Steve Kent's Opening Speech to Leadership Summit Oct. 2 2009

And so there you have it. Blow sunshine at it and it will be better. Is that the best the collective minds at SC can come up with? How much are we paying you? Paying all of you? Throw money at it? Come on ordinary leaders, get it together and you can do better? Naysayers, please step aside? Don't worry about the past history, it can only get better? Is SC going to start firing volunteers for not meeting membership quotas? Most of the speech does not have much substance and what was said, other than $1million and traveling the country, is the stuff that most of us do all the time. We are looking to the future, we are taking risks to better the movement, we are and have been focussing on growth and membership.

Now I am being asked to 'move aside' if I don't blindly go into the future. Let's face it, if you aim for the moon and miss it, you land in a whole bunch of empty space, and dead in a week. Far to often I have to deal with grand plans, a good start and finish, but no implementation plan. Streaming video is blocked at my work, and my hamster at home can't get my computer running up to streaming speed. So, I have no idea of what videos are available.

There has been more comment and dialogue on popcorn and spirtuality that on the very substance and drive of the movement. Is everyone one on this forum a paid member of SC? I don't know if I find this type of dialogue disapointing or infuriating.

Is everyone one on this forum a paid member of SC?

I'm not.

Is everyone one on this forum a paid member of SC?

Of the people who have been actively posting on talkscouts.ca, Mike Bingley and I are the only two paid staff that I've seen.

Is everyone one on this forum a paid member of SC? I don't know if I find this type of dialogue disapointing or infuriating.

I sure as the devil am not...ask anyone

Some Microsoft PowerPoint presentations have been posted recently.

Edited to add:

• You can download a free PowerPoint viewer from the Microsoft website.
• Jessica Page's presentation currently links through to a Scout Popcorn form. I have requested that the link be corrected. Please do not assume it was done deliberately to market popcorn. Personally, I think that it is a positive sign that there is a sense of urgency to get this information out to us quickly, even at the risk of making some minor mistakes.

Interesting reading. But the link to Jessica's presentation goes to a Popcorn form rather than her presentation.

Interesting reading. But the link to Jessica's presentation goes to a Popcorn form rather than her presentation.

I must be psychic. I just knew that was going to be the first response to my posting.

Can't win 'em all Karl...
any chance of getting the Speechs attached to the Power Points?

Steve's visit last week was GREAT! We had over 230 people at City Hall to hear his vision and goals. We recorded his and Rob's talks professionally and they're being edited so that the slides are shown at the appropriate part of the speech. When we're done I'll provide a link. The speech was, in essence, exactly the same as given at the leadership summit. It was exciting to be there and, being one of the event organizers, gratifying to have so many people show up.

As for me, I'm now beginning a road trip of my own! I'm trying to visit all 31 of my groups and will be going to their committee meetings to continue to reach out and spread the message. I'm also visiting Scout troops, Venturer Companies and Rover Crews to get them on-board and excited. Speaking of Rover Crews...a new crew is forming this weekend in my area (my second new group this year!).

Garth

Great news Garth, we are growing here also; nothing like you but for the potential we have it's great. I admire your feeling and comments.

Without targets, the masses are going to continue to do what they've always done. Any leader with less than ten years experience has no way of knowing what the 'old days' were like when we had three times as many members.

The goals set out here are AGRESSIVE. But, if we don't start somewhere, we'll eventually be nowhere.

I've read Steve's speech and watched the videos on the SC site. I plan to push my groups to do everything we can to meet the targets. Now, is there any way to get the video files? I want to show them at an upcoming area event to get my groups on board. Even if they were posted to YouTube, I could download from there.

I've tried numerous methods to download the videos on the site but National is using a method that makes it very difficult. The only way I've been able to get them is to do a direct video transfer where I play the videos and then record exactly what's in the window I draw around the image. I don't like the quality though and I wish National would use a better, more accessible standard.

However, I have a better solution for you. Steve and Rob visited my council first after the Leadership Summit and we recorded their speeches professionally. The speech is exactly the same as the one given at the summit. Additionally, I have the PowerPoint presentations used (granted the first screen has my Council's name) and those images will be added to the speech video at the appropriate point. Finally, an extensive post-speech interview was done. The final editing for all this is nearly complete and when it is I'll post the site where they can be downloaded.

Garth

Now that is what I call "being professional in communications" Garth. Thanks

I asked Susie Mackie at National about the videos. Through IT there, I just found out that the AVI videos can be accessed in ZIP files from:
http://www.scouts.ca/scoutingnow/videos/steve.zip
http://www.scouts.ca/scoutingnow/videos/jessica.zip
http://www.scouts.ca/scoutingnow/videos/rob.zip

Thank you Susie and Nolan!

Thanks Bernie. That's great news. I was a little worried about bandwidth as the rough draft of our council's video is 379 Megs and that's without the post talk interview. However, from what I've seen so far it looks really good! At the very end Steve lead everyone in a campfire song and the videographer kept the camera rolling so we got that too!

Garth