable provides valuable help, see that unit leaders get there.

Much of the talent for good roundtables comes from successful Cub Scout packs and Boy Scout troops as well as from leaders of district and council committees. Such participation encourages Scouters to put program ideas into action in their own units on the basis that, "If Pack XXX can do it, so can we." Some say that good attendance at roundtables is the best hallmark of roundtable success. While this is generally true, a careful look should be given to those who never attend. Do the people who attend represent a high percentage of the total number of packs and troops in the district, or are they from a small number? It could be that roundtables are attended by only an enthusiastic and contented minority of units.