The focus of the Burke Connection this week was the Fairfax County budget. Increased taxes or decreased services? Most likely, it will be a little bit of both. Makes me wonder if I really want to purchase a townhouse in Fairfax County in these times of uncertainty (my wife and I are looking).
But another part of this controversial budget was the "out of the box" thinking that is going into maintaining government services. I see this as an opportunity!
For example, there has been some controversy surrounding the afterschool program, SACC. They want to keep the program, but reduce the funding and perhaps change the way the program is administered. Is there room for a Scouting program in SACC? Maybe the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts could go to Fairfax County and offer programming for a day a week.
But BSA doesn't stand for Baby Sitters of America. So what would this program look like? Would offering an after-school Scouting program water down our program to the point that it is indistinguishable from the dozens of after-school programs in our area? I'm not sure that offering an after-school Scouting program would be good or prudent.
On the other hand, it would allow us to offer Scouting to a population of kids that might not otherwise ever be exposed to a unique program and its important values. If we decided not to offer Scouting to these kids in an after-school setting, would we ever reach them? And if we don't reach these kids, what does that mean for our community? Even if a select few kids in our community get the citizenship and leadership training in Scouting, if the majority of our community does not hold these values, what would our country look like?
These are questions bigger than a blog post, but I do believe that Scouting has to think "out of the box." How to do this while still holding fast to our values and unique program is a question that everyone in Scouting--everyone from our local Cubmasters to our Chief Scout Exec.--is trying to answer. What are your ideas?
