Program Enhancements
Our Vision:
Hoosier Trails Council will offer dynamic, exciting, and culturally relevant programs that are appealing to today's youth, and equip volunteer leaders at all levels with the resources they need to effectively deliver quality programs.
Hoosier Trails Council Strategic Objectives and Goals
Objective 1: Increase participation in programs and the retention of members.
Strategies to Achieve the Objective:
1. Develop outreach programs that actively recruit youth from low-income and minority families.
2. Provide greater customer service to units to help them to be more successful in delivering quality programs.
Specific Goals:
1. A support structure will need to be developed that provides leadership, funding, programming resources, etc. [August 2012]
2. Increase the size of the council's professional staff, in order to create a higher executive/unit ratio. [Annually]
3. Review progress seeking opportunities for continued improvement and set specific goals for the next year of the plan. [Annually]
Objective 2: Enhance local program delivery.
Strategies to Achieve the Objective:
1. Strive to fully train all adult leaders who have direct contact with youth.
2. Empower local units to ramp up enthusiasm and excitement through Scouting adventures.
3. Develop Unit Program Planning Training to stabilize local unit's administrative practices and provide more adventurous programming.
4. Institute a Unit Immersion Plan that quantifies communication and service to units from the districts.
5. Actively reach out to local volunteer leadership and engage them in decision-making, building a bridge between the council and units.
Specific Goals:
1. Deliver unit program planning resources that enable local units to deliver higher quality programs. [Annually]
2. Assist Cub Scout packs in the successful implementation of Cub Scouts 2010, which aims to standardize programming and increase rank advancement. Measure retention rates and Cub Scout advancements to monitor progress. [Annually]
3. Produce an annual council calendar to serve as a baseline for units, from which to build their annual programs, released annually in May at the program planning kickoffs. [Annually]
4. Develop an honored unit program that builds on BSA national standards of excellence "Quality Unit" that challenges local units to stand upon quality. [January 2011]
5. Districts will become better connected to units and help them develop viable plans for success and bring added resources to them. This will be measured through the Unit Immersion Plan that calls for documented unit service every three months, beginning in [February 2011].
6. Develop a structure of support systems to fully train all adult leaders. [March 2011]
7. Implement a Council Survey of Scout Engagements. [April 2011]
8. Achieve 100% trained leadership of adults who work directly with youth. [January 2012]
9. Identify and implement vehicles to create open communication with local programming that enhance work that has been done by this point. [May 2013]
10. Review progress seeking opportunities for continued improvement and set specific goals for the next year of the plan. [Annually]
Objective 3: Provide adventures that create excitement.
Strategies to Achieve the Objective:
1. Develop council camping programs appropriate for all levels of youth served, i.e. older boy programs, Webelos programs, and Venturing programs.
2. Create a properties master plan that (1) integrates Camp Maumee, Camp Louis Ernst, and the Service Center, and (2) examines whether the Council Service Center can be better utilized to achieve our mission.
3. Invest in council properties in order to provided world-class camping adventures.
4. Develop a plan for marketing camping opportunities that includes channels such as promotion videos, direct mail pieces, out-of-council marketing, etc.
5. Raise the quality of our programming.
6. Enable field executives to spend more time serving their units rather than serving as a staff advisor to council program committees.
7. Identify and capitalize on shared resources with other Boy Scout councils.
8. Make "cool adventures" a top-of-mind vision when our customers think of council programs.
Specific Goals:
1. Support Venturing expansion through program development and consistent enhancement to an annual Kodiak Training course. [Annually]
2. Market summer camping in order to support a 5% annual increase in summer camping during each year of this plan, ultimately achieving a 25% gain in summer camp attendance over the course of this plan. [Annually]
3. By [January 2011], employ a full-time professional Program Director.
4. Develop a Webelos Adventure Camp program that will initiate resident camping opportunities for boys of this age. [May 2011]
5. Develop a strategy to better engage older youth through programming at Camp Maumee. [August 2011]
6. By [October 2011], the council will conduct a feasibility study to explore the potential for success through a capital campaign within the next three years (3-5 million dollar estimated range).
7. Review progress seeking opportunities for continued improvement and set specific goals for the next year of the plan. [Annually]
